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Paperback
Master gamer plays life-or-death game where winning means power.

The Player Of Games

a culture novel

$24.64

  • Paperback

    400 pages

  • Release Date

    25 March 2024

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Summary

Master of Games: A Culture Novel

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.

‘Banks is a phenomenon’ William Gibson

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.

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

‘Banks’s sci-fi, at its best, is staggeringly inventive, beautifully written, dramatic and often very funny. His stories are packed with ideas, warships with minds very much of their own, alien races, charismatic drones and intergalactic politicsNew Scientist

‘Jam-packed with extraordinary invention’ Scotsman

‘Compulsive reading’ Sunday Telegraph

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

Also now available:

The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks’ Culture series of novels in incredible detail.

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780356521640
ISBN-10:0356521648
Series:Culture
Author:Iain M. Banks
Publisher:Little, Brown Book Group
Imprint:Orbit
Format:Paperback
Number of Pages:400
Release Date:25 March 2024
Weight:273g
Dimensions:196mm x 128mm x 32mm
What They're Saying

Critics Review

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 *

About The Author

Iain M. Banks

Iain Banks (1954-2013) came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, was published under the name Iain M. Banks in 1987 and began his celebrated ten-book Culture series. He is acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation.

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