I first read this book a long time ago; a time before the internet, before A1, before mobile data - Ian Banks predicted it all, and more in his wonderful novels about the Culture - a Utopian society where everything works so well, and where people's lives are theirs to mange in a way we can still barely dream of.
This novel focuses on Gurgeh, a man who plays games at the highest level, who travels to a distant planetary system - the Acadian Empire - to compete in the game which shapes their society. This is a society utterly unlike the Culture - cruel, hierarchical, hypocritical - a kind of horrid blend of ancient Rome and totalitarian regimes today.
Once there Gurgeh faces challenges unlike anything he has every experienced before. The novel races along with page turning narrative, conjuring up one mental image after another. It is fantastic reading, and hasn't aged a day.

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The Player Of Games: A Culture Novel (Engelska) Pocketbok – 1 Juli 1998
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Iain M. Banks
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Produktinformation
- Utgivare : Little, Brown Book Group; 1:a utgåvan (1 Juli 1998)
- Språk : Engelska
- Pocketbok : 320 sidor
- ISBN-10 : 1857231465
- ISBN-13 : 978-1857231465
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#3,394 i Böcker (Visa Topp 100 i Böcker)
- #69 i Science fiction
- #141 i Fantasi
- #486 i Skönlitteratur
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4,6 av 5 stjärnor
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markr
5,0 av 5 stjärnor
fantastic novel of the Culture
Granskad i Storbritannien den 18 juni 2020Verifierat köp
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Herr Holz Paul
5,0 av 5 stjärnor
Let Us Play
Granskad i Storbritannien den 8 september 2017Verifierat köp
The idea of a world where games and entertainment play a large role in society is interesting. Prowess and reputation figure highly. It is our wit and imagination that will be rewarded. Our hero Gurgeh is a pretty sombre, Been There Done That kind of guy - not easily impressed - his only regret seems to be not having succeeded in forging intimate relationships with certain ladies - yep - know the feeling. The society he inhabits, The Culture, appears relatively speaking to have reached a certain niveau especially when compared to the world he visits for The Games, the latter which I cannot help feeling the author is modelling on our own human race here on Earth, albeit in many ways more technologically advanced than ours. In fact this comparison is blatantly obvious in places.
What at first might be described as Utopian Space Opera becomes more political towards the end of the novel as Gurgeh gets more involved with The Empire and their problematic style of society. We get a taste of the dystopian Iain Banks and it is not sweet.
What at first might be described as Utopian Space Opera becomes more political towards the end of the novel as Gurgeh gets more involved with The Empire and their problematic style of society. We get a taste of the dystopian Iain Banks and it is not sweet.

Auriga_
5,0 av 5 stjärnor
Play the game. You won't be disappointed.
Granskad i Storbritannien den 24 september 2015Verifierat köp
The Player of Games continues Banks' Culture Series, which started with the equally glorious Consider Phlebas. Whilst the two are unrelated, save for the setting of the Culture universe, Banks develops and explores the Culture itself with absolutely stunning vision and creativity; his mind really was genius.
The story of Jerneau Gurgeh, The Player of Games, is incredibly immersive and well-paced, with a fabulous amount of detail within the narrative and some incredibly interesting characters. There are subtle (and not so subtle) nods at our own culture and society throughout the book, and you will find yourself drawn in.
The end-game itself is quite thrilling.
I absolutely recommend this book to anyone, but especially if you have read any Peter F. Hamilton (and you should have, he too is a genius!), as this haute sci-fi will really excite you.
The story of Jerneau Gurgeh, The Player of Games, is incredibly immersive and well-paced, with a fabulous amount of detail within the narrative and some incredibly interesting characters. There are subtle (and not so subtle) nods at our own culture and society throughout the book, and you will find yourself drawn in.
The end-game itself is quite thrilling.
I absolutely recommend this book to anyone, but especially if you have read any Peter F. Hamilton (and you should have, he too is a genius!), as this haute sci-fi will really excite you.

a customer
5,0 av 5 stjärnor
Games within games...
Granskad i Storbritannien den 19 juni 2013Verifierat köp
I know this book has been published for 25 years, but since Bank's untimely death I have decided to work though his science fiction catalogue. Having already read Inversions and Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games was next on my list.
This novel is the clearest description of Bank's science fiction cosmology. Most of his SF novels revolve around The Culture, an 11,000 year old galactic civilisation, in which humans and sentient machines exist in a symbiotic relationship. Banks has mentioned in interviews that The Culture is a place he would like to live in (who wouldn't in fairness) and conforms to all his left wing ideals. Life in The Culture is idyllic; there is no crime, government, money, poverty. People and machines live on vast utopian space ships or orbital habitats, spending their time engaged in intellectual pursuits, visiting friends and relatives, changing gender and generally farting about. The machines themselves are either vast Minds that ensure the running of this civilisation or individual drones that live with the humans as mentors and friends or as emissaries for the various departments of the Culture.
The Culture also comes into contact with and investigates other civilisations galactic and planetary, malign or benign, assessing them for sociological interest or as military threats. There also seems to be a Star Trek like prime directive in which The Culture doesn't reveal themselves to those that haven't achieved interstellar travel, but unlike the prime directive, The Culture does meddle in more primitive societies.
This summary sounds dry and it takes a literary genius like Banks to make The Culture feel like a real place that you would want to experience and to identify with the characters both human and machine. His descriptions of the habitats are spectacular, with mountain ranges, forests and oceans. But it the interactions of peoples and machines that generate interest in the stories he describes. Even though he describes a virtual utopia, people still get jealous, frustrated, fall in and out of love and get bored. But for me I find the various drone characters the most appealing, they appear both wise and amusing, a cross between your best mate, your conscience, CP30 and Yoda.
The plot for The Player of Games, as the title suggest, deals with Gurgeh, an expert game player, who is recruited by The Culture's alien contact section to go to a distant galactic empire, Azad, to take part in a game that is integrated into the very social structure and ethos of the society. To me it is apparent that Banks creates a Manichean contrast between the idyll of the Culture and the evil of the Azad's feudal barbarism. The character Gurgeh is at once repelled and attracted to Azad as he progresses in the game up to the final dénouement. Of course as the plot develops we get the feeling that there is more than one game being played and that Gurgeh may not be in control of his destiny as he might think....
Gurgeh himself comes across as phlegmatic, more an observer of events rather than a participant. This has led him into a kind of world weary cynicism which got him into trouble back on his Culture habitat. His experiences on Azad seem to slowly become a journey of redemption, aided by the enigmatic drone Flere Imhaso.
Banks employs a variety of literary styles and set pieces, including the soaring space opera of ships plying their way through the vastness of interstellar space, to philosophical discussion, gritty social realism and exciting shoot outs and chases. Also Banks knows how to write dialogue, the discussions between characters are some of the most memorable, including, at one stage, two conversations occurring simultaneously.
In conclusion I would say that this is an outstanding science fiction novel, Banks doesn't really introduce anything new to the genre, but it is the strength of his writing and imagination that carry the story along.
This novel is the clearest description of Bank's science fiction cosmology. Most of his SF novels revolve around The Culture, an 11,000 year old galactic civilisation, in which humans and sentient machines exist in a symbiotic relationship. Banks has mentioned in interviews that The Culture is a place he would like to live in (who wouldn't in fairness) and conforms to all his left wing ideals. Life in The Culture is idyllic; there is no crime, government, money, poverty. People and machines live on vast utopian space ships or orbital habitats, spending their time engaged in intellectual pursuits, visiting friends and relatives, changing gender and generally farting about. The machines themselves are either vast Minds that ensure the running of this civilisation or individual drones that live with the humans as mentors and friends or as emissaries for the various departments of the Culture.
The Culture also comes into contact with and investigates other civilisations galactic and planetary, malign or benign, assessing them for sociological interest or as military threats. There also seems to be a Star Trek like prime directive in which The Culture doesn't reveal themselves to those that haven't achieved interstellar travel, but unlike the prime directive, The Culture does meddle in more primitive societies.
This summary sounds dry and it takes a literary genius like Banks to make The Culture feel like a real place that you would want to experience and to identify with the characters both human and machine. His descriptions of the habitats are spectacular, with mountain ranges, forests and oceans. But it the interactions of peoples and machines that generate interest in the stories he describes. Even though he describes a virtual utopia, people still get jealous, frustrated, fall in and out of love and get bored. But for me I find the various drone characters the most appealing, they appear both wise and amusing, a cross between your best mate, your conscience, CP30 and Yoda.
The plot for The Player of Games, as the title suggest, deals with Gurgeh, an expert game player, who is recruited by The Culture's alien contact section to go to a distant galactic empire, Azad, to take part in a game that is integrated into the very social structure and ethos of the society. To me it is apparent that Banks creates a Manichean contrast between the idyll of the Culture and the evil of the Azad's feudal barbarism. The character Gurgeh is at once repelled and attracted to Azad as he progresses in the game up to the final dénouement. Of course as the plot develops we get the feeling that there is more than one game being played and that Gurgeh may not be in control of his destiny as he might think....
Gurgeh himself comes across as phlegmatic, more an observer of events rather than a participant. This has led him into a kind of world weary cynicism which got him into trouble back on his Culture habitat. His experiences on Azad seem to slowly become a journey of redemption, aided by the enigmatic drone Flere Imhaso.
Banks employs a variety of literary styles and set pieces, including the soaring space opera of ships plying their way through the vastness of interstellar space, to philosophical discussion, gritty social realism and exciting shoot outs and chases. Also Banks knows how to write dialogue, the discussions between characters are some of the most memorable, including, at one stage, two conversations occurring simultaneously.
In conclusion I would say that this is an outstanding science fiction novel, Banks doesn't really introduce anything new to the genre, but it is the strength of his writing and imagination that carry the story along.

Ian Ingram
5,0 av 5 stjärnor
Excellent - probably the best place to start with the series
Granskad i Storbritannien den 8 februari 2019Verifierat köp
Although this is technically the second book in the Culture series, "Consider Phlebas" is more of a prequel set hundreds of years previously and not actually within the Culture itself, so Player of Games is probably a better place to start. This really is an excellent book, and part of one of my favourite sci-fi series. Very very highly recommended. (Note: The Audible audiobook version, read by Peter Kenny, is also very good)