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Jun 11, 2011

Joel rated it:

This was my first book in Iain M. Banks sprawling Culture series. I have been reading a lot of sci-fi and fantasy lately, because for some reason that's all that sounds interesting to me, but I have to admit it is very annoying knowing that every book I pick up is the first in a _______. Usually that blank is "trilogy," except when it isn't (or it really isn't). And while there may be lots and lots of Culture books, they are all standalone stories with a beginning and an end. You can r More...

16 comments like (32 people liked it)

Apr 30, 2011

Stephen rated it:

4.0 to 4.5 stars. Well, it’s official. Iain Banks can write his ass off. Okay, so for many of you that is not exactly breaking-news, but I still thought it was worth repeating.

I previously read and loved The Wasp Factory, Banks' classic first novel which was a fascinating psychological look into the mind of a very disturbed young man. I also really enjoyed Consider Phlebas, which is the first of the Culture novels. With two big wins under his belt, I went into this second insta More...

11 comments like (28 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2009

Manny rated it:

In 1938, Yasunari Kawabata, a future Nobel Prize winner, was assigned by the Mainichi newspaper to cover a Go match between Honinbo Shusai, the top player, and his challenger Kitani Minoru. Go has an importance in Japanese culture that is hard for a Westerner to understand, and was one of the four traditional arts that a Samurai had to excel in. The match was very even until Kitani played an unexpected move just before an adjournment; its only purpose was to force a response, giving him extra ti More...

14 comments like (34 people liked it)

Jul 18, 2007

Cindy rated it:

Use of Weapons was far superior, in plot and characterization. Player of Games offered no surprises especially if you have read other Culture novels. The plot twist is reminiscent of Ender's Game, and is alluded to in the very first sentence. The central game is never described, and therefore too vague of a concept to care about. Any exposition about the human condition, racism, and sexism were poorly entwined into the book, and did not fit naturally into the plot.

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jul 14, 2011

mark rated it:

a brilliant allegory. it is interesting to compare the rather spare quality of this novel with the more luxurious expansiveness of the rest of the Culture novels....almost as if it is Iain without-the-M Banks writing about the Culture this time. and the themes are very much in line with banks' non-science fiction suspense novels. banks' wit and imagination are still in play. as are the wonderful drones! well, one drone in particular.

mea culpa: so i have been recommending that folks s More...

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2012

Toby rated it:

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 10, 2008

Kristen rated it:

I have wanted to read one of the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks for quite a while and one that sounded particularly interesting to me was The Player of Games. Unfortunately, that particular title was difficult to find in the U.S. -- until it was reprinted here a couple of months ago. I am very glad it was since this is definitely one of the better novels I have read this year, containing layers and depth without ever becoming too dry or a chore to read.

Complete Review:
http://fantasycafe.blogspot.com/2008/05/... More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 26, 2008

Andrew rated it:

I don't know how true this is for his more mainstream fiction as Iain Banks, but the science fiction novels Iain M. Banks writes always function on multiple levels. As a result, they can often be a bit daunting; in particular, I remember taking two weeks, during which I had to put it down multiple times, to finish "Excession". I loved it every bit as much as I usually love Banks's sci-fi work, but there was just so much information to absorb that I sometimes felt too overloaded to cont More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 08, 2008

Jeffrey rated it:

Interesting story a game where the winners are awarded positions within an Empire, and the foreign man manipulated into playing it. Much of the book is dedicated to expounding on the nature of thought and society and how it shapes our perceptions of the world. Nothing too horribly deep or new here, especially if you have read much Gene Wolfe, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Plato, Thomas Hardy, or well, anybody really interested in the nature of the mind. But it was a light fast read that did get m More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 11, 2012

Kolya rated it:

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0 comments like

Mar 13, 2011

Peter added it

How to like this book...: This is not a book for purists (Iain Banks or Sci Fi). This is the most Culture-d(imho) of Banks' books. All the amusing ship names and foul mouthed witty droids are here, plus excellent alien races and sly and not so sly reference to modern popular culture. There are some great themes about boredom, cheating, redemption and the glory of untamed cultures with primaeval urges and how attractive that can be. The Culture does not come out of this one unscathed; but the rat More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 16, 2009

Alan rated it:

Imagine a society in which "There were (true) stories of people falling off cliffs and the terminal relaying their scream in time for a Hub unit to switch to that terminal's camera, realize what was happening and displace a drone to catch the faller in midair; there were other stories about terminals recording the severing of their owner's head from their body in an accident, and summoning a medical drone in time to save the brain, leaving the de-bodied person with no more a problem than fi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 27, 2011

Bearcatmark added it

This is my second foray into Banks' Culture series and he certainly did not disappoint. In the two books I have read so far I love the way Banks has shown the Culture how it works, without really detailing it straight forward. You have learned about the Culture first in Consider Phlebas from a changer hostile to the Culture in the form of Horza and then in this book from a Culture Citizen who has dedicated his life to games. This book deals head on with a specific example of what Contact does More...

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Jul 05, 2011

Ryandake rated it:

how i love the Culture, barbarians that they are. haven't read a Culture novel that came anywhere close to sucking, and this one is no exception.

i can't remember a book ever giving me such a sense of squeamish dread. it's the same sort of feeling you get at the beginning of a recurrent nightmare, when you know that That Horrible Thing is coming, and you can't get out of it no matter how clever you are, and you have no defenses to mount. toward the end of the book, i wished i could put More...

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Jun 28, 2011

Ian rated it:

The second of the Culture books, this is solid space opera sci-fi. Not the best of the Culture books but certainly not the worst (or not the "least good" since I don't think any of them are bad).

Player of Games often is recommended as the best starting point for somebody new to Banks' writing or new to the Culture series. The reasoning is that Player of Games is more accessible to a wider audience than Consider Phlebas, the first of the Culture books to be written and the More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2011

Bearcatmark rated it:

This is my second foray into Banks' Culture series and he certainly did not disappoint. In the two books I have read so far I love the way Banks has shown the Culture how it works, without really detailing it straight forward. You have learned about the Culture first in Consider Phlebas from a changer hostile to the Culture in the form of Horza and then in this book from a Culture Citizen who has dedicated his life to games. This book deals head on with a specific example of what Contact does to More...

0 comments like

Jun 04, 2011

Teena rated it:

Somewhere between 4-4.5 stars.

First impression:

My first Culture book (Consider Phlebas got stuck somewhere in the hyperspace). The world building is WOW without too much info-dump. Plenty of humour and some beautiful paragraphs. Really want to know more about the Minds and Ships. Not caring for the protagonist yet, but we'll see.

Final verdict:

The Culture universe is probably the best realized fictionalverse I've ever met in SF. Two civilisa More...

1 comment like

Apr 03, 2011

Matt rated it:

The second major Culture novel, Player of Games turned out to be a bit more of what I was expecting from all the hype around the series in general. The story was much more cohesive and layered than Consider Phlebas, which seems cartoonish in comparison. I loved both the concept of a person whose primary value within the Culture is that he is an expert at all games (think anything from tic-tac-toe to highly complex RPGs) and the idea of an alien culture that uses an insanely complex, many-layered More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 01, 2011

Colleen rated it:

Some kind soul left this book on the book club table thus creating an addiction in me that would not be quenched. Banks describes a distant future where people (many alien, some old sentient machines) can live however they wish. As part of the Culture they are free to pursue any desire. The hero of this book loves to win at games. He's a throwback. Winning isn't valued. When he tires of winning every game ever designed, his trusted 400 year old family robot suggests he join Contact, the ultra se More...

0 comments like

Feb 01, 2011

Jonathan rated it:

Scotsman Iain M. Banks continues to be near or at the top of my list. His obsession with ultra-weird character names is fine by me but I think it hurts him in the long run because part of being a memorable character means allowing others to remember how to pronounce the name! Let's try a vocal exercise:

First warm up your chords with the following: Frodo. E.T. Harry Potter. That was easy.

Now let's try these: Doc Brown. HAL 9000. Buffy. Still ok? Now prepare to hurt!
More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2011

Jayaprakash rated it:

I've finished re-reading Iain M. Banks' The Player Of Games. I thought Banks showed a growing mastery of style in this novel, unlike Consider Phlebas where several sentences in a row were sometimes clotted with clauses and fly-specked with commas. The style is considerably more fluid here and the lyrical streak in Banks's prose is allowed more free rein in describing the various strange settings Jernau Gurgeh, the player of games, moves through as well as the mental states associated with his im More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2011

Angela rated it:

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0 comments like

Dec 12, 2010

Rushabh rated it:

One of the best Ian M. Banks Culture novels I have read to date. Perhaps only Matter was possibly better.

Player of Games starts in the perfect Culture universe of parties and general good life - everything is provided for, there is no concept of money because its unnecessary and sentient robots are everywhere. It focuses on the protagonist, the best Culture player at any game ever designed. He has been studying and playing games all his life and is a natural recruit for Special Circu More...

0 comments like

Feb 20, 2010

Joselito rated it:

This is science fiction. Set in the distant future when one can travel in comfort from one galaxy to another galaxy millions of light years away only in a matter of a few years; where one can converse with his house or his space ship like they were real people; creatures with reversible sexes; planets with fires going around it; creatures that can breathe through their penises. All weird stuff which, if the book is made into a movie, will require a big budget for special effects and perhaps make More...

0 comments like

Feb 18, 2010

Nina rated it:

Utopia meets empire. In the future there will be no war, famine or sickness. We'll live hundreds of years, regrow our own body parts and secrete all the drugs we want with special glands. We'll have nothing to do all day but play games and have sex but mostly play games. Oh yeah and machines will all be sentient. So begins The Player of Games. The book was entertaining while I was reading it but the after-taste is getting worse. For one thing, at the very end it decides to be a Novel of Ideas (c More...

0 comments like

Jul 03, 2009

Carl rated it:

A different cover than I read, but oh well. Really this should be slightly less than 5 stars, I think, but I liked it better than any of Banks' other books that I've read so far, and I felt like marking that somehow-- oh, well, now that I think about it, I'll lower it to 4 stars-- a good book, but not an all time favorite. Turned out to be much more interesting than I'd expected when I got a bit over mid-way through and it suddenly became a really interesting take on social justice and the psy More...

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Apr 27, 2009

Nicholas rated it:

Within two books Ian Banks has established himself not only as one of my new favorite sci fi authors, but also as a one of the most unpredictable.

The first book in the Culture series, a series focused on a massive post-scarcity human civilization spanning a huge chunk of the galaxy, didn't even focus on the perspective of one of its citizens, but on a shapeshifter who absolutely hated them. That's a gutsy way to launch a series with the word "Culture" imprinted on the corner. More...

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Apr 17, 2011

Stringy rated it:

What happens when an outsider plays a game designed to reflect life in an alien empire? Are games, like language, a reflection of our values and assumptions?

This is another fun sci-fi story from Banks. No real twist, not a lot of character development, but a steady pace and lots of detail about both the Culture and the Azad way of life. As with Consider Phlebas, there's no good guy/bad guy or a moral to the story, just shades of grey and some pithy observations about what happens when More...

0 comments like

Jul 01, 2010

Taueret rated it:

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0 comments like

Mar 06, 2009

Neil rated it:

Banks is quickly becoming one of my favorite science fiction writers and to top it off, sometimes a book seems to be written just for you, and this is such a book for me. I love playing games and doing puzzles and I'm not too shabby: I'm the kind of person who people complain always wins. This book combines my lifelong love of games with my love for clever speculative fiction and I just lapped it up.

It's the story of Gurgeh, a game player who would put me to shame, who through a comb More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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