The Player of Games

416 pages

English language

Published Nov. 1, 2008

ISBN:: 978-0-316-00540-1

(2 reviews)

The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game...a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.

12 editions

Flauschbuch reviewed The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (Culture, part 2)

Great

4 stars

Even though it was a re-read I read this within 3 days. The story is very captivating. The second of the Culture novels we get a deep dive into it and then we get another deep dive into another alien culture which is quite imaginative. At the heart of this novel is the thrill of games. A lot of people can relate to that nowadays and yet, there aren't that many genre books focussed on that. Although this was written at the end of the 80s the use of they as a single pronoun wasn't yet a thing in literature and the view of gender presented in this book is quite binary (and also heteronormative). Even though gender relations and policy play a big role in Azad and are discussed in the novel. Well, you can't have it all, I guess. A must-read for all sci-fi fans.

Kookie reviewed The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (Culture, part 2)

Excellent in building a mood

5 stars

The external exploration of a fascist empire from the point of view of a culture game player gives deep insights into the political philosophy of both, and the author himself. The ending leaves a sour taste in your mouth, with a lot of moral ambiguity on who was "right".