Consider Phlebas

Consider Phlebas (ISBN 1857231384) is a science fiction book by Iain M. Banks first published in 1987. It is Banks' first science fiction novel, set in The Culture, and takes its title from a line in T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land. Look to Windward, whose title also comes from The Waste Land, can be considered a follow up.

The novel revolves around the Idiran-Culture War, and Banks plays on that theme by presenting various microcosms of that conflict.