Menu
shadow
SF CORE Best Lists
SF ERA Best Lists
SF GENRE Best Lists
OTHER Best Lists

Player Of Games

Player Of Games

Author: Iain M. Banks

Probably the best of Ian Bank's Culture novels. Strong characters and a light-hearted tone to the novel despite the "seriousness" of the actual plot make this an easy, addicting read. Come on people, as much as we like reading about world-shattering ideas, end of the universe problems, and defeat impossible alien invader odds, sometimes you just want to a fast read that doesn't require too much commitment on your part. Player of Games is just that type of novel – you can jump into a rich world without committing to too much. And despite how easy it is to read, it's a pretty damn good read to boot. The Culture novels are about a Galactic spanning empire of hedonistic evolved humans where all supposed problems have been solved. This society and the workings of it are highly detailed by Banks. The story centers on Gurgeh, Culture's top strategy game player. Gurgeh becomes bored of life due to a lack of competition. He ends up getting blackmailed into traveling to a distant system ruled by a barbaric medieval empire who play the most complex strategy game ever devised – a perfect job to utilize Gurgeh's game skills on.  Gurgeh finds out -- too late -- that losing not only results in loss of respect, but actual torture and death; it's a game where the very stakes are your life and the prize is to be crowned emperor. The novel in some ways brings to mind one of those action anime series where the conflict between hero and villain is hyped up over and over through a series of battles in and out of a grand tournament with a variety of skilled underlings until the final, anticipated showdown with the main villain. The strategy and action in the game sequences are as exciting as the action outside the games.  The longer Gurgeh stays in the tournament, the more he discovers about this alien civilization which is quite proud of its cruelty and violence.  The extremes of the Azad civilization make you think about issues of race, gender, and morals.  If you want to read a fun and exciting book that also makes you think, The Player of Games should be at the top of your list. The strategy and action are exciting both in the game and outside the game. The extremes cruelty of the Azad Empire force you to ask questions about race, gender, and morals. Compared to Bank's other works (especially his flagship novel, Consider Phlebas), it's more of a personal story than a Space Opera, but it's also a lot more fun because of it.  I know some will ask why I chose this over Bank's more famous Consider Phlebas, which is a more space opera of grand ideas than Player of Games. Player of Games is a more focused with smaller settings; you are offered more of a slice of the pie than the whole pie itself; sometimes a slice is better than the whole pie. If you like the "Culture" idea of a perfect utopia society, Player of Games is a good, perhaps the best, introduction to the series, even though it's the "second" book in the series. If you want a flawed novel of grand ideas and deeper questions, you might want to choose Consider Phlebas as your introduction to the Culture universe. However, it you want an easier-to-read novel with a page-turning plot that still asks enough deep questions to make you think, The Player of Games is a good choice for anyone who has at least a passing interest in science fiction. What's interesting about the Culture Series is that Banks often has to go outside of "Culture" (which is Banks version of a perfectly evolved society where solutions to every problem have been found) to find story worth writing about because well, a perfect world is pretty f*king dull if you ask me.

Books in Culture Series (11)

Buy on Amazon