Obsolete Your Idols » culture http://blog.manjusri.org Book Reviews and Blather Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:46:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Your Move http://blog.manjusri.org/2009/04/04/your-move/ http://blog.manjusri.org/2009/04/04/your-move/#comments Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:31:09 +0000 binder http://blog.manjusri.org/?p=148 Continuing my long and successful plan of being the last person to read things, I recently read another Culture novel by Iain Banks, The Player of Games.  This might be my favorite book of his I’ve read and it’s largely because I could understand the central character’s motive, being a game player myself, though on a much smaller scale.

In brief, a champion game player is recruited by a faction within his society to go play a very difficult game with very high stakes and with lots of shenanigans to keep it from getting dull.  The narrative does a good job of raising the stakes and having a rewarding payoff.  Pacing is brisk, the characters are convincingly detailed, and it’s a solid, though somewhat predictable, story.

Things I liked about it

  • Central focus on games and the kind of thinking which goes into playing them
  • Larger than life sweep of events, with a rich futuristic flavor to the setting
  • Devious gambits and duplicity revealed

Things I didn’t like about it

  • The final reveal felt too pat to me
  • Some of the most dramatic events happened outside the scope of narrative

Who might like this book

  • Fans of space opera
  • Fans of the experience of playing games

Who might not like this book

  • No idea.  I suppose such people much exist but I didn’t notice anything offensive here.
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