-
The Player of Games
- Culture Series, Book 2
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.
The Culture - a utopian human-machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many expert Game Players, and one of the greatest is Jernau Morat Gurgeh. He is Master of every board, computer and strategy - he is The Player of Games.
Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the cruel and incredibly wealthy Empire of Azad to try their infamous game . . . a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh plays the game, and faces the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.
The Culture series:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Surface Detail
The Hydrogen Sonata
The State of the Art
Other books by Iain M. Banks:
Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
The Algebraist
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Shards of Earth
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
- Length: 18 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers. After Earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared - and Idris and his kind became obsolete. Now, 50 years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space.
-
-
Not sure what the point was [Spoilers]
- By C. Andrew Hessler on 08-27-21
-
Children of Time
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Mel Hudson
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
-
-
A very pleasant surprise
- By Simon on 06-17-17
-
Salvation
- Salvation Sequence, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transportation - including starships - virtually obsolete. Every place on Earth, every distant planet humankind has settled, is now a step away from any other. And all seems wonderful - until a crashed alien spaceship of unknown origin is found on a newly located world 89 light-years from Earth, carrying a cargo as strange as it is horrifying. To assess the potential of the threat a high-powered team is dispatched to investigate. But one of them may not be all they seem....
-
-
Wait For Book 2
- By StrikitRich on 09-26-18
-
Revelation Space
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.
-
-
Defeated
- By Eoin on 07-15-12
-
The Algebraist
- Culture
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.
-
-
Surprisingly meh
- By Ryan on 05-19-24
By: Iain M. Banks
-
The Mercy of Gods
- Captive's War, Book 1
- By: James S.A. Corey
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Carryx—part empire, part hive—has waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy in its conflict with an ancient and deathless enemy. When they descend on the isolated world of Anjiin, the human population is abased, slaughtered, and put in chains. The best and brightest are abducted, taken to the Carryx world-palace to join prisoners from a thousand other species. Dafyd Alkhor, assistant to a prestigious scientist, is captured along with his team.
-
-
Incredible
- By Davey Francis on 08-15-24
By: James S.A. Corey
-
Shards of Earth
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
- Length: 18 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers. After Earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared - and Idris and his kind became obsolete. Now, 50 years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space.
-
-
Not sure what the point was [Spoilers]
- By C. Andrew Hessler on 08-27-21
-
Children of Time
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Mel Hudson
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden.
-
-
A very pleasant surprise
- By Simon on 06-17-17
-
Salvation
- Salvation Sequence, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transportation - including starships - virtually obsolete. Every place on Earth, every distant planet humankind has settled, is now a step away from any other. And all seems wonderful - until a crashed alien spaceship of unknown origin is found on a newly located world 89 light-years from Earth, carrying a cargo as strange as it is horrifying. To assess the potential of the threat a high-powered team is dispatched to investigate. But one of them may not be all they seem....
-
-
Wait For Book 2
- By StrikitRich on 09-26-18
-
Revelation Space
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.
-
-
Defeated
- By Eoin on 07-15-12
-
The Algebraist
- Culture
- By: Iain M. Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year.
-
-
Surprisingly meh
- By Ryan on 05-19-24
By: Iain M. Banks
-
The Mercy of Gods
- Captive's War, Book 1
- By: James S.A. Corey
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Carryx—part empire, part hive—has waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy in its conflict with an ancient and deathless enemy. When they descend on the isolated world of Anjiin, the human population is abased, slaughtered, and put in chains. The best and brightest are abducted, taken to the Carryx world-palace to join prisoners from a thousand other species. Dafyd Alkhor, assistant to a prestigious scientist, is captured along with his team.
-
-
Incredible
- By Davey Francis on 08-15-24
By: James S.A. Corey
-
The Three-Body Problem
- By: Cixin Liu, Ken Liu - translator
- Narrated by: Rosalind Chao
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.
-
-
Why Rosalamd Chao?
- By Erin on 02-29-24
By: Cixin Liu, and others
-
A Wizard of Earthsea
- The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Rob Inglis
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Sparrowhawk casts a spell that saves his village from destruction at the hands of the invading Kargs, Ogion, the Mage of Re Albi, encourages the boy to apprentice himself in the art of wizardry. So, at the age of 13, the boy receives his true name - Ged - and gives himself over to the gentle tutelage of the Master Ogion. But impatient with the slowness of his studies and infatuated with glory, Ged embarks for the Island of Roke, where the highest arts of wizardry are taught.
-
-
A little gem, excellently narrated.
- By Marjorie on 05-14-12
-
The Reality Dysfunction
- Night's Dawn Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 41 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems, and throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.
-
-
Finally on Audible!! My favorite Hamilton series!
- By Patrick on 04-05-16
-
Old Man's War
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce—and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater.
-
-
Fun and Witty Military Sci-Fi
- By M. Spencer on 10-21-12
By: John Scalzi
-
Skyward
- By: Brandon Sanderson
- Narrated by: Suzy Jackson
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Brandon Sanderson, the number one New York Times best-selling author of the Reckoners series, Words of Radiance, and the internationally best-selling Mistborn series, comes the first book in an epic new series about a girl who dreams of becoming a pilot in a dangerous world at war for humanity's future.
-
-
Has Sanderson been reading Craig Alanson???
- By Customer on 11-18-18
-
All Systems Red (Dramatized Adaptation)
- The Murderbot Diaries, Book 1
- By: Martha Wells
- Narrated by: Alejandro Ruiz, Bradley Foster Smith, Holly Adams, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.”
-
-
Narrators are the opposite of what we want
- By Badger Badger on 09-12-23
By: Martha Wells
Critic reviews
'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson
Related to this topic
-
Project Hail Mary
- By: Andy Weir
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
-
-
Bazinga
- By Davidgonzalezsr on 05-04-21
By: Andy Weir
-
Wynonna Earp
- Tales from Purgatory
- By: Emily Andras
- Narrated by: Melanie Scrofano, Tim Rozon, Dom Provost-Chalkley, and others
- Length: 4 hrs
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Saddle up and join Wynonna Earp on an immersive new audio adventure in the gritty supernatural world of Purgatory. This Audible Original invites you deeper into the Weird West to follow Wynonna Earp (Melanie Scrofano), as she embarks on her craziest adventure yet: riding off into the sunset with her soulmate, Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon)—yes ... that Doc Holliday. Brace yourself for more wise-cracking demon hunters, earth-shattering revelations and all the genre-blending action you've come to expect from the cult hit TV series.
-
-
Happy #Earper ☺️
- By Kate Skidmore on 10-17-24
By: Emily Andras
-
Starter Villain
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.
-
-
Volcanic Lairs, Death Rays & Cats… Oh My! 😼
- By C. White on 09-19-23
By: John Scalzi
-
The Martian
- By: Andy Weir
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.
-
-
I love Wil Wheaton but why not R. C. Bray?
- By L. Newman on 01-11-20
By: Andy Weir
-
Constituent Service
- A Third District Story
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Amber Benson
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District–the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself. And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.
-
-
What a silly and sweet quick listen!
- By Geoffrey Christian on 10-08-24
By: John Scalzi
-
Temporal
- By: Julian Simpson, Richard MacLean Smith, Bec Boey, and others
- Narrated by: Nicola Walker, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Jessie Mei Li, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the not-too-distant future, a 21-member crew launches from Earth. Their mission: to establish a temporary colony on Mars. Little do they know that colony will become permanent–and the last stand of the human race. Because, without warning, every single person left on Earth simply...vanishes. Now, a thousand years later, the resources needed to sustain life are running out, and the very existence of the Mars colony is threatened. Humankind has only one option–to return to its home planet.
-
-
It was ok.
- By Cregg Terasa on 08-06-24
By: Julian Simpson, and others
-
Project Hail Mary
- By: Andy Weir
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
-
-
Bazinga
- By Davidgonzalezsr on 05-04-21
By: Andy Weir
-
Wynonna Earp
- Tales from Purgatory
- By: Emily Andras
- Narrated by: Melanie Scrofano, Tim Rozon, Dom Provost-Chalkley, and others
- Length: 4 hrs
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Saddle up and join Wynonna Earp on an immersive new audio adventure in the gritty supernatural world of Purgatory. This Audible Original invites you deeper into the Weird West to follow Wynonna Earp (Melanie Scrofano), as she embarks on her craziest adventure yet: riding off into the sunset with her soulmate, Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon)—yes ... that Doc Holliday. Brace yourself for more wise-cracking demon hunters, earth-shattering revelations and all the genre-blending action you've come to expect from the cult hit TV series.
-
-
Happy #Earper ☺️
- By Kate Skidmore on 10-17-24
By: Emily Andras
-
Starter Villain
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.
-
-
Volcanic Lairs, Death Rays & Cats… Oh My! 😼
- By C. White on 09-19-23
By: John Scalzi
-
The Martian
- By: Andy Weir
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.
-
-
I love Wil Wheaton but why not R. C. Bray?
- By L. Newman on 01-11-20
By: Andy Weir
-
Constituent Service
- A Third District Story
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Amber Benson
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District–the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself. And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.
-
-
What a silly and sweet quick listen!
- By Geoffrey Christian on 10-08-24
By: John Scalzi
-
Temporal
- By: Julian Simpson, Richard MacLean Smith, Bec Boey, and others
- Narrated by: Nicola Walker, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Jessie Mei Li, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the not-too-distant future, a 21-member crew launches from Earth. Their mission: to establish a temporary colony on Mars. Little do they know that colony will become permanent–and the last stand of the human race. Because, without warning, every single person left on Earth simply...vanishes. Now, a thousand years later, the resources needed to sustain life are running out, and the very existence of the Mars colony is threatened. Humankind has only one option–to return to its home planet.
-
-
It was ok.
- By Cregg Terasa on 08-06-24
By: Julian Simpson, and others
What listeners say about The Player of Games
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Parviainen Tuure
- 04-21-18
Great book, great voice acting!
Great, but some high pitched voice acting was slightly annoying. The book tells the tale of player who gets involved in a game that suprises by its many layers. An timeless classic!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ronan Joseph
- 09-23-16
interesting story with a gripping climax
the story does a great job of engaging the reader throughout, and the narrator really makes it come to life.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hopeypooze
- 06-23-23
great performance
this is probably the third time I've 'read' POG. the protagonist is not very likeable or remarkable. the drones and the minds are way more personable and sympathetic, which is probably the point. the older I get, the harder this book hits.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Jacobus
- 01-03-11
A Worthwhile listen
I thoroughly enjoyed, Peter Kenny's rendition of Iain M. Banks' "The Player of Games." Kenny's interpretation, especially his unbelievable mimicking of different drone-like voices, brought the book to life.
"Consider Phlebas," the first Culture novel where man and machine lives in a symbiotic relationship, is in my view, only an introduction to the background aspects necessary to understand this book.
The main character, Gergey, an over comfortable citizen of the Culture, is given a chance to get his cage rattled by playing the game of his life! But like the mysterious narrator tells you in the beginning, it is a story about a battle that was not a battle and a game that turned out not to be a game.
While going with Gergey on this "rollercoaster ride," experiencing how he comes to life, experience emotions he has never felt before, something at the back of the listener's mind keeps on gnawing at you, "Who is this mysterious narrator?" The book plays its own game with you, the question is, will you win or it.
This book comes highly recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Guillaume de Shanghai
- 06-03-16
Entertaining sci-fi story and world!
This story is set in an intriguing and fascinating world (Culture). It gives exciting perspectives on our own society!
The narrator did a great job, making all the characters vivid through convincing and diverse voices.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael
- 09-02-20
When Online Gaming Gets a Little Tedious...
Life is full of moves, like chess, like cluedo, like a spectacular round of who dunnit. In The Player of Games, Iain Banks gives yet another virtuoso lesson in the art of entertainment and engineering. A beautifully crafted novel which will be around long after you and I are dust in the wind. Peter Kenny's narration is a treat too. Be it Male, female, robot or sadist...he's got it. Worth every minute you invest into it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jefferson
- 03-22-15
"All reality is a game"
In Iain M. Banks' second Culture novel, The Player of Games (1988), a playful narrator tells the story of Jernau Morat Gurgeh, a jaded 60-year old master game player living in the Culture, a vast interstellar civilization that appears to be something of a utopia. If anything can be said to run such a sprawling and creatively anarchic civilization that solved interstellar travel over 11,000 years ago, the Culture is run by its AI "Minds," spaceships that give themselves clever names like Cargo Cult, Little Rascal, So Much for Subtlety, Of Course I Still Love You, Kiss My Ass, and Just Read the Instructions, and range from modest military models to vast habitats accommodating billions of people. Thanks to the Minds and to the Culture's advanced technology and virtually unlimited access to resources, every humanoid or sentient drone living on one of its many worlds, orbitals, or ships can get or make or do or be anything he or she wants, there is no poverty, disease, money, blackmail, crime, or sexual or racial discrimination, people can change genders and safely "gland" (manufacture at will within their own bodies) any drug as often as they like, fatal accidents are rare, life-spans are long (people in their thirties seem like "toddlers" to people in their 100s), information is mostly free, and everyone is theoretically safe and fulfilled.
The problem, then, for Gurgeh is that he is probably the best games player in the Culture, which, when added to the safety and comfort of his milieu, has led to his having become disaffected by games (and life) played without stakes other than prestige. Sure he cares about that and feels that winning is better than sex or any "glanding," but really, according to Chamlis, a 4,000+ year old drone friend of the family, Gurgeh is at heart a gambler, and "a true gambler needs threat of real loss and danger to feel alive." Thus when Chamlis says that the best Minds of the Culture are in Contact, where they tend to operate like gamblers while seeking out and dealing with new civilizations, Gurgeh perks up a bit.
And the main movement of the novel depicts Gurgeh's five-year Contact mission to master a game called Azad as he travels to a far off Empire called Azad to play. The Empire is an interstellar one founded upon obsolete things like exploitation, ownership, domination, competition, military might, media control, sexual discrimination, and basically everything the Culture opposes. And Azad the game is what holds it all together. The game is a complex affair played for weeks if not months with vast, multiple boards consisting of varied types of terrain, partially sentient pieces with minds of their own, resource and other cards, and complex rules and strategies that most Azadians spend their whole lives learning. The Azadians are also wont to wager on the game mutilation and incarceration and such. For the Azadians the game replicates the complexity of reality and is thus the means by which they earn the right to hold high government offices (including emperor). Will Gurgeh be able to learn the game well enough to compete with the locals? And how will playing the game affect his nature as a member of the Culture? And if he does somehow manage to do well, how will the xenophobic Azadians accept it? For that matter, does the Culture want him to fail or succeed? Banks never quite explains the rules in detail, but does depict Gurgeh researching the game, practicing with his Contact spaceship, and eventually playing against Azadian opponents in momentum changing, surprising, and gripping ways.
As in all his Culture novels, here Banks displays a fertile imagination, reveling in creating awesome things like the Fire World, a planet on which an entire ecosystem has evolved around a vast field of fire that traverses the world once a month. As in all his Culture novels, here Banks explores interesting ideas like the ways in which games and languages reflect culture and reality and change your mindset, etc., and the relative values of societies based on competition or cooperation, and so on. Banks is quite good at doing what the best sf does: using fantastic technology and environments and civilizations etc. to explore the way we live right now. He uses the tri-gendered Azad culture, with all its sexual bias, to make us think about our own bi-gendered cultures, and he uses the Culture to make us think about our own competition-driven, success-oriented, resource-wasting, environment-polluting, poverty-exacerbating cultures.
And Banks does all that with a clean, cool prose. A millennia-old drone floats up an elevator shaft instead of using the elevator car with a "geriatric precosity." Gurgeh experiences culture-shock "as though the city, the planet, the whole Empire swirled around him in a frantic spinning tangle of nightmare shapes; a constellation of suffering and anguish, an infernal dance of agony and mutilation." The Emperor absorbs some bad news "At the top of the high tower . . . seemingly locked into the stone like a pale statue or a small tree born of an errant seed. The wind from the east freshened, tugging at the stationary figure's dark clothes and howling around the dark bright castle, tearing at the canopy of swaying cinderbuds with a noise like the sea."
Audiobook reader Peter Kenny does a fine job. I especially enjoyed his drone and ship voices, differentiated so as to evoke their different personalities: avuncular drone Chamlis, snarky American renegade drone Mawhrin-Skel, prissy library drone Flere-Imsaho, Indian warship the Limiting Factor, etc.
Fans of elegant, imaginative, philosophical, and political space-opera flavored by plenty of wit and bite should enjoy The Player of Games.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-28-17
excellent story with an unexpected twist
i was kept in the dark for the whole time not knowing what to expect in the end but indeed wasnt disappointed with the ending. the start of the story is a bit slow but once the motion starts rolling I began to engross into it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Salla
- 11-12-20
Slightly predictable, but definitely entertaining!
The voice acting was absolutely spot on. The book has some slightly sluggish parts, but the voice acting makes up for it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- peter the boat
- 08-14-23
Really good
Great book, really worth having read book 1 tocget to this one.
Much more exciting story and keeps the pace better
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!