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The Player of Games
- Culture Series, Book 2
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
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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
What the critics say
'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson
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What listeners say about The Player of Games
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Ryan Seymour
- 2021-10-12
Unbelievably good
I slept on this book for quite a while, but Player of Games is hands down the best science fiction story I've experienced in a very long time.
The world building and storytelling are both incredible, but what really hooked me was the authors ability to describe the protagonists complex actions in a game that doesn't exist.
But to focus on any one part of this story would be to do the work as a whole an injustice. Don't make the same mistake I did, give this book a shot, it really has to be experienced to be believed.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2021-07-03
So good.
Story is excellent, detailed, very sci fi yet descriptive enough to picture even the scenes of worlds literally out of this world. Character is very well constructed and interestingly to be likeable.
The narrator is on point, and elegantly switches between with the different tones for the different characters.
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- Shesophist
- 2019-02-23
Great fun
-1 stars to performance for some garbled sections. could be my Bluetooth but I replayed and still garbled.
Very enjoyable novel, that doesn't rely too heavily on violence, but rather on playing the galaxy's craziest board game! the twists aren't all that unexpected, but it's an enjoyable ride throughout
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- subprimefree
- 2022-07-16
Unlikeable characters
I struggled to finish, as the characters pursued uninteresting values and were uninspiring and dull.
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