The Player of Games - Iain Banks

[watervole]

I read this book as an antidote to 'The Game Players of Titan' and it was much better.  Banks's games are never described in enough detail to be able to play them, but the overall feel is of games with depth. eg. An early game in the book is based on the four-colour map problem.

Gurgeh is not a totally likeable character, but he is believable, and all the more believable in that he isn't perfect.  His Culture is advanced enough to be able to supply all a person's needs, thus, equality is a given.  It's hard for him to relate to a world in which people don't have total freedom, but when he encounters such a world the possibilities of power start to intrigue him.

The Empire of Azad is based around success in the game of Azad and Gurgeh - the best games player in the Culture - is 'persuaded' by Contact to go and play Azad.

Contact are a devious bunch, and very good at hiding what they actually intend...

How much of the time is Gurgeh doing what he wants, and how much of the time is he doing what Contact want?

I enjoyed this book (stayed up late to finish it) and it's definitely worth reading more than once. 

(This would be a more in-depth review, but my wrist is still aching from something I did a couple of weeks ago.  Recovering slowly)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

How much Banks have you read? PoG is on of the more intellectual of his Culture books but they're all great.

[jon-a-five.livejournal.com]

(Sorry, that was me, not logged in!)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'm intending to read more - I've been saving my Banks book until Richard had a steady job and my nerves were relaxed enough to concentrate properly on a book with proper depth to it. I'll tackle my other two Banks books before long, I suspect.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

This is my favourite Banks book, I think

[megamole.livejournal.com]

TPOG is one of my favourite books.

Who's playing games with whom?

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

I've read most of Iain M Banks's stories (but not Iain Banks non-SF stuff) and, yes, they are very good (I'm re-reading Excession at the moment)

TPoG is definitely enjoyable and another one that is well worth a read is Inversions.

The only one of his I didn't really get into was Feersum Endjinn because a lot of it is written in a sort of "Molesworth" style (as any fule kno) as it's the writings of a character "Bascule the Teller" who is not very literate and I found that rather impenetrable and hard work.