This is by far the best science fiction I have read.

Although I don't read a great deal of sci-fi and thus am not an expert in the field, one of the main reasons I'm often not drawn to it is the overemphasis on technology and aliens at the expense of a compelling story.

Thankfully, that is not the case with this book and the series it belongs to.

The characters are truly great, with unique personalities and development. The premise is original and engaging, pulling you in from the very beginning.

The writing is simple yet effective, allowing the story to flow smoothly. And there are some excellent twists along the way that keep you on the edge of your seat.

I am so impressed that I will definitely be reading the entire series.

I can't wait to see where the story takes me next and how the characters continue to evolve.

This is a must-read for any science fiction fan or anyone looking for an exciting and engaging read.

A good book is highly entertaining, presenting an interesting story that fully engages your mind as you read. It keeps you hooked and occupied. However, a great book goes beyond that. It not only does those things but also has a profound impact on you. It changes you as a person, alters the way you think about various things, and even modifies the very things you think about. By the time you finish reading a great book, you are no longer the same person you were at the beginning. The Player of Games had precisely this kind of effect on me. This book is like a Trojan horse, sneaking in and transforming my perspective.

When I am deeply immersed in a book, I make every effort to fit in a chapter whenever and wherever I can. I often switch between the physical book and the audiobook depending on the situation I find myself in. I vividly remember reading The Player of Games for the first time during a period when I had significant domestic responsibilities, and there was not much uninterrupted time to sit down and enjoy a book. In particular, I recall listening to the audiobook while walking along rows of blueberries on a small farm in Tontitown, Arkansas. I was hoping to pick a gallon's worth of berries early in the morning before the scorching sun had a chance to burn my skin.

I don't remember how sparse or abundant the rows were that year, or how the blueberries tasted that season. I was completely enthralled by that angry, cunning little drone. I was extremely intrigued by the intricate details of life on this Culture orbital. I was constantly trying to figure out who the narrator was, what game they were playing, and with whom.

If I were put in a situation where I had a gun to my head and was forced to choose a favorite novel, it would undoubtedly be this one. I absolutely adore The Player of Games and reread it every few years. Each time I do, it seems to be filled with new details and interpretive possibilities, but it's also just an incredibly great story that never fails to captivate me.

This is the story of a man who went far away for a long time, just to play a game. The man is a game-player called “Gurgeh”. The story starts with a battle that is not a battle, and ends with a game that is not a game.

Me? I’ll tell you about me later.

Seriously, the author loves to play games with the reader

The second installment in Banks’ Culture universe offers an engaging and multi-faceted story. It follows an expert game-player who gets embroiled in a high-stakes competition within an independent, alien empire. Banks constructs an elaborate world, filled with captivating imagery and underpinned by thought-provoking philosophical concepts.

While I appreciate his meticulous attention to world-building, certain details, like linguistic philosophizing, although interesting, do impact the pacing negatively. In fact, the initial third of the book is devoted to establishing the world and familiarizing the reader with the protagonist before the plot truly takes off. This choice has its advantages and disadvantages, but for those with patience, it ultimately pays off by immersing them in Banks’ complex vision.

Beyond its immersive world-building, the novel delves into profound themes such as cultural intervention and imperialism, political systems, social hierarchies, the nature of competition, and gender dynamics. Meanwhile, the protagonist experiences identity shifts influenced by his performance and unwavering pursuit of mastery, subtly commenting on the human inclination towards domination.

Of course, the AI characters cannot be ignored, but I don't feel the need to elaborate on the issues they raise. However, a comment from a younger drone stood out to me as an amusing jab at ageism.

Finally, even if you're not in the mood for deep reflection or philosophical musings, the game-centered plot serves as an entertaining foundation for all these layers. It may not be action-packed or edge-of-your-seat thrilling, but I couldn't help but envision a James-Bond-like Gurgeh in a flame-engulfed Royale-les-Eaux. At some point, I hope to compare this to other Culture novels, but with my ever-expanding to-be-read list, I'm simply grateful to have had the opportunity to read this one.

My first encounter with Iain M. Banks' work was an okay experience. There were some cool concepts at play, and the writing wasn't terrible. The idea of a left-wing space utopia was rather fun, and the plot had a few twists that kept me engaged. However, there was a significant drawback. Banks, despite seemingly being a cosmopolitan author who was aware of the tropes he was using and their limitations, still committed a sin that made this science fiction novel less enjoyable for me than it could have been. That sin was blandness. It permeated every aspect of the book - the writing, the characterization, the worldbuilding, and even the humor. Everything felt lacking in depth and vividness.

The problem, and it's a difficult one to solve, is how to present an alien world with its own unique biology, technology, and culture to a reader without being either unintelligible or repulsive. I know of two ways to handle this well. The first approach is to completely ditch the idea of true alienness and make the characters essentially human, focusing on making them as vividly and enjoyably human as possible, while subordinating all superficially alien traits to this goal. Many comedic or light-hearted science fiction works take this path, and in that context, it's hard to object. For example, characters like Zaphod Beeblebrox, Karkat Vantas, and the Doctor are basically just people, but what fascinating people they are! The second approach is to truly recreate the experience of suddenly being immersed in another culture. This necessarily involves all sorts of deliberate confusion, including linguistic confusion. A culture other than one's own, especially one at a different level of technological development, is going to mentally carve apart nature in ways that one is not used to, and this has to be reflected in the way the text uses its own terminology.
The best example of this second approach that I've come across is John Clute's Appleseed. It's a dizzying linguistic assault that leaves the reader wondering, almost once per paragraph, things like: "Is there a difference between 'flesh sapients' and 'flesh sophonts'?" or "What the hell is a 'breakfast head'?" or "Wait, have the 'Caduceus wars' ever been mentioned before?" I read Appleseed a few months ago and wasn't sure how to feel about it. I enjoyed it, but by the end, I was getting tired of not knowing what Clute was going on about. However, in retrospect, I think that's simply the way it had to be. Clute was trying to depict a situation so truly alien that it shouldn't have been comprehensible after just 400 pages of contact.
Now, back to The Player of Games. I don't want to go on and on about this because the point is quite simple. Banks doesn't take either of the two paths I just described. Like a lot of science fiction, he's stuck in the middle, at the low point. His characters are alien enough that they can't talk in the terms used by Banks' own (20th century western) culture, but he can't bring himself to create a different set of terms, as that would risk Clute-style incomprehensibility. As a result, everything has a bland, schematic quality. The dialogue feels abstract and perfunctory, lacking the clutter and authenticity of real (or even conventionally-fictional) speech. The humor, lacking any shared references, is weightless and generic. There are machine intelligences in Banks' world, but they don't differ in any interesting way from people. And the imperialist aliens encountered by the book's protagonist, despite having three sexes and basing their entire society around an elaborate board game, ultimately seem indistinguishable from a generic earth empire. The science fiction elements feel like mere stage clothing; the scenes about aliens and drones would not be meaningfully different if they were just about people, and the scenes about alien board games would not be meaningfully different if they were about chess.
That alien empire is a particularly telling example. Here's how the empire's use of that board game is initially presented to us: "The game of Azad is used not so much to determine which person will rule, but which tendency within the empire's ruling class will have the upper hand, which branch of economic theory will be followed, which creeds will be recognized within the religious apparat, and which political policies will be followed. The idea, you see, is that Azad is so complex, so subtle, so flexible and so demanding that it is as precise and comprehensive a model of life as it is possible to construct. Whoever succeeds at the game succeeds in life; the same qualities are required in each to ensure dominance." Sounds fascinating, doesn't it? But when we actually meet the aliens, there is no indication that the game pervades their thinking about anything but the game itself. They use it to determine who rules, but their speech and thinking about everything outside the game does not seem noticeably influenced by the game itself (whose structure is, perhaps wisely, left mostly to the reader's imagination). The same goes for their three sexes. The third "apex" sex dominates over males and females, but Banks decides to refer to the apices using male pronouns to make things easier to read for humans from patriarchal societies. As a result, the differences between apices and males are indistinguishable from the difference between male aristocrats and male grunts in a human society. Everything that makes the empire interesting also creates the potential for confusion and distance on the reader's part, and Banks is so committed to being understood - to "storytelling" in the sense of just getting the plot points across - that he can't allow those interesting features to persist.
Of course, one interpretation is that the empire is a satire of modern earth society, and that Azad and the three sexes are just there to distract us so we don't realize we're looking at ourselves in a mirror. But if it's a satire, its substance comes down to "we're obsessed with power and judge people according to arbitrary standards." Which is, I guess, true, but it's such a broad and obvious critique that I don't think it justifies the ruse. I've heard that many of the other Culture books have more alienness in them than this one, so I still intend to read some of the others at some point. For now, I prefer too much alienness to too little, and I prefer Clute's approach to Banks'.

I believe that true science fiction should strive to push the boundaries of our understanding and immerse us in truly alien worlds, even if it means a bit of confusion along the way. Banks' work, while not without its merits, falls short in this regard. I hope that in his other books, he manages to find a better balance between creating an alien and engaging world and making it accessible to the reader.

Only time will tell if he can rise to the challenge and create works that truly stand out in the genre. For now, I'll continue to explore the works of other science fiction authors, always on the lookout for that next great alien adventure.

UPDATED REVIEW, 2nd read in 2015:

The second time around, "The Player of Games" reveals itself to be even more ingenious. The protagonist is taken to the Empire of Azad to engage in the greatest of games. Azad is likened to the toxic empires such as the U.S. and the U.K. In a civilized culture, all empires are bound to fall. The game is filled with feints, surprises, and moves within moves. It represents the past that must be broken on the wheel of the future. Banks showcases all of his customary elegance, intelligence, humor, and angry frustration at the stupidity and short-sightedness of humanity. He understands the allure but still seethes at the thought of brutality, especially when it is an ingrained governmental program or system, or a way of life for any so-called human. Much like Banks, I find myself on the side of the AIs.

UGLY OLD REVIEW, 1st read in 2010:

"The Player of Games" is an often brilliant allegory. It's interesting to compare the rather spare quality of this novel with the more luxurious expansiveness of the rest of the Culture novels. It's almost as if it's Iain without-the-M Banks writing about the Culture this time. The themes are very much in line with Banks' non-science fiction suspense novels. His wit and imagination are still very much in play, as are the wonderful drones, especially one in particular. However, I have a mea culpa. I've been recommending that folks start the Culture series from the beginning, perhaps due to my recent reading of "Consider Phlebas" and seeing how well it makes sense as the first novel of an incredible series. But "Player of Games" was actually my first Culture novel, and it worked out fine for me in the long run. So, it doesn't really matter which Culture novel you start with. The challenge I had with "Player" was its feeling of sparseness compared to the often over-stuffed feeling I get with more traditional space operas. I usually long for that swarming of detail and incident, to be plunged into richly imagined world-building. "Player" didn't have that for me. I recognized its brilliance, but it was in a more intellectual mode, not one that I responded to emotionally, viscerally, or as a means of escape into a completely realized yet often rather standardized universe. This is far from a critique, as I would never promote the rote and predictable. But it also didn't exactly inspire me to keep reading Culture novels right away. After "Player", it took some time for me to get back into the series. Perhaps the escapist in me longed for a less rigorously intellectual pastime, or something that was less about aliens written like humans and more about actual aliens. Still, it's a great book.

Tis Official...Iain Banks is truly a remarkable writer, capable of penning stories that leave a lasting impact. For many, this might not come as breaking news scrolling across the ticker, but it's still worth repeating.

I had previously read and adored The Wasp Factory, Banks' classic first novel. It offered a fascinating peek into the psychology of a deeply disturbed young man in desperate need of a hug. I also thoroughly enjoyed Consider Phlebas, the first of the Culture novels. With two great successes under his belt, I approached this second installment of the Culture series with high expectations, which always makes me a bit nervous and twitchy. It seems that whenever I go into a book hoping for the best, I often end up feeling disappointed.

However, I'm delighted to report that there was no such disappointment with this read. Iain Banks came through in fine fashion with this sophomore Culture novel.

BACKGROUND: The Culture is an extremely advanced, post-scarcity, inter-galactic, utopian civilization. It's a symbiotic union between humans and god-like AI machines, with the AIs handling the administrative and governing functions while humans enjoy a leisurely life with unlimited resources. There are no laws, little internal conflict, and force is rarely used. It's like a never-ending vacation in the most amazing high-tech resort.

PLOT SUMMARY: The Player of Games focuses on Jernau Morat Gurgeh, one of the greatest game players in the Culture. Thanks to his bio-enhancements, he can master thousands of games and learn new ones incredibly fast. The Culture's "Special Circumstances" needs his skills to learn a new game called Azad, which is central to the society of the Empire of Azad. SC hopes Gurgeh can learn the game in just over two years, the travel time to the Empire.

Banks' writing is top-notch, and his imagination is exceptional. He provides a wealth of details about life in and out of the Culture without sacrificing pacing. This is space opera at its finest, and I highly recommend it. 4.0 to 4.5 stars!

Good ideas were presented in this work. The second half indeed shows a significant improvement compared to the first. It would have been even better if the games described could have been more detailed and, to a greater extent, more realistic. However, despite this, Banks has done a remarkable job in maintaining the reader's engagement throughout. The way the story unfolds and the elements that are introduced manage to hold one's attention and keep them interested in what will happen next. Even without the level of detail and realism that one might have hoped for, the overall concept and the way it is executed are still quite captivating. It makes the reader want to continue reading and discover more about the games and the experiences they bring.

So much of what I love about the writing of Iain M. Banks is vividly on display in The Player of Games. It could very well be my absolute favourite among his novels.

Maybe I'm off the mark here, but I struggle to think of other authors who possess the remarkable ability to transform seemingly straightforward ideas into intricate and complex ones with a single burst of imagination. This makes the simple idea appear not only unique but also extremely rare. What's more, Banks achieves all of this without the off-putting pretentiousness often associated with authors who believe they are great.

This remarkable talent makes Banks one of the most engaging and inviting writers I have ever come across. I find myself savoring every single word he has written, going over his works again and again.

In fact, as I pen these words, I realize that over the past decade, he and China Mieville are the only two authors whose works I have dedicated a significant amount of time to rereading. I return to Banks as if visiting an old friend, while with Mieville, it's to relish the language and be left in awe.

This time, listening to The Player of Games was an unadulterated delight. It didn't matter that I was already familiar with the outcome of Jernau Morat Gurgeh's great Azad tournament, that I knew the details about the drone, Mawhrin-Skel, or that I was aware the ending might leave me feeling a little underwhelmed.

This time around, I was able to fully immerse myself in Gurgeh's journey, focusing on the minutiae rather than the overarching plot. I allowed his sensuality within the games to guide me, and his longing for the perfect game moved me in a way it never had before. I saw his flaws not as something to judge him by, but rather as elements that enhanced his attractiveness.

This time, I was able to admire Mawhrin-Skel's arrogance, the manipulation of Special Circumstances, and the Culture's ingenious defeat of a potentially dangerous future adversary. I also recognized Gurgeh's warning to the reader that the conclusion of a great game, both in Azad and in The Player of Games, is bound to be anti-climactic. I not only recognized it but also accepted it, and let the somewhat flat ending gently ease me out of the emotional high that I hadn't even realized I had been caught up in.

Just as Gurgeh missed Azad, I miss Iain M. Banks. I will continue to miss him and The Player of Games until I open another one of his books and reunite with him once more. Even when I exhaust all of his new works, it's comforting to know that each rereading of his old words reveals new depths and pleasures. I will never run out of captivating Banks tales to explore.

And that, truly, is a source of great comfort.

4.5 stars.

I found this particular book to be rather more likeable than the previous Culture book I had the pleasure of reading. The main character, while a bit abrasive and eccentric, added an interesting layer to the story. However, I must admit that I would have preferred a more in-depth exploration of the world. It felt as if there was potential for more world building that wasn't fully realized. Perhaps I need to seek out another work set in this universe to satisfy my craving for a more detailed and immersive environment.

The story itself built up slowly, carefully introducing the characters and then deftly removing them one by one, leading to a rather delicious climax. It kept me on the edge of my seat, eager to see how it would all unfold. Nevertheless, I would have liked a bit more of a resolution. The ending felt a bit rushed, leaving some loose ends that I would have liked to see tied up.

Despite these minor flaws, I still thoroughly enjoyed the book and would highly recommend it to fans of the genre. I just can't quite bring myself to give it that last half a star to make it a perfect five stars.

Unfortunately, the book description already reveals important plot points. How does one come up with the idea of publishing such a spoiler text? Fortunately, Iain M. Banks writes so well that it is still nice to read the book. Some passages have a really strong impact.

I will limit myself here to two aspects that I consider to be key points of the novel: The relationship between the two forms of society and the character of the game Azad.

The basic theme of the book is the contrast between the "Culture" and the "Imperium". The Imperium behaves essentially as one would expect: A strict hierarchy in which power is ultimately based on violence. Especially in the subjugation of foreign worlds, but also within the Imperium, the strong trample on the weak. This contradicts our morality and also that of the main character. At the same time, the intensity, power and will that come with the dangerous life in the Imperium increasingly fascinate him.

The "Culture" is an incredibly highly developed post-scarcity society. In it, people live free from all constraints and protected from all dangers. Who wouldn't want to live like that? On closer reflection, it becomes apparent that the Culture also seems so great because the author evades difficult questions.

Who actually leads the departments "Contact" and "Special Circumstances" that determine the interaction with the Imperium? Is this decision-making body democratically legitimized? In the novel, it is expressly stated that the "Contact" department keeps information secret in order not to be "forced by the weight of public opinion" to a certain action. The robots of the departments not only lie to and manipulate the Imperium, but also the main character. (People seem to only give themselves to their pleasure, and only robots are present in important functions.) Is the Culture ultimately a robot society in which people are tolerated?

The Culture acts subtly against the Imperium so that it collapses. Otherwise, the inhabitants of the conquered worlds seem to be indifferent to it. Does the Culture support those in need of help? No. Does it take in the persecuted? No. Does it share its knowledge with others to free them from material scarcity as well? No.

For comparison: Before Trump was re-elected president, the US provided a whopping 40 billion dollars in medical aid to underdeveloped countries every year. Just like that, because they have the medical capabilities and the financial means. Trump stopped this with the argument that he preferred to spend the money on America. The Culture cannot even bring up this argument! It lacks nothing at all. It could support countless worlds, could easily provide entire planets to take in the politically persecuted. But apparently it does nothing of the sort. Instead, it acts strictly "Culture First".

Let's come to the second aspect: The game. Surprisingly, the violent Imperium uses a board game to decide on its hierarchy. This game contains core elements of the imperial culture. The hero, on the other hand, is an expert in the diverse games of the Culture.

Unfortunately, all the described games have a similar character. They are win-lose games, i.e. the victory of one goes hand in hand with the corresponding defeat of the other. The games combine strategic elements (like in chess) with conquest games (think of "Risk") and random elements. This is all not very original.

Today, there is a division in the board game area into two forms of play that show惊人的 similarities to the novel's forms of society. There are on the one hand "Eurogames" and on the other hand "Ameritrash". (Some players also speak of "Ameristyle", but the derogatory expression has generally prevailed. I can't help it.)

Ameritrash is typically characterized by beautiful design and a win-lose character. It is often a war game in which the opponent has to be conquered. The game Azad falls into this category, even if it comes across as abstract.

The rise of Eurogames began with "The Settlers of Catan", so only after the publication of the novel. Game designers such as Rainer Knizia, Klaus Teuber, Stefan Feld or Uwe Rosenberg have shaped the genre. Characteristic of Eurogames are game mechanisms that allow all players their own progress without others having to take steps back. What is decisive in the game is who makes more or faster victory points. All participants have a positive gaming experience.

The Culture should definitely play Eurogames. What it unfortunately doesn't do - because there were no such games back then. What a pity.

Iain M Banks' Player of Games represents a significant leap forward from the initial installment of the Culture series. Intriguingly, Banks initially intended to publish this very book but was informed it wouldn't have good sales prospects, thus compelling him to pen Consider Phlebas, a work with which I have a rather complex relationship.

When compared to the rest of Banks' series, Consider Phlebas appears slow, operatic, and somewhat pulpish. In contrast, Player of Games delves into profound questions regarding interventionism. It explores what happens when a technologically and socially advanced civilization encounters one that lags far behind. What, if any, is their moral obligation? And to what extent does moral relativism extend?

As you read, you feel as if you are on a tour of a world teetering on the brink of collapse. True, it's a passive experience, but the ending more than makes up for it. There's a persistent sense that you're overlooking something, and Banks masterfully exploits this. Throughout the book, there are messages from an unknown character that gradually hint at a larger plan in motion, one that neither you nor the protagonist realizes. The ending left me in a state of discomfort, but in a good way.

The characters, with the exception of the AI ones, are not particularly remarkable. However, the dialogue of the AI characters is rich in personality and injects life into every scene.

The worldbuilding is interesting, featuring a world so scorching that a wave of fire slowly encircles the globe as it rotates, incinerating everything in its path. Nevertheless, for the most part, it's a bit difficult to fully believe. The story is predominantly set in Azad, an empire where the ruler is determined by playing a complex board game that has allegedly endured for thousands of years. It's a novel concept, but one that I had to accept with a degree of suspension of disbelief, thinking 'alright, why not?' rather than wholeheartedly believing in it.

My only other notable criticism would be the lack of tension. Banks is not renowned for crafting stories that conform to the familiar narrative mold, and this is evident here. There's never a genuine sense that our Player will lose his Games, and the story actively mocks the typical way such a story might unfold (the Player would play the game to become Emperor, even at the risk of his life).

Ultimately, the story is more about the intricate machinations of this world and how the Culture interacts with it, which in itself is a captivating narrative to tell.