Rating: 
Summary: Certainly a novel SF novel, once you get into it.
Review: Initially I didn't think there was much to the plot, though towards the end I was pretty well hooked. Very well written (I still can't pronounce the names) - a decent book. However, for something completely different from Banks, try "The Wasp Factory". Now there's a REAL book...
Rating: 
Summary: Attempts to impress gae oft agley.
Review: Novels induct us into realms of intellectual games, where we play against authorial fiat and dolorous plot for dramatic satisfaction. "The Player of Games" provides none. We travel with Gurgeh, the monolithically talented practitioner of hundreds of different Culture pastimes, to the Empire of Azad, where a single game of strategy decides the structure, morality, and function of society. The workaday cruelty and lascivious barratry of Azadian natives do not cease to bore the reader, who, if he were searching for ways to extirpate his own moral pulchritude, should read this novel - if only for its punishing torment. The motivations of the lead character remain unclear, the petty machinations of the Culture Special Circumstances Division of Contact are tiresome and hackneyed, and the end, an argument both for and against the ultima ratio regnae, gives little comfort. Thoroughly unworthy of examination, copies should be left to the remainder bin, and mercifully forgotten. Player of Games blots Iain Banks' otherwise good reputation, which rests solidly on his "Use of Weapons" and "Consider Phlebas."
Rating: 
Summary: Predictable, but you don't care
Review: Banks has absolutely topped himself with this totally involving story of the Culture's Gary Kasparov. Special Circumstances once again bribes, connives, manipulates, and blackmails its way into the life of a very likeable Champion of Games to represent the Culture to another civilization whose entire basis for government and order revolve around a game. You won't be surprised at any step of this multi-tiered effort from Banks, but you also won't care; you will keep reading not to get the final score, but to see how the characters interract.
Rating:
Summary: Read Bank's books ASAP, but in what order?
Review: I've read all but Bank's short story collection and all have been good. Of the SF books, start with Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons, which really bring out the darker, meaner Banks, and then go with Player of Games for light ?! relief. I really enjoyed the earlier "Culture" novels and in Player of Games found the Empire very credible. I'm sure that any resemblance to Earth is totally in my own mind. Player of Games is one of the first books where the deviousness of the Culture Minds really begins to come to the fore, whilst basing the story around an all too human games player. It's a near perfect balance, especially compared to Excession where the shift to the non-human elements makes us care less about the final outcome. I've only read Player of Games five times so far, so it's got plenty of mileage left!
Rating:
Summary: brilliant!
Review: Banks does it again! Another superb book, read it! I have ALL his Sci-Fi, and am about to purchase his "straight" fiction - thought from reviews, it is anything but straight! - on the grounds that even if its only half as good as his sci-fi it will still be brilliant!
Rating:
Summary: The Player of Games, Pawn or Queen?
Review: This is the second of Banks' books set within the Culture. We were introduced to this hedonistic but distinctly moral society in his first venture into science fiction, `Consider Phlebus'. The Culture is an extremely advanced technological society where within limits, everyone is able to have the lifestyle of their chosing. With a productive capacity far above needs of even the most avaricious citizen, this presented as a sort of utopia for the humans and artificial intelligences who live within it.
The main character Jurneau Morat Gurgeh is a man ill at ease with his surroundings. As a rare example of a famous individual in a civilization which eschews fame. Having reached the pinnacle of achievement in his chosen field, game playing, he is bored and looking for new challanges. After being contacted by the shadowy military arm of the culture, special circumstances he is introduced to the game of Azad.
Azad is the lynch pin which holds together the empire of the same name. Immediately entanced by the game, Gurgeh agrees to undertake the lengthy trip to take part in the grand series of games within the empire.
Most of the rest of the book is taken up with Gurgeh's stay within the empire. Azad is a distortion of all the worst features of our own western civilization. For instance Gurgeh upon arrival with the empire is submerged in a media storm complete with paparazzi. An intriguing difference is that the population of the empire is made of three sexes. Male, Female and Apex.
Banks' uses this division well to highlight the roles forced upon those in capitalist society by the ruling class (here represented by the apexes). Females are forced into marriage in order to survive whilst males are in turn cannon fodder for the armed forces. This is of course a gross generalisation, but it does appear to reflect Banks' own preference for a planned economy.
All through this well written and entertaining book you are left wondering who is playing with whom. Gurgeh may be the player of games, but has he in turn been played upon by the Culture to undertake this journey. Or if the truth be known is the empire playing its own subtle game with the Culture. I found this tale extremely satisfying and I consider it probably the finest piece of Culture lore that Banks has yet produced. The empire is particularly well drawn. I whole heartedly recommend it to any one who is interested in Banks
Rating:
Summary: An emphasis on the Player, not the Game
Review: Gurgeh is the greatest Player of Games in the recent history of the Culture. As all undisputed champions of passtimes, he feels threatened (yet intrigue) by the potential of defeat and the emotions it brings. His own world cannot offer him such experiences and he ventures to the Empire of Azad to prove his supremacy as a tactician. In Azad, Gurgeh sees a media-driven decadent world (could this be our world??), and is rightfully appalled; a far cry from the world to which he owes his own existence.
Banks writes 'smart'. He understands his readers. As a reader, we are consumed in the strategy and tactics of each of Gurgeh's games, yet we are never bored by the intricate detail of the games' rules, dimensions (which are multiple), and/or confines. Furthermore, Banks educates us as to formal etiquette and the finer social graces - a fitting backdrop for the sportsmanship of a true champion. A truely excellent read.
Rating:
Summary: Far better than the typical good science fiction novel
Review: Iain M. Banks's Player of Games is not _quite_ as good as his Use of Weapons, or Consider Phlebas. But it is plenty good. Jerneu Morat Gurgeh is a professional game player in the "Culture", a tremendously rich, hedonistic, and libertarian galaxy-spanning civilization whose borders are watched over by its "Contact" and its "Special Circumstances" arms. Gurgeh travels outside the Culture to play a complicated series of games. But who is the "player of games"? Is it Gurgeh? Is it a "belligerent, unstable" sentient robot named Mawhrin-Skell? Or is it the more-than-artificially-intelligent Minds that guide the policy of Special Circumstances?
The one flaw in Player of Games is that the Culture's potential opponent--the Empire of Azad in the Lesser Magellenic Cloud--is too close to being a cardboard bad guy. But Iain M. Banks is incapable of writing one-dimensional characters or a one-dimensional civilization.
Rating:
Summary: a fictional story goes true
Review: I'm Russian, so English isn't my native language, but I've been always keen of reading and especially of reading of best books ever written. I heard about Iain Banks via my pen pal from the US and the same man have sent me several books by the author. I read many books in English before as well as many other books upon finishing all Banks novel, and I have to say that "The Player of Games" proves to be one of the better writings I ever read - be that fiction or non-fiction; I enjoyed both the plot (always multi-layered intrigue and full of vivid plausible emotions) and the language of the book itself - Iain Banks sure is charismatic narrator and his written language is one of the best I happened to come across durig my reading career. And I have a special story for you - my friend, Alexei Chizhoff, is 7 times World Champion in checkers game
(also known as "draughts"). Last time he was leaving for another World Championship match I handed him Banks' "The Player of Games" novel; he has won that match in hard battle, and upon arrival to home city he has told me that the novel was the thing what has helped him to gain the spirit and the inner strenght to overcome his rival as the main character of the novel consequentaly went thru various stages of the game which resembled real situations (and all the real tensions) pretty much. So, since that time my 7 times World Champion friend became avid fan of Iain Banks - I wish you to discover this very book and the author to yourself, too.
Rating:
Summary: I want to play that game
Review: Seriously a deceptive title, but the scope of the story is impressive. I really like the contrast between the culture utopian culture society and the savage primodial world has strong parallels with our own. I found the story quite profound and enjoyable, with good development and imagination, again a cleverly written story with twists and uncertainty, to be expected of Banks.
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