The second Culture novel from the awesome imagination of Iain M. Banks, a modern master of science fiction.
The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy.
Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game ... a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.
Praise for the Culture series:
'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday
'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian
'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman
'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph
The Culture series:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
Other books by Iain M. Banks:
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist
Iain Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, in 1984. He has since gained enormous popular and critical acclaim for both his mainstream and his science fiction novels.
Title: The Player of Games (The Culture)
Author: Iain M. Banks
ISBN: 9781857231465
Binding:
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Publication Date: 1989-08-10
Number of Pages: 320
Weight: 0.2586 kg
Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth * THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION *
Poetic, humorous, baffling, terrifying, sexy - the books of Iain M. Banks are all these things and more * NME *
Banks is an incredibly talented writer. All his books are lively and entertaining. They are laced with a wry humour, fascinating characters and inspired plots. THE PLAYER OF GAMES, I am pleased to say is no exception... Go on, treat yourself, you won't be disappointed. * STARBURST *
In The Player of Games, Iain M. Banks presents a distant future that could almost be called the end of history. Humanity has filled the galaxy, and thanks to ultra-high technology everyone has everything they want, no one gets sick, and no one dies. It's * Brooks Peck, AMAZON.CO.UK *