The Player of Games (Culture, #2)

by Iain M. Banks

The gallery was choked with multifariously shaped and sized vehicles which rumbled and hissed and edged about among the swarmingly varied people like massive, clumsy animals wading in an insect sea.

“Blade cuts cloth, cloth wraps stone, stone dams water, water quenches fire, fire melts blade…”

Gurgeh’s off-world physiognomy was regarded as a challenge by some camera people, and as a large fish in a small barrel by others.