Book Review: The Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks \ stacker news ~BooksAndArticles

The second book of the Culture series shows Banks significantly upping his game in the storytelling, style, and ideas of the alien worlds he dunks us into. After the lukewarm first book, "Consider Phlebas", we get to see the Culture's philosophy in action through the eyes of Jernau Gurgeh, our "player of games". What is this humanoid Culture that has expanded throughout the galaxies? Through the mirror of artificial Minds, pesky drones, foreign civilizations, Banks draws us into a vertigo of identity and ideas about what makes a people, particularly in the presence of machines. Are we, humanity, the Culture or the masochistic Empire of Azad?

Like the best sci-fi, it is fun, mind-bending, asks the deep questions with a veiled smile. I'll be picking up the next Culture novels eagerly.

64 sats \ 0 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 30 Oct

Banks was one of the true greats of the field, and kind of the SF literature version of that "obscure band all your favorite bands listen to."

He actually wrote more non-SF novels than SF ones (the non-SF ones omitted the middle initial "M." from his name), but is still better known for his SF stuff.