The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel

Iain M. Banks

Sep 2008 · Hachette UK

About this ebook

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.

'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson

The Culture - a utopian human-machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many expert Game Players, and one of the greatest is Jernau Morat Gurgeh. He is Master of every board, computer and strategy - he is The Player of Games.

Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the cruel and incredibly wealthy Empire of Azad to try their infamous game . . . a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh plays the game, and faces the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.

Praise for the Culture series:

'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday

'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian

'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman

'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph

The Culture series:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
The State of the Art

Other books by Iain M. Banks:
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist

Also now available:
The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.

Ratings and reviews

This story is on the one hand an introspective look at a society only slightly worse than our own (One hopes) using the readers knowledge of the Culture as a lens but at the same time it also allows the reader to examine the finer points of the fictional Culture using the lens of the oh-so-similar-to-us Azad Empire. IMHO this renders the feel of the Culture much more tangible as this is one of the few places where the Culture is assigned a tangible human-comprehensible structure, even if it is in the content of a game, to me it makes it feel more real and relatable-to. Other reviewers have suggested that the beginning is slow and difficult to get through, whereas I found it full of interesting scene-setting detail, giving us a flavour of the protagonist (Though not the narrator) so that (In my case at least) we only partially connect with him emotionally as he is a flawed and difficult-to-like sort, that grows through victory and trauma as we progress through the book. In the end I found myself finding catharsis in the context of the events of the world rather than through empathy with the protagonist and I feel the story is stronger for it.

The Player is the main character one is immediately endeared to. The very able prose of Banks again transports you not just to other worlds, but other minds. The biggest Game we all play is of course the game of life. We strive not to be pawns but some higher class of piece on the Gameboard Board of Earth. The games afoot in this novel are aplenty and intricately weaved and well communicated by Banks' staggering creative imaginings. A superb Culture novel.

After reading Consider Phlebas this is another interesting dive into the future of humanity when all the big problems have been solved. The 'Empire' provides an excellent counterpoint with it's crude brutality and a good few close-to-home similarities with the darker parts of human nature.

About the author

Iain Banks (1954-2013) came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, was published under the name Iain M. Banks in 1987 and began his celebrated ten-book Culture series. He is acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation.