Iain M. Banks

The Player of Games

Stephen Campbell

Background: The Culture is a post-scarcity, techno-communist utopia. Everything is run by sentient AI's ('Minds') and, since the humans of the Culture have no need to work, they spend their lives doing literally anything they want. Enter Jernau Gurgeh, a famous game player who, bored with the low stakes of wagering in a post-scarcity society is convinced by the Culture’s Special Circumstances section to visit an alien Empire held together by the intricate game of Azad. Played every six years, the Azad tournament determines a contestant’s position in society, with the ultimate winner crowned Emperor (the argument goes that the skill it takes to win Azad are the same skills it’d take to run the Empire). 

This was the first book I read of the series and I’m always aghast when I hear anyone recommend anywhere else as a starting point because it’s the PERFECT introduction to the universe. It's the shortest and most Culture-y of the series, but mostly it’s just So. Much. Fun. I really couldn’t get over it. It’s not quite as rollicking as some other Culture books but imo far superior to e.g. Consider Phlebas or Excession.

It can be a little heavy-handed and I find it ludicrous that the main character is one of the only people in the entire Culture who doesn’t change their sex or fuck men. Bisexuality is presented as the norm in the books (because how could it not be??) yet it's distinctly lacking when it comes to the male protagonists, which feels incredibly false given the world-building. But these are pretty minor drawbacks when you have an entire universe to play in, and the Culture is my favourite. 

I don’t know if I’ve been more delighted or embarrassed to realise on this reread that my conception of communism really does stem entirely from when I read these books for the first time a few years back. Something which stuck with me the first time round was an exchange in the latter half of the book, when the main character is being quizzed about the Culture’s society: 

Gurgeh attempted to explain that there were no written laws, but almost no crime anyway. There was the occasional crime of passion (as Hamin chose to call it), but little else. It was difficult to get away with anything anyway, when everybody had a terminal, but there were very few motives left, too. 
“But what if somebody kills somebody else?”
Gurgeh shrugged. “They’re slap-droned.” 
“Ah! This sounds more like it. What does this drone do?”
“Follows you around and makes sure you never do it again.”
“Is that all?”
“What more do you want? Social death, Hamin; you don’t get invited to too many parties.”

My thoughts on this exchange last time round were the usual contentions: if ‘social death’ is the worst thing utopia offers then nothing about it can be very worthwhile in the first place. I maintained a lingering belief that struggle, toil, hardship etc. were somehow intrinsic to meaningful life. When an interviewer put this same question to Banks – doesn’t hardship give life meaning? – his answer changed everything. He replied: 

“No.” 

(I’m not even kidding.) 

Apparently the entire way I think about politics – my thoughts on work, automation, wage-labour, communism – didn’t come from reading Marx. They came from some obscure (to most people) Scottish sci-fi author. 

It’s coming up to the fourth anniversary of his death and I regret never having the chance to meet him. It's sad to think there will never be a new Culture novel to get excited about. I'm just glad he wrote so many of them before he left.

The Player of Games

Reviews