The Player of Games

by Iain M Banks, Peter Kenny, Iain Banks, Iain M. Banks

English language

ISBN:: 978-1-85723-146-5

(256 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 - a very possibly his death.

29 editions

Elias reviewed The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

The Player of Games (Goodreads)

5 stars

Content warning General spoilers

Oh my god do I have thoughts about this book. But first, background about my rating: I try to abide by goodread's usage of the five star rating to avoid my reviews getting skewed toward more stars. So, this five star rating holds a little extra weight this time.

Alright, so. I love the culture. I was introduced through a reading I did for a Philosophy class nearly 3 years ago now, but only got around to reading the series of books now (this is the first culture book I've read). I love the absolute scale of it - it is difficult to get fully acquainted with it, and some parts of this book were confusing to me as a new initiate, but otherwise I think this book was a great introduction. There is so much to be explored, and I'm already a little disappointed that some of the parts I was most interested in from this book are not explored in future books (I skimmed some summaries). However, I am nearly unreasonably excited to learn more about the Minds.

Speaking of the minds, I love how drones are treated in this universe. As fully sentient with their own complex composition and depth of emotion - makes for far more interesting stories. I really enjoyed the twist of Mahwrin Skel being Flere-Imasaho. I caught on around the beginning of the third chapter, but the end reveal was still satisfactory.

The twists in this book were really enjoyable - I feel like its perfectly on brand for a large society to mostly keep its pawn in intersocietal chess in the dark so it was sorta awe inspiring to see just how much they kept in the dark. I really didn't expect for the final game to be played for the Empire of Azad's existence itself - I simply thought Nicosar had gone off the rails because he was a sore loser and could not stand to not win (despite his throne being assured, more or less).

Some additional notes: I really appreciated seeing Gurgeh sorta detach from reality after being shown the state media deciphered by Flere-Imasaho. I love how the way the story was told mirrored Gurgeh's detachment by referring to Gurgeh as a nondescript man that we no longer have a window into the thoughts of, especially. Of course this was, in the end, just Flere-Imasaho not making up what Gurgeh was thinking, but it really drives home that Gurgeh was having a mental breakdown of sorts trying to parse the absolute violence of the culture around him.

I'm just. Enamored. By the scale of the Culture and its society, how Gurgeh became consumed by the game and gave all of his focus to it, the drones, by Special Circumstances... It's all beautiful and fascinating and I'm excited to read the other books.

The worlds greatest noodler reviewed The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

Love to read about characters I hate

5 stars

My takeaway is that Gurgeh is contemptible but god damn I loved the story.

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.

Zéro Janvier reviewed The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

The Player of Games

5 stars

Le premier roman du cycle nous proposait de découvrir la Culture de loin, à travers le regard d'un de ses ennemis. Cette fois, nous découvrons cette civilisation à travers l'un de ses citoyens, d'abord dans sa vie quotidienne puis par contraste avec une autre civilisation qu'il va découvrir tout au long du roman.

Avant tout, ce roman est le récit d'une rencontre entre deux civilisations, deux cultures que tout oppose. D'un côté, la Culture et son modèle utopique très inspiré des idées anarchistes. De l'autre, l'Empire d'Azad, impérialiste, colonialiste, antisocial et belliqueux. Le protagoniste, issu de la Culture, découvre un Empire autoritaire où les rapports sociaux sont fixés par les règles strictes de ce qui est littéralement un jeu de pouvoir. Il nous offre ainsi un regard sur notre propre société contemporaine et une critique acerbe de celle-ci.

J'ai trouvé ce deuxième roman du cycle encore meilleur que le premier …

J'ai trouvé ce deuxième roman du cycle encore meilleur que le premier : son récit est captivant du début à la fin, et c'est à mon avis une meilleure porte d'entrée dans l'univers de la Culture, que nous découvrons ici de l'intérieur, par les yeux d'un de siens.

Woile reviewed The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #2)

Review of 'The Player of Games' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Excellent book that explores the values of the culture when dealing with a patriarchal society. This society casually it's quite similar to our society. It's really well told, how a more advanced society would perceive us and all the horrors we still have.

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

Review of 'The Player of Games' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

This is the first Iain M Banks novel I've read and I really enjoyed it. It's big far future space opera, but the focus is on the characters (some of them AI drones). The pacing is great with peaceful sections interspersed with violence and threat building to a satisfying conclusion.

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".

acidman reviewed The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #2)

Review of 'The Player of Games' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Good book. Great for it's length and scope even.

Some comments:

Did he really have to make the Azadians bug eyed baby eating monsters to show the evils of authoritarianism? Did he really have to go so far? I for one thought that was too much but I suppose some people need it spelled out for them.

I'm a fan of the Culture. I've only read Consider Phlebas before but it's one of my favorite Utopias (somewhat disappointed we don't get to see more of it in this one). It aligns with my Anarchist tendencies. And basing it off the Singularity sells it better than most and I like that. And thus I want them to be the good guys. Now, what Marhwin Skel said to the emperor before the last match, that flew right in the face of good guys stuff.
I know that Banks doesn't really intend to give them the good guy cape out of the box (if ever), considering their treatment in the first book, so I wasn't surprised. But I couldn't stop thinking about what Skel did until it struck me, the whole book's supposed to be an expose, if you will, of Hierarchical Authoritarianism, right? And what's a better admonishment than one man having the power to topple the system just like that? Even if the imperial guard were more loyal to Azad than their Emperor (I.e. if the system worked as intended), the whole thing depended upon a single castle full of people. I suppose it's all stating the obvious but I thought what Banks did was very clever there.

Do any of the Culture books explore the issues within it as opposed to other societies?

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

Review of 'The Player of Games' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Read even if you disliked the first Culture series novel [b:Consider Phlebas|535073|Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)|Iain M. Banks|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1340803242l/535073.SY75.jpg|14366].

Good:
classic sci-fi premise space emperor elected through an ultimate board-game competition
relatable protagonist
works on both sociological & psychological levels
story is well paced & nicely wrapped up

Bad:
would be more interesting if the empire wasn't sadistically evil
using masculine pronouns for 3rd alien gender feels like a wasted opportunity

perfischer reviewed The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #2)

Review of 'The Player of Games' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

One of those you come back to to find out if it's really as good as you remember. And it is.

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

Review of 'The Player of Games' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

‘Consider Phlebas’ was great. A real old-timey action science fiction book with a good number of twists. Like being hugged by an alien with eight arms. There are similarities between my experience with ‘Phlebas’ and ‘Dune’, though the two books stand apart from one another. I would argue that ‘Dune’ is, in many places, more finely woven – the politics certainly – but then ‘Player of Games’ happens, and, well, Banks does some magical things to weave in politics, plot and action.

Gurgeh plays board games. He makes them too. He lives on an orbital within the Culture. I thought his life quite ordinary a way – kinda like a space academic, with an edge of play. And yet he appears disaffected, a little absent, almost bored. So he does something out of the ordinary, something which could get him into a bit of trouble. Enough to threaten his reputation as one of the best game players out there. Then everything changes for him. He moves from academia to subterfuge and espionage – but he’s still the same old Gurgeh.

That’s what I enjoy the most about ‘Player of Games’. I saw Gurgeh in my mind as a pot-bellied everyman. He’s not a combat-ready, rifle-packing marine. He’s a yawny, indoorsy game player living a safe live who gets launched into a shitstorm. That, and the slower pace of the opening gives the reader plenty of time to breathe in the world that Banks paints for us. Here, in this narrative, we feel the world of the Culture. We see people living in it. We get a greater sense of its structure for the everyman and everywoman.

I found this gloriously satisfying, and could easily have read a whole book about Gurgeh’s rambling around this one station. I feed off of the small socio-political comments the characters around him make, or the way in which Banks describes the drones and their interactions with human beings. ‘Phlebas’ moved at lightspeed, the pleasure of that text was that you were always riding the wave, but you were moving too fast to get a real sense of the universe and the cultures within it. ‘Player of Games’ is gentler, more ponderous, like a drawn out game of chess.

Particular credit should be given to Banks’ ability to describe games that do not exist, and to do it in a way that makes it seem both like a real game but also make me, as a reader, feel like I know what the character is doing. What I thought these games were like is probably a great deal different to what others imagined. I imagined a blocky, turn based Starcraft. Civlization, perhaps.

So where does ‘Player of Games’ rate? Above ‘Phlebas’. Perhaps not quite as high as ‘Dune’. For all the pleasure I had reading ‘Player of Games’ I still found myself wanting more political intrigue. More of a dance of wits. But I am more than satisfied.

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

Review of 'The Player of Games' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

The tale of a swashbuckling deep space ... board game?

Gurgeh is a master game player from The Culture who finds himself in a game tournament in an alien empire. But what is really going on? ... Faster paced and a bit shorter than the first novel, there are plenty of classic pulp tropes, the occasion gross-out, and a few Big Ideas here and there. Loads of fun.

Felis reviewed The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #2)

Review of 'The Player of Games' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Entertaining. I can never quite love Banks' books, but I like them

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

Review of 'The Player of Games' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

I like the ambiguity, I think. The series is about The Culture but it's not overly preachy on weather The Culture is a good or a bad thing. This book was a bit weird for me to read. The appearance of a game that's very expressive reminded me of [b:The Glass Bead Game|16634|The Glass Bead Game|Hermann Hesse|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386922806s/16634.jpg|2959456] which I loved immensely. In this book however it all seemed a bit more artificial, less relate-able than in Hesses' book. And it seemed all a bit sad in tone right up to the end. Still, I like it.