The Player of Games Audiobook By Iain M. Banks cover art

The Player of Games

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The Player of Games

By: Iain M. Banks
Narrated by: Peter Kenny
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About this listen

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.

©2008 Iain M. Banks (P)2011 Hachette Audio
Adventure Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera Space
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Critic reviews

"Poetic, humorous, baffling, terrifying, sexy - the books of Iain M. Banks are all these things and more." ( NME)
"An exquisitely riotous tour de force of the imagination which writes its own rules simply for the pleasure of breaking them." ( Time Out)

What listeners say about The Player of Games

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    5 out of 5 stars

A great book

Any additional comments?

I would strongly suggest reading the series from start to finish. This one, however, is one of the highlights on the journey. Masterfully crafted. Beautifully written. Wonderful characters. Cutting social commentary. Brutally honest.

RIP Mr. Banks. This book has made you immortal.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great story. Good narration.

I have only one major issue with the audio book. The narrator or audio editer happened to skip slightly over an entire page of the book; an entire page was missing from the narration The section beginning with "How did you know where to find us" and ending with "The car arrived minutes later."

A minor issue, being purely aesthetic, is that I did not agree with the voice acting at times.

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great book

really fascinating book, far better in my option than Consider Phlebas from the same series. narration was on point as well.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good movie material!

a tough book to read, needs a vast imagination and a lot of focus, but great work. Love to see it as a motion picture! I plan to listen again in the future :)

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Another Great Success

Brilliantly read and well-written as always. Banks' storytelling continues to impress with elegantly-woven threads of plot.

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great story

narrator is wonderful but takes a bit to get acclimated. The world is food for thought and the ship names are humorous.

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    4 out of 5 stars

Great and deep book, but also a little depressing.

There's deep sci-fi, action, and intrigue, all as you would expect from the Culture series. But the ending is a bit of a downer if you think about it too long.

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Much better then Consider Phlebes

I think this is a much better introductory novel to the culture then the first one. A really great story overall and I'm starting to love the narrator

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brilliant

I can't believe I have gone my entire life without reading this author's work.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting treatment of future post super intelligent society

Solid story and world building imagining what life might look like in the future for the best game player

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