
The Player of Games
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Narrated by:
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Peter Kenny
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By:
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Iain M. Banks
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.
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Worlds of Exile and Illusion
- Three Complete Novels of the Hainish Series in One Volume—Rocannon's World; Planet of Exile; City of Illusions
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Three remarkable journeys into the stars: Worlds of Exile and Illusion includes Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions. These three spacefaring adventures mark the beginning of grand master Ursula K. Le Guin’s remarkable career. Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s groundbreaking classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these first three books of the celebrated Hainish series follow travelers of many worlds and civilizations in the depths of space.
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Well and Beautifully Told
- By K.E.H. on 04-07-25
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A Fire Upon the Deep
- By: Vernor Vinge
- Narrated by: Peter Larkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.
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What a wild, wacky, awesome book!
- By Noah Smith on 06-20-10
By: Vernor Vinge
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Anathem
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, and others
- Length: 32 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community.
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I love Neal, but Good lord... ugh!
- By SpiderGrrl on 10-08-19
By: Neal Stephenson
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Espedair Street
- By: Iain Banks
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Daniel Weir used to be a famous - not to say infamous - rock star. Maybe still is. At thirty-one he has been both a brilliant failure and a dull success. He's made a lot of mistakes that have paid off and a lot of smart moves he'll regret forever (however long that turns out to be). Daniel Weir has gone from rags to riches and back, and managed to hold onto them both, though not much else. His friends all seem to be dead, fed up with him or just disgusted - and who can blame them? And now Daniel Weir is all alone.
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Almost really really great
- By David Shear on 01-28-14
By: Iain Banks
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Saturn's Children
- By: Charles Stross
- Narrated by: Bianca Amato
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In Saturn's Children, Freya is an obsolete android concubine in a society where humans haven't existed for hundreds of years. A rigid caste system keeps the Aristos, a vindictive group of humanoids, well in control of the lower, slave-chipped classes. So when Freya offends one particularly nasty Aristo, she's forced to take a dangerous courier job off-planet.
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If you know it's erotica beforehand, it might help
- By Christopher Murphy on 02-23-15
By: Charles Stross
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Zodiac
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Ax Norman
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Sangamon Taylor's a New Age Sam Spade who sports a wet suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt from the can to Scotch on the rocks. He knows about chemical sludge the way he knows about evil - all too intimately. And the toxic trail he follows leads to some high and foul places. Before long, Taylor's house is bombed, his every move followed, he's adopted by reservation Indians, moves onto the FBI's most wanted list, makes up with his girlfriend, and plays a starring role in the near-assassination of a presidential candidate.
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kinda meh
- By L P SCHUTT JR on 05-14-20
By: Neal Stephenson
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Neuromancer
- By: William Gibson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty years ago, it was as if someone turned on a light. The future blazed into existence with each deliberate word that William Gibson laid down. The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer didn't just explode onto the science fiction scene - it permeated into the collective consciousness, culture, science, and technology.Today, there is only one science fiction masterpiece to thank for the term "cyberpunk," for easing the way into the information age and Internet society.
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Story? Classic. Narrator? Ugh.
- By Sage on 11-11-14
By: William Gibson
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Legacy
- A Prequel to Eon
- By: Greg Bear
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In this prequel to Eon, Greg Bear continues to explore the possibilities presented by the asteroid Thistledown, a remnant of a lost human civilization. The Way is a tunnel through space and time that leads to other worlds, some more like planet Earth than Earth itself. It is perhaps the most formidable discovery in Thistledown and with it come disputes as to the nature of the Way and how it should be used. The Way can be reached only through Axis City, the only space station of Thistledown.
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Barely related to Eon and Eternity
- By David A. Kingston on 02-21-15
By: Greg Bear
Philosophical clash of paradigms and epistomology
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The narration was fantastic, read at a fairly fast pace but not hard to follow. Kenny adjusts his voice in subtle ways to suggest different people, but does not treat it like an audio play. It felt like a book being expertly read to me. While I have recently grown to appreciate other narration styles, this is just the kind of experience I originally joined Audible for.
I'm disappointed to see that not all of the Culture books are available on Audible, but I'll listen to the ones I can, particularly if they are narrated by Peter Kenny.
Great intro to Iain Banks' Culture novels
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The Culture is a vast, technically advanced civilization where great machine minds keep most of the human populace living in liberty and high luxury. With all their needs provided for, the people of the Culture spend a great deal of their time in research, art, and recreation. However, a small number join "Contact," the Culture organization responsible for engaging with other civilizations and trying to peacefully share the Culture's values with them. Occasionally, Contact encounters a civilization which is either dangerously hostile or so backwards that direct engagement with the Culture could be calamitous for their less advanced neighbors. These are "Special Circumstances," and the SC group handles them.
The Azadians are indeed a backward civilization by the Culture's standards; aggressive, repressive, brutal imperialists subjugating every world they encounter. But their Empire is ordered according to the intricately complicated game of Azad. Hence SC decides the best approach might be to send in one of their top gamers... Only in the Culture, no one can be forced to do anything, and their best candidate doesn't seem to be interested.
Peter Kenny does a fantastic job voicing the characters and smoothly moving the story along.
Great story, superbly narrated
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Fantastic story read by wonderful actor
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Culture at its finest
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Brilliant.
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Excellent story, highly recommended
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The writing, particularly in the final third, is technically excellent and manages to be at once pithy and flowery. The performance of the voice actor is outstanding, with only a slight gripe being the chosen accent for a major group of characters.
Overall, I would highly recommend The Player of Games to any sci-fi fan who enjoys political intrigue, social commentary, and imaginative scenery.
Sci-Fi at its Best
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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.
A great book
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A minor issue, being purely aesthetic, is that I did not agree with the voice acting at times.
Great story. Good narration.
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