CBR Bingo: Play
I read a number of Iain M. Bank’s Culture novels about ten years ago and, while I remember enjoying them thoroughly, for whatever reason, I never ended up finishing the series. They’re technically all standalones, but I didn’t want to jump back in halfway through without having a strong recollection of the previous books, so decided to do a re-read. The Player of Games is technically the second book in the series, but from what I remembered (and from some other opinions I’ve seen online), it’s a gentler introduction to the world than the actual first book, Consider Phlebas.
Gurgeh is a citizen of the Culture—a sort-of far-future post-scarcity spacefaring people consisting of humanoids and sentient robots. He spends his time studying and playing all sorts of games and is considered an expert in his field. After cheating during a game with a young promising student, he is essentially blackmailed into travelling to a far-away distant society, the Empire of Azad, in which they choose their Emperor based on whoever wins a complicated game.
This book was published in 1988, but it doesn’t feel like it. I read a lot of science fiction, and with the older novels, it’s usually really easy for me to tell which decade it was written in. This feels very modern, with very few “tells” that it’s actually an older book. The themes and issues explored feel very relevant in today’s society. For example, the people within the Culture are very gender-fluid and sexually accepting, with treatments available for citizens to biologically change their sex whenever they want to and all forms of sexual pairings between consenting adults being socially acceptable. The Empire of Azad has three genders, with a strict hierarchy and gender roles, and severe capital punishments if sexual mores are violated. The only thing about this that made me think it wouldn’t have been written today is the use of pronouns (Azadian’s of the dominant “third” gender are referred to as “he” as well as the males, whereas I think today’s authors would have written a “they”).
I really enjoy Banks’ writing. While this book is bleak and brutal at times, it’s also frequently funny (Gurgeh’s robot companions are especially great). Gurgeh is a fascinating character—he’s not always likeable, but his journey is compelling to read about.
I haven’t decided which book in this series I’ll be reading next (probably either Consider Phlebas or Excession), but I’m hoping it will be as good as this one.