The Player of Games

By Iain Banks

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Iain M. Banks's 1988 novel, the second published book in his Culture series, follows Jernau Morat Gurgeh, a master of every board and strategy game in the Culture, a society of humans and machines. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the cruel, wealthy Empire of Azad to play its game, which is so complex that the winner becomes emperor. There he faces mockery, blackmail and threats to his life as he learns how deeply the game shapes Azad's society.

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• Mark Zuckerberg
• Lex Fridman
• Elon Musk: “Player of Games is a great book”
• Dario Amodei: “In Iain M. Banks' The Player of Games, the protagonist—a member of a society called the Culture, which is based on principles not unlike those I've laid out here... I think the Culture's values are a winning strategy.”