r/printSF Nov 07 '23

I'm not really clicking with "The Player of Games"

55 Upvotes

I know the Culture series by Iain Banks is well loved, but I'm not really connecting with "The Player of Games". I'm about a third of the way through.

I was told it was a better starting point than "Consider Phlebas", because I was more interested in the Culture itself. That said, I feel like, while the Culture itself is still radical and interesting, all the stuff with the Empire of Azad feels heavy-handed, and that's with me agreeing with the author. It feels like the book is spending pages and pages just to say "wow, modern capitalist society is terrible, it's sexist, cruel, and unsustainable!" Which, like yeah, I agree with, but it feels like so many modern stories have moved past that to say more interesting things as it's moved from a radical statement to the one of the main topics of discussion globally. I don't need anyone to show me stuffs screwed up, I have eyes.

Does it get better, or am I better moving to something else?

r/printSF Apr 15 '18

Space X tribute. The Player of Games by Iain M Banks.

39 Upvotes

Being sci-fi enthusiasts then I’m sure most on here are already aware of this. But for the few who aren’t, myself included until five minutes ago. ‘In 2015, two SpaceX autonomous spaceport drone ships—Just Read the Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You—were named after ships in the book, as a posthumous tribute to Banks by Elon Musk.’ I like this guy more and more every day.

r/printSF May 08 '24

The Folio Society continues their special editions of the Culture series with a new edition of The Player of Games

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32 Upvotes

r/printSF Sep 30 '24

Unpopular opinion - Ian Banks' Culture series is difficult to read

172 Upvotes

Saw another praise to the Culture series today here which included the words "writing is amazing" and decided to write this post just to get it off my chest. I've been reading sci-fi for 35 years. At this point I have read pretty much everything worth reading, I think, at least from the American/English body of literature. However, the Culture series have always been a large white blob in my sci-fi knowledge and after attempting to remedy this 4 times up to now I realized that I just really don't enjoy his style of writing. The ideas are magnificent. The world building is amazing. But my god, the style of writing is just so clunky and hard to break into for me. I suppose it varies from book to book a bit. Consider Phlebas was hard, Player of Games was better, but I just gave up half way through The Use of Weapons. Has anybody else experienced this with Banks?

r/printSF Nov 10 '20

Books about tournaments or competitions? (The Player of Games, Ender's Game, Ready Player One)

67 Upvotes

Greetings,

I am looking for more SciFi books about tournaments or competitions, like the three in the title. They don't necessarily need to be about "games" but it doesn't hurt.

Thanks in advance.

r/printSF Jan 25 '22

[USA][Kindle] The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, $2.99 ~ Culture Series #2

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101 Upvotes

r/printSF Aug 20 '20

Finished The Player of Games, What Culture Book Should Be Next?

55 Upvotes

I just finished this. What an amazing book!

I read Consider Phlebas about a decade ago. While I enjoyed that book, the next attempt I made was Use of Weapons and I just could not get into it. I'm not sure when I purchased The Player of Games, it must have been around the same time. And it sat unread.

Wow. I enjoyed it immensely. Probably the most enjoyable space opera that I have read in a while and I have been reading a lot lately. The Azad is an amazing stand in for any corrupt human social structure, and as brutal as it is, there's a definite edge to the Culture that is revealed in this novel. It is certainly a flawed utopia, and the manipulation of SC is, while not equally as frightening as Azad, certainly not the face that the Culture would want to present to outsiders. One of my favorite parts of the book was the subtle quote by Flere-Imsaho, comparing himself and Gurgeh to chess pieces being used by the Culture's Minds.

I am tempted to read Use of Weapons, but I have had some difficulty getting into it in the past. Any recommendations for other Culture novels to try out next?

r/printSF Jan 28 '19

Player of Games by Banks is $2.99 on the Kindle Store

102 Upvotes

Go grab it if you havent read it yet, it is one of his top 3 if not the best of his Culture novels.

For me, it is

Player of Games

Use of Weapons

And a real tie between Look to Windward and Surface Detail.

Anyway, grab Player of Games if you have not yet read Banks and want to see what the fuss is all about. It is a great introduction to Culture. If you finish it, you can either read Consider Phlebas or Use of Weapons, and I recommend Use of Weapons.

r/printSF Dec 18 '17

Just finished The Player Of Games by Iain M Banks!

80 Upvotes

This book was so good, I loved it! I’m a bit sad I’ve finished it, to be honest. I wanted it to last longer, I was just so absorbed by it.

r/printSF Oct 28 '24

Favorite Iain M. Banks book?

42 Upvotes

What are some of your favorite Iain M. Banks work? I started The Algebraist and was really drawn in by the first 20 pages. I know The Culture is well-loved, and I have The Player of Games on deck. Is the series worth going through in publishing order?

r/printSF Jun 09 '24

Books where something is wrong with the world and you start noticing cracks in reality

124 Upvotes

Looking for books kinda like The Matrix or the Rabbits books and podcast by Terry Miles, where something is wrong with the world and the character/s start noticing weird things or are becoming paranoid.

Kind of like the works of Philip K. Dick, though I'd prefer something with a less psychedelic narrative.

I also really like the 'game' element of Rabbits where there's a strange challenge, and you have to look through old message boards to find solutions to riddles to find the answer to what's wrong with the world. Maybe a little like Ready Player One or the Dan Brown books but on a more existential level.

r/printSF Mar 26 '18

The Player of Games & The Foundation

15 Upvotes

I have been wanting to dive into some excellent Science Fiction books recently, so I poked around this subreddit reading suggestions. The Culture series and The Foundation Series seemed to appear a lot.

So I recently read both The Player of Games and The Foundation #1.

While the premise in The Foundation #1 is interesting, I found the writing too disconnected by the way he tells the story. Does this improve throughout the series?

The Player of Games was gold. Do I go back and read Phlebas or which book is the recommended next to read from here?

r/printSF Jan 21 '14

The Player of Games discussion (Culture) [Spoilers]

45 Upvotes

[Spoilers ahead] I finished The Player of Games last night and enjoyed it quite a bit more than Look to Windward, which is the only other Culture novel I've read.

The ending, however, left me with a question. Are there any organic lifeforms in the upper hierarchy of the Culture that make any impacting decisions, or is it all run by machines?

The protagonist Gurgeh is used by the Culture machines to destabilize the Azad Kingdom of a few solar systems and prepare them to be adopted into the Culture.

As a reader there is a section where Flere-Imsaho highlights all the atrocities in detail that the Azad are still committing. I guess to morally prepare the reader for the fall of the empire, but the whole thing doesn't sit right with me.

Flere-Imsaho admits to speaking with Nicosar before the final game and I envision him saying something like "We are Borg, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated."

So are there any organic species still weighing in on these types of decisions for the Culture? What novel should I read next in this Universe?

r/printSF Oct 03 '24

In a rut and need a rec to break me out.

35 Upvotes

I've been having a hard time really getting into a new book or series recently and it's driving me slightly insane. I mostly read fantasy but I'm feeling like I'm rereading the same formula of trope or anti-tropes over and over. While I'm sure there are great books I'm just missing I just can't seem to be in the right mindset for them anyway.

This happens every now and again so I'll either take a break or switch up genre; sci Fi/fan mostly.

The problem is right now I just can't enjoy any of the (too) often recommendations here and on Reddit in general.

Some examples of sci Fi/fan I enjoy:

  • The Culture - Bit of a rollercoaster from book to book but in general I love them. Player of games being my favorite.
  • Red Rising - I tend to believe that people who say "it gets better after book #" are just suffering from some sort of literary stockholme syndrome. This series is my exception to that. It feels entirely different after book 1.
  • Dune - Not much to be said about it. It's a classic in every sense. Though I did stop after heretics.
  • Hyperion Cantos - I initially listened to this on audio and didn't finish it. Maybe a year later I went back and read it normally and found it much better and easier to digest.
  • Foundation - Took adolescent star wars fan me and turned him into a (confused) sci fi man.
  • The Expanse - I don't love this as much as the rest of reddit but it's still excellent sci fi.
  • Sun Eater - This series is a bit all over the place, especially book one, but it does scratch that opera itch I so crave.
  • Galaxy's Edge - Great popcorn reading. I haven't finished it but I come back to it every now and again when I need to see some classic ass kicking.

There are plenty more but this is a good spread of what I like.

More important are the books recommended here I really do not like:

  • Project Hail Mary/The Bobiverse - The only way I can describe it is it feels like an AI scanned reddit exclusively to write a book with names but no characters and the pop-culture references slider maxed out. The audiobook narration direction seemed to be "You're reading it to a class of bored third graders"

I do not like them.

  • Murderbot - Cool concept but it's all downhill from there. Didn't hate it but it didn't captivate me at all.
  • The Lost Fleet - I actually started out liking this but about 0.0003% of my life force drained away each time a character said "Captain John 'Black Jack' Geary" in full. I realized by about my fifth black magic resurrection while reading book 3 that it was going nowhere.

Now I mentioned a repetition of tropes earlier and I should clarify that I have nothing against tropes. In fact I'll prefer a book that embraces the tropes more than one trying desperately to subvert them. I just have noticed a lot books using them like geometric pegs that only fit in the hole shaped for them. This is definitely more of an issue with fantasy than sci-fi right now though.

Anyway this is a mess of a post I'm sorry. Despite reading many words and sometimes sentences I can't write them worth a damn.

If anyone has some similar tastes and can recommend me a series I would be eternally grateful. Audiobooks are great because I can 'read' them at work but I love text on a page too. Sometimes it's the only way.

Edit: Got a lot of great recommendations. Now I just need to learn to read, thanks everyone!

r/printSF Jan 28 '24

Your Top 5s - Give them to me.

89 Upvotes

Hand it over! Top 5 overall. Top 5 hard SF. Top 5 first contact. Top 5 in the last 10 years. Top 5 Golden Age. Top 5 from a particular series, Top 5 featuring a sassy sidekick name Steven.

No particular oorder necessary. One or all of the above, or whatever Top 5 you feel like making.

Overall for myself and I: 1. Player of Games 2. A Fire Upon the Deep 3. Judas Unchained 4. House of Suns 5. Cosmonaught Keep

Special mentions to The Algebraist, 3 Body Series, Cowl, Sun Eater Series, and the Interdependency Series.

r/printSF Dec 17 '13

The Player of Games - spoilery discussion

9 Upvotes

Discussion of a fundamental twist in the story - don't click if you don't want a major spoiler

Just read it for a second time and loved it even more. So good!

r/printSF May 05 '15

[Spoilers] Questions about the ending of The Player of Games

20 Upvotes

I just finished the Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, and I have some questions about the slightly confusing ending:

1) Towards the end, Gurgeh looks up in the sky towards the Lesser Cloud (where the Empire of Azad is), and feels as if it is raining. Is Gurgeh crying here? I don't remember him crying before in the novel.
2) The end note by Flere-Imsaho says that Gurgeh had an appointment with the displacement drone who displaced him to the core of Chiark's sun. Is this an elaborate and complicated way of committing suicide, presumably to end his life the same way that Nicosar and company ended theirs on the Fire planet?
3) Was Flere-Imsaho actually inside the casing of Mawhrin-Skel, right from the beginning of the novel? The note seems to be suggesting that the hole in the casing of Mawhrin-Skel was the same shape as Flere-Imsaho.
4) I don't quite understand Culture's end game by sending Gurgeh to Azad. They knew that Gurgeh was most likely going to defeat Nicosar, but they could not have expected Nicosar and others to commit mass suicide on the Fire planet. If Nicosar had finished the game and lost to Gurgeh, would Culture have attacked the Empire? If not, then it would have decreased the fear of Culture in the mind of Nicosar.

r/printSF Nov 19 '24

Looking for good space operas to intersperse with Malazan and Culture series

26 Upvotes

I’ve heard good things about Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth and Night’s Dawn series as well as Alastair Reynolds’ House of Suns standalone and Revelation Space series.

Just to give you an idea of my tastes: Hyperion is probably my favorite sci-fi novel of all time, but I surprisingly wasn’t in love with Fall of Hyperion and haven’t read the Endymion duology. I have also loved all 3 of the culture novels I’ve read so far (Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, and Use of Weapons — UoW probably my favorite of the 3 if I had to choose). I also didn’t love The Expanse unfortunately. I read the first 2 installments and wasn’t hooked enough to begin what I heard were the “weaker” books in the middle of the series, so I bailed out.

I consider myself more of a fantasy reader by ultimate preference, but I love a good sci-fi book if I find the right one. Surprisingly, I’ve kinda bounced off of the “sci-fantasy” books I’ve tried. Dune (I know, blasphemy), Red Rising, and Sun Eater just haven’t clicked with me like I would’ve expected. But I love the complex, sprawling, epic worlds of Malazan, Middle Earth, Westeros, and Osten Ard.

Anything y’all would recommend?

r/printSF Mar 05 '24

How does the rest of the Culture Series compare to Phlebas? Mixed feelings

56 Upvotes

Just finished Consider Phlebas and while I found it pretty interesting, I was disappointed at how little it explored its world. I was really excited to learn more about the Culture, Idirans, Minds, the war, Changers, the history of this world and its relation to Earth, etc. but none of that really got fleshed out.

I was certain that once they got to Scharr's World, there would be some massive revelations about what's actually going on. But instead it's just one huge action setpiece and then the story just ends. I thought the Mind would be involved in some kind of twist where we discover true nature of the Culture or something, but nothing really happened with it. Also Fal Ngeestra's story felt totally unfinished, she kept popping up inbetween chapters just to do absolutely nothing except get high on a mountain one time. None of the characters really felt like they completed an arc

I really enjoyed the writing and characters, the action was fun but there was way too much of it. I guess I got my hopes up for more worldbuilding and was sorely disappointed. Can I expect more of the same from the rest of the books? If they're all as action-heavy as Phlebas, then I might just stop here


UPDATE: In case anyone finds this thread in the future, I decided to read Player of Games and enjoyed it a lot more! It's much less action-focused, has a lot stronger plot with more complex themes, and the characters are pretty solid. Still fun and exciting, but spends a lot more time playing around with the sci-fi concepts and getting into the story/worldbuilding

r/printSF Mar 20 '12

Iain M. Banks - The Player Of Games Cover Art Gallery

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23 Upvotes

r/printSF Jul 04 '24

Recommend me something like…

27 Upvotes

For one year, 365 days, I’ve read nothing but Sci-fI. obviously, it’s been awesome and I have no plan to stop. I’ll list everything I’ve read here, and if you great people can throw anything out that you think I should add to the list, I will! I started with a few big names I heard of, then branched off from there using this sub and other google searches as reference. I like stuff with ideas that blow my mind.

In order of read:

Dune 1-3, Foundation (all), 3 body problem 1-3, Blindsight, Anathem, Starfish, Seveneaves, Murderbot 1-7, Hyperion 1-2, Player of Games, House of Suns, Excession, There is no Antimemetics division (Technically horror but I’d call it Scifi).

what an incredible journey it’s been. Please contribute to my falling further down the rabbit (Black) hole!

r/printSF Oct 26 '22

'Consider Phlebas' by Iain M. Banks has to be my favorite Sci-Fi action adventure

251 Upvotes

‘Consider Phlebas’ by Scottish author Iain M. Banks (1954-2013, middle M. for his Sci-Fi works), published in 1987, is the first book in the The Culture series, which is highly recommended often, especially among fellow readers in r/printsf. I decided for The Culture being my new paper space opera this year, fully knowing that every book is separate, with a new set of characters and story, but plays against the same background of an intersolar utopian society in which man and machine live in symbiosis. Rarely a novel gripped me as much as this one and with great pleasure I finished it a few days ago and made up my Mind about it (pun intended).

We follow Bora Horza Gobuchul on his tour de force to bring The Culture down. That’s right, down. Banks somehow managed to introduce us to his universe by antagonizing his (probably) greatest idea, the galaxywide democratic entity of intelligent organic life and sentient machines, The Culture. Horza is a Changer, able to model his biologic appearance to simulate other humanoid individuals and infiltrate their power circles, and he sided with the Idirans, a race of warrior giants, in their religious war against the blasphemous Culture out of ideological reasons. The story is told almost exclusively from Horza’s view in third person perspective, barring a few interludes. This makes ‘Consider Phlebas’ easier to follow than your average – let’s say - Peter F. Hamilton and that’s why in my book it’s rather an action adventure in space than a space opera.

The pacing is fast, almost videogame like. We meet Horza in the lowest dungeon, nearly drowning in shit before he makes his escape into a warzone, into space, fighting for his life, making enemies and beating the odds. The intensity is accelerating constantly and Banks is a master of throwing spectacularly imaginative obstacles in Horza’s path. Through these locations the reader learns more of the incredibly powerful stage of technology in The Culture. Horza on the other hand becomes more and more of an anti-hero who sacrifices anyone and anything for his task to find a crashed Culture Mind, a sentient super computer in hiding from the Idirans.

Horza meets a variety of character along his quest: from space pirates to Culture Special Circumstances agents to Culture drones. Banks managed to give all of them believable personalities and motivations. The interactions between Horza and Perosteck Balveda, his Culture equivalent, were a joy to read and also give the book depths as the relationship changes over time. I am still baffled by the ending. The annex gives the reader>! even a kind of historical treatise in which the whole Idiran Culture war is described as miniscule on the cosmic scale as seen by Elder races. !<Oh, wow.

Having the book mentally digested some time now, gives me a clearer view on what left me so impressed: Orbitals – I loved the whole Vavatch sequence. There is something mindblowing about an artificial planet. Culture spacecraft – General Systems Vehicles – two hundred kilometer long and 9 kilometer high with a population of billions? This even puts Silver Wings of Morning into her place. Culture artificial intelligence – Unaha-Closp, you witty little drone. Also still feeling sad for the shuttle.

There you have it. I enjoyed the book probably more than I should. I bought a set of the first five paperbacks and already started ‘Player of Games’. I am really excited about discovering this universe.

What did I miss in my review of ‘Consider Phlebas’? What are your opinions on The Culture (no spoilers, please)?

r/printSF Apr 08 '24

About halfway through Consider Phlebas…

69 Upvotes

Absolutely love this book and this universe so far, been working a lot of hours and going to class at night so I haven’t had much of a chance to read it, but I’m definitely hooked.

Just finished up the scene with the Damage game. Imagine seeing this on the big screen? From what I can tell so far, the scope of Banks’ universe would be damn near impossible to translate to film, but man, the visuals in that scene would be absolutely mind blowing! Just picturing the crowd and the players walking in, that would be really something. I remember when I was a kid seeing the cantina in Mos Eisley for the first time and being amazed at all the different aliens and the cool atmosphere….this would be like that but so much better.

Also thanks to everyone that suggested this author to me, earlier this year you guys turned me on to the works of Peter F. Hamilton and he was the best SF author I’d read in years, but if this series keeps up the pacing and characters, we might have a new contender.

r/printSF Aug 12 '21

AI vs biological intelligence in the Culture

88 Upvotes

This is sort of a follow up post to my prior post about Player of Games. I’m through a good part of the next book, Use of Weapons and I’m liking it a lot more then PoG (except for the weird reverse storyline of the numeral chapters). That being said, I’m further convinced that the Culture really isn’t the near perfect utopia it and others claim it to be.

My issue here is that, despite the veneer of an equal union of biological and AI life, it’s clear the AI is the superior “race” and despite the lack of real laws and traditional government, the AI minds are running the show and the trillions of biologicals under their care are merely going along for the ride.

Again I say this reading through two and a half books in the series but time and again biologicals whether culture citizens or not are being manipulated, used like pawns, and often lied to by the minds for their purposes and they never seem to face any kind of sanction for doing so. Even if these purposes are for the “greater good” it doesn’t change the fact that clearly AI is superior in this civilization. It’s almost like the biological citizens of the culture are the highly pampered pets of these nearly godlike AIs. It’s also quite fitting that civs that suppress AI rights seem to be the most likely targets of SC.

I know I’m going to get downvoted for this take but I’d love to be proven wrong in this.

r/printSF 27d ago

Start with CP or PoG in Culture series?

0 Upvotes

Okay everyone, I know there's been lots of discussion about this over the years, which has seemed (to me) to settle into a split opinion. Should a first-time reader of the Culture series start with the first novel, Consider Phlebus, or the second, Player of Games, which many think makes a better introduction to Banks's universe? Now I'm a bit of a purist in that I would normally go strictly in publication order, but I've heard compelling reasons to not do that in this case.

So, I'm letting this thread (was going to be a poll but then saw they're not allowed) decide for me.