An Absorbing, Exciting, Science Fictional Exploration of Gamesmanship from Iain M. Banks

One of my favorite books | The Player of Games | Iain M. Banks

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	• The Player of Games Iain M. Banks Orbit, 2008 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 75 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Detailed & pitfall-ridden games, lacking tech.

Very original idea- games of an alien culture and games of the future human society. The depth and rules of the alien game are hugely captivating, as is the plot involving human/alien relationships. Twists and turns in the plot provide entertainment outside of the entertainment of the game itself (not that the game would be fun for the loser). Player of Games is amongst the best of what Banks' offers, yet there's a lack of technology which is predominent in early Banks' novels, such as Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons. Satisfied to a high degree, yet expectation was met short considering technology.

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An Absorbing, Exciting, Science Fictional Exploration of Gamesmanship from Iain M. Banks

"The Player of Games" remains one of the best in distinguished British author Iain M. Banks's highly literate, quite sophisticated, "Culture" space opera series of novels. It is also among the earliest in the series, and one that is certainly most notable for its engrossingly in-depth study into the character of Gurgeh, the Culture's premier master of every game - especially those devoted to strategy - known to this long-lived space-faring human civilization. At the very pinnacle of his success, Gurgeh is bored and restless, until he accepts the seemingly impossible challenge of mastering Azad, the very game of life played by the ruling elite of the relatively primitive, autocratic, almost totalitarian, Empire of Azad, located in one of the distant Magellanic Clouds. It is a game that is rich not only in its intricate strategy, but also, in elaborate deception; an intense game whose very outcome may mean life or death for anyone playing it, especially Gurgeh. Told in incandescent, quite pyrotechnic, prose, Banks' novel comes across as a futuristic Graham Greene thriller set amidst more conventional - if elaborately descriptive - space opera settings. A splendid science fiction novel that is not merely a major landmark of Anglo-American science fiction, but one which ought to be reckoned as high literary art written by one of the foremost writers of fiction - in any genre - in the English language.

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One of my favorite books

Reading a "Culture" novel is great. If you haven't read a Iain M. Banks book about the "Culture" give this one a try. There is a little bit of sociology, linguistics, and humor.

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Today's crew of game obsessed YA is going to relate to this book!

I've always liked books from a series that "stand alone." The Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks, is the second book written in the "Culture" series. You'd never know it, and you don't need book one. However, this one is intriguing enough to make you want to read more of them.

Culture is the future culmination of humanity and artificial intelligences (and probably a number of other sentient species; not the real focus of this volume). Jernau Gurgeh, a Culture-wide game player of significant renown, finds himself "volunteering" to serve the Culture as a member of Contact, an element of Culture that interacts with new beings, cultures, and empires. He's invited to a game tournament in the Empire of Azad, a game played every six years that determines one's place in Azad society, even the Emperor (as long as you are not a male or a female).

Gurgeh finds himself surrounded by a race that considers games of greater importance than even he does.

Culture finds Azad society troublesome.

Gurgeh cannot win. He should not win. Yet he must win.

It is, after all, THE Game.

Banks writes well. The characters are interesting, the various cultures are imaginative, and the story is engaging.

What more can you want from a sci-fi novel about life in a distant human universe? Except for the other books in this series, of course!

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a short story made long

better say a good short story made too long.
the main idea of the book is very good: someone is playing games for his living, and he encounters a game which is life itself.
but most of the book describes in length this someone playing a game which you can't actually understand. and that is getting real boring after a while.

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

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