The Player of Games, Iain M Banks
(The cover of my edition is much nicer than this orange ugliness.)
What happens when an outsider plays a game designed to reflect life in an alien empire? Are games, like language, a reflection of our values and assumptions?
This is another fun sci-fi story from Banks. No real twist, not a lot of character development, but a steady pace and lots of detail about both the Culture and the Azad way of life. As with Consider Phlebas, there’s no good guy/bad guy or a moral to the story, just shades of grey and some pithy observations about what happens when there’s a clash of cultures.
I loved the drone Flere-Imsaho and really enjoyed the night on the town with the ambassador Za. The game sequences were interesting, and I thought they were better for being revealed in terms of strategy rather than as detailed lists of pieces and moves. It let me use my own imagination to see the board and pieces. The Emperor’s actions at the end were surprising but made sense in hindsight.
I’ll definitely be following up with the rest of the Culture series.
