a book

The Player of Games

Iain M. Banks · 1997 · 309 pages

Gurgeh, a champion game player, travels a hundred thousand light years to the Empire of Azad, where the winner of their complex game becomes emperor.

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recommended by 8 people

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Andrej Karpathy
“This is another example of a popular sci-fi that I simply cannot stand. I forced myself to make it through hundreds of pages thinking that it might get better later but gave up halfway through, at a point where some alien females were described as wearing jewels. I'm sorry, but I cannot accept human-like qualities naively attributed to alien beings, it's one of my greatest pet peeves. This is another one of those sci-fi that are really a vanilla story that _happens_ to take place in the future. It is a story first and a sci-fi second, and I like my books the other way around. I debated between 2/5 and 1/5, but I hated the sheer naivety and childish "little green men on mars"-like ideas in the book so much that I'm going to go with 1/5.”↗
Elon Musk
“@flcnhvy @Kristennetten Possibly Excession, but I’d recommend reading Player of Games & Surface Detail first. They’re all great.”↗
Grimes
“If u follow the trail of clues the story will unravel 📚🧚🏻‍♀️💊🧬 pic.twitter.com/1TL36WB4JE”↗
Demis Hassabis
“Yes agreed, diaspora is amazing, but I think it’s best to read permutation city first. Same with player of games and consider phlebas, although maybe it’s just cos that’s the order I read them in.”↗
Stewart Brand
Lex Fridman
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