Consider Phlebas 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 (2000), whose title comes from the previous line of the same poem, can be considered a loose follow-up. The Culture and the Idiran Empire are at war in a galaxy-spanning conflict. Horza, a mercenary capable of altering his appearance at will (a Changer), is assigned the task of retrieving a dispossessed Culture Mind by his Idiran handlers. The Mind, while fleeing attacking Idirans who consider its existence an abomination, has taken refuge on Schar's World, a Planet of the Dead. Planets of the Dead are nominally forbidden to both the Culture and the Idirans. On the way to Schar's World he encounters, and joins, a band of mercenaries and pirates, led by Kraiklyn, on their ship, the Clear Air Turbulence. All the while he is doggedly pursued by a Culture Special Circumstances agent, Perosteck Balveda. Kraiklyn unsuccessfully leads the group in a disastrous raid for treasure on the Temple of Light, located on a backward planet, which results in a wildly dangerous gunfight in which some of the crew die. Afterwards, Horza sleeps with and forms an attachment to Yalson, one of the CAT's crew.
On Vavatch Orbital, which is scheduled for demolition as part of a Culture scorched-earth withdrawal from Idiran-threatened space, Kraiklyn's Free Company plan to grab a replacement bow laser from an abandoned Megaship, but this also results in catastrophe as the massive ship collides with an iceberg. Horza is separated from most of the crew who escape on the CAT as he escapes on the shuttle with a dying comrade. A sociopathic crew member is left behind and shoots at the escaping shuttle before triggering his nuclear warhead in anger at the crew's abandonment. The damage the radiation caused to the shuttle and it’s seriously wounded pilot result in the shuttle eventually falling into the ocean. Horza struggles to remain afloat until he is washed onto an island where he encounters The Eaters, a bizarre cannibalistic cult who hold him captive. Horza eventually succeeds in poisoning the leader of the cult with his fingernails and manages to escape in time to watch Kraiklyn play Damage on the capital city of Vavatch, then fights and kills him, to take control of the CAT.
By the time he returns to the CAT, which is being serviced inside the GSV The Ends of Invention, he impersonates Kraiklyn's features and fools the crew into believing he is their real captain. Horza is shocked to see Balveda show up as a potential new crew member, and orders her off the CAT. However, access to the docking bay the CAT is in is cut off by the GSV, so he uses a stun gun on Balveda and impulsively pilots the CAT out of the GSV in a wild trail of destruction. Balveda reveals Horza's nature to the crew as they watch the Orbital get obliterated by the Culture. Despite Balveda's revelation, the crew decide to follow Horza on his mission. Horza ultimately leads the pirates to Schar's World. There, with the help of Balveda (Horza's enemy who sees it is in her own interests to help him); he fights an infiltration team of Idirans (ignorant of his mission for the Idiran Armed Forces) through its underground railway network in his attempt to capture the prize. In the resulting series of firefights, more of the crew perish. Horza captures Xoxarle, one of the two remaining Idiran soldiers, and believes that the other is dead due to the grievous damage he suffered during one of the battles with Horza's crew. Horza and the pirates underestimate Idiran stamina though, and the presumed-dead Idiran drags his limbless body into one of the trains, driving it on a collision course with the one the crew decide to use to navigate the tunnels. As the collision is about to occur, Xoxarle breaks free and arms himself in an attempt to kill Horza and the crew. The remaining pirates, including Yalson - who earlier revealed she is pregnant with Horza's child - are either killed by Xoxarle or die in the collision. Horza, enraged, pursues the Idiran, but Xoxarle batters him causing his eventual death from cranial trauma. Balveda, who had a multi-purpose Culture device called a memoryform hidden in a false tooth, uses it as a plasma gun and kills the Idiran. Balveda then pilots the CAT along with the Mind back to the Culture where it is repaired and installed into an Ocean class GSV, taking the name Bora Horza Gobuchul.
