Iain M. Banks

Gurgeh, a champion game player, travels a hundred thousand light years to the Empire of Azad, where the winner of their complex game becomes emperor

The Player of Games

Bouke van der Bijl

** spoiler alert **
           A pretty OK space opera that has an unsurprising ending conclusion, with a twist explanation thrown in at the end that doesn’t really add anything. I’m enjoying some of the world building in the series but I wish there were more details on the Culture instead of all the focus on the Empire. The game of Azad was so central to the plot of the book but you learn nothing about it except that it’s 👋🏻 really complicated 👋🏻 which is a shame.

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. Praise for Iain M. Banks: "Poetic, humorous, baffling, terrifying, sexy -- the books of Iain M. Banks are all these things and more" -- NME "An exquisitely riotous tour de force of the imagination which writes its own rules simply for the pleasure of breaking them." -- Time Out

Jesse Morley

Being science fiction, I began this novel under the assumption that it would have more to offer in the way of ideas than its popular genre counterparts. I blame works of magnificent creativity like Star Maker for this misconception.

I tried to allow myself to enjoy the predictable flow of the story, and mostly succeeded in doing so, but found that there were a few things standing in the way. For the most part the heavy-handed social commentary was to blame. It was painful to read and worked completely counter to what the simple and entertaining narrative achieved best. The small portions of direct address from the narrator had the same issue.

I also couldn't help but be disappointed by the predictable conclusion, complete with painful HEA reunion of essentially discarded characters.

Kyle S

I read this book years ago during a rough time in my life and I just thought it was meh, gave it two stars and put it down (along with the rest of The Culture series). Now I'm in a better place and am reading through all of the Culture series, and wow my opinion has changed a lot. The book itself is a bit of a slow burn, but the climax makes it totally worth it.

Re-read (but many years after reading it for the first time so I didn’t remember it at all). Beautifully written, great worldbuilding, but the plot was sometimes a bit mystifying, with incidents that I didn’t quite get the point of, and some heavy-handed analogies to capitalism. But the Culture novels are always good.

Naomi J.

Fraser Simons

Much improved over the first novel. This suffers a bit from a very slow start that is not as useful to show the arc of Gurgeh as I expected. It’s a stark contrast for his visit to the Empire, no doubt. But the first half grew very tiresome. 

If you can stick it through that things get a lot more interesting. I have always been fascinated by the way language modifies and dictates behaviour, altering the way people think. And in this way, along with the stakes the book presents, this was a much more satisfying way to show this than a celebrates post-cyberpunk book, Snow Crash—which features a language virus. 

I liked how Banks makes his case for systemic problems and oppression of the Empire, linking fairly well this alien culture with three sexes arranged in a similar way to the US and capitalism. 

Overall it was fairly predictable but the character work from the first book to this is 100% improved. While this character also served as a lens and viewpoint for the Culture as in the last, this one was far more believable and, as I said before, much more interesting.

Ben Burns

Entertaining. My first introduction to The Culture, which I think is a cool concept... most of what I liked about this book was discovering aspects of The Culture in the background of the story, actually. The story itself held my interest and provided a fun parable perspective on the failures of our own society, but it was ultimately very predictable.

Nat Welch

The twist was pretty predictable, but a really cool world and fantastic writing.

Sunyi Dean

Late to the party, but this was excellent. (This is what I mean about Banks being all over the map, for me--Consider Phlebas I rated 2 stars, this one a comfortable 5). 

One of the best things about this novel, from a writerly standpoint, is that it so easily could be dull. Most of the novel is in "tell" rather than show. The MC is described with a huge amount of emotional distance (because the story isn't written by him), even though the story supposedly hinges on his highs and lows as hey plays. The main character, Gurgeh, is a straight up Mary Sue most of the time. And the central feature of the book, the game of Azad itself, is far too complex for the reader to actually learn all the rules, so the narrative spends all its time talking *around* the game. 

And.... it... works. Really, really works. This novel is a case study (as Banks' novels so often are) of how to bend the rules in all the right ways. 

To address the points above, having to talk around the game is what causes most of the book to be narrated in a tell-style, and removes much of the emotional filter. But part of why this works is because the book ISN'T focused on the highs and lows of wins and losses, as you might expect for a game about gambling. For one thing, that tension almost isn't there--because, as above, Gurgeh is just too good. You expect him to win. The tension comes from the mystery of the game itself. How high, how deep, how far does it go? To what extent does it define, permeate, sustain, and be influenced by, Azad society? Or indeed, all societies? What does the approach of each player say about them, say about their culture and mindset? These are riveting aspects, the sources of tension of fascination throughout. 

A lot of skill went into the construction for this novel. As ever, Banks aimed high--and this time, he hit.

Rachel

The Player of Games is a hard book to get into at first, but about a third way in it did become interesting. I read this book for A Year of Books, which it did not make sense to me to pick a book that is 2nd in a series, I guess they kind of stand on their own, but at first it really is like wtf is going on. It’s a whole made up world and I had no clue what I was reading until a good while into the book. With that said, once I got the feel for it, the book was much better. It’s a story about a futuristic socialist society so the civilians and drones have time to do whatever they please, the main character Gurgeh plays games. Thankfully the book does not go too in-depth of what these games are or the moves, that would be boring as hell. He is blackmailed to compete at an Empire that is not part of Culture. While doing so it compares their society to Culture and explains how important the game is to the Empire of Azad. Then the plot gets old, so many times can the author vaguely explain the game going on before it gets boring, yes you want to find out who will win and how the Empire will react if the alien wins, but it does at an annoying pace towards the end. An overall decent book that kept me interested, but not something I would read again or want to continue the series.

I am bowing out of the A Year of Books bookclub/challenge. Some books have been really great and I am glad to have read them, because I wouldn’t of otherwise. However, too many of them have been dull, some I’ve had to skim through because there was absolutely no interest in them. While most fall in the not good, not great category, that’s not good enough. They are interesting and informative, but it ends up feeling like work to get through the book and I have too many books in my to be read pile to add new books and read immediately that end up just being okay. I might come back to it, especially if I feel I am in a reading slump, or want to read something I wouldn’t pick, but maybe (probably) not.

Tiago Dias

Was completely hooked by Consider Phlebas and decided to buy the following two entries in the Culture series. Unfortunately, this wasn't as satisfying as the first book. Couldn't even get into Use of Weapons.

Les Reynolds

A very odd story, not sure if reading the first book in the Culture series would have helped. Very intriguing.

The Player of Games

Reviews