Consider Phlebas 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 could be considered a follow up because of both the storyline and the fact that both titles are from that poem.
The novel revolves around the Idiran-Culture War, and Banks plays on that theme by presenting various microcosms of that conflict.