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pencilled_robin's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
VERY good. Not sure how to rate it but well worth reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Religious bigotry, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Suicide and Blood
Minor: Biphobia, Homophobia, Mental illness, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Medical trauma, and Lesbophobia
astrangewind's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.25
The Player of Games is a slipshod hodge-podge of underdeveloped political and personal philosophy, weak worldbuilding, fetishistic gore, and questionable motivations, all cut up and duct-taped back together into something vaguely resembling a story. If you squint at it from a distance. In the dark. Actually, instead, close your eyes and imagine the book. You’ll have a better time that way.
For every glaring plothole that Banks rushes to plug with weak retconning, another bursts open. For every question I have about the world or the story, ten more appear along with a sloppy answer. This is what happens with an overdesigned world; with so much stuff going on, you can’t satisfactorily answer all the readers’ questions without the story itself taking a backseat. There’s some amount of belief suspension on the part of the reader that’s necessary for reading any fiction. But as an author, it is Banks’s responsibility to make sure there are still stakes for the characters, that everything between the front and back covers is self-consistent. And he fails.
Before Gurgeh arrives on Eä, he’s told that the reigning empire of Azad is this horrible, barbaric, oppressive society; a society in which it’s easy to anger the elite, to offend, to not only make low-risk social mistakes but mistakes that can risk his life. When Gurgeh arrives on the planet, though, it becomes immediately apparent that Banks wanted to have a horribly brutal empire without going through the effort of actually writing one. Gurgeh’s clothes and living quarters are bugged, but he’s told that no one actually cares what he says. Gurgeh isn’t disqualified from the game on the grounds of having Flere-Imsaho (a drone) around, even though parts of the Empire wants him out enough to attempt an assassination. That’s not even accounting for the myriad of minor inconsistencies that crop up throughout the book, even further suggesting that Banks should have fired his editor.
The characters’ motivations don’t make sense, either. The beginning of the book sets up Gurgeh as this disillusioned game-player, looking for something bigger and better, bored of always winning (even though he actually loses to a rando very early on). But that’s not what gets him to go to Azad; Mawhrin-Skel’s threat does, even though there’s no guarantee that by agreeing to go, Mawhrin-Skel would even be reinstated in Special Circumstances . In fact, it surprised me that the threat to his reputation meant anything, because this is only one of two instances where Gurgeh doesn’t approach a situation with anything but cool indifference; the other is when he’s facing death . Mawhrin-Skel’s desire to be reinstated in Special Circumstances might make sense, but all he can get out of Gurgeh is the promise that he’ll try. Contact’s motivations don’t make sense until the very, very end, and even then, barely; they want Gurgeh to go to this new, imperialistic planet - a hugely risky endeavor given that they don’t want to give away any details about the Culture - and play... a game? Even though the whole point was for Flere-Imsaho to assassinate Nicosar, the Culture had no reason to believe that that would dissolve their entire Empire - and it shouldn’t have, if Banks was actually a competent storyteller. And even Nicosar’s motivations - and Azad’s as a whole - are fuzzy. Why would a xenophobic, spacefaring empire accept an alien into the locus of their society and let him get so far as to challenge the emperor ? It just feels lazy.
Not to mention that Gurgeh is an extremely unlikeable character, and it’s genuinely hard to tell if it’s intentional. Gurgeh is every nerdy incel’s dream - women fawn over him (but he’s not gay, ew), he wins every game (except that one where he lost all the way at the beginning), he can be mean to his friends and drones and everything / everyone else with no repercussions except for being regarded as a hero, he is always cool and tactical and never makes mistakes.... He’s annoying, cruel, and experiences exactly zero character development.
Even minor things - the overly-descriptive writing style, the poorly-executed meta-narrator - were frustrating. The whole empire thing was a self-indulgent fetishistic gore fest. It might have been redeemable if the rest of it was any good, but it wasn’t.
The Player of Games, on a metaphorical level, feels like it’s attempting the same thing as The Left Hand of Darkness, but much worse. People writing about a humanoid society with weird gender / sex stuff tend to forget that transgender people exist. Like, oh it’s a society with a third gender!! Imagine if we had one of those, ha ha. Rolling my eyes directly into the back of my head. Must we always associate gender with domination and, consequently, subjugation? Must we refer to changing gender as a “phase”? At least Le Guin’s novel made sense!
To sum it up: this book sucked. The end
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, and Colonisation
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Transphobia, Excrement, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Genocide, Suicide, and Xenophobia
cerebulon's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Classism
Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, and War
acopytopy's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
A descriptive and gripping book for most of its run, this story ends unimpressively. Nevertheless, it boasts a vivid writing style and a hectic range of ideas. Having never read a Culture book before this, I understood the basics of the setting well enough and enjoyed how unique and interesting it was.
That said, I lowered the rating quite a bit because I personally disliked the ending.
The issue with this book is that none of it matters. The Culture is spread throughout the galaxy, but the events of this novel revolve around 1 man and 1 planet. This would be completely fine if the events on Azad were either significant to the Culture or if they had personal significance to Gurgeh. Since there appeared to be little impact on the Culture itself, I expected there to be a deeper impact on Gurgeh's life.
Throughout the book, I wondered who Gurgeh would finally grow to be. He starts out as an unpleasant individual, and his personality and goals are in constant flux as he learns more about life outside the Culture. I expected these few years to change the course of his life dramatically. Would he gain wisdom and become a professor? Would he become paranoid and retreat into the wilderness to avoid drones forever? Would he continue on to do more great things as an official member of Special Circumstances? Would he finally tell his friends or the universe at large that he cheated in a game against a child?
The answer to these questions was disappointing, to say the least. Gurgeh is left in a depressive state after the traumatic events that occurred to him, and the last we see of him, he is left in the exact position he began the story in: standing on the balcony of his home. The only change in lifestyle we are made aware of is that he has finally had sex with the background character he wanted to have sex with. This ending changes from disappointing to outright insulting when afterwards, Mawhrin-Skel directly and flippantly tells the reader that Gurgeh is long dead. What happened after Gurgeh came back from Azad? You don't get to know.
After how much I enjoyed the rest of the book, especially the climax, the ending alone was enough to lower my rating.
That said, I lowered the rating quite a bit because I personally disliked the ending.
Throughout the book, I wondered who Gurgeh would finally grow to be. He starts out as an unpleasant individual, and his personality and goals are in constant flux as he learns more about life outside the Culture. I expected these few years to change the course of his life dramatically. Would he gain wisdom and become a professor? Would he become paranoid and retreat into the wilderness to avoid drones forever? Would he continue on to do more great things as an official member of Special Circumstances? Would he finally tell his friends or the universe at large that he cheated in a game against a child?
The answer to these questions was disappointing, to say the least. Gurgeh is left in a depressive state after the traumatic events that occurred to him, and the last we see of him, he is left in the exact position he began the story in: standing on the balcony of his home. The only change in lifestyle we are made aware of is that he has finally had sex with the background character he wanted to have sex with. This ending changes from disappointing to outright insulting when afterwards, Mawhrin-Skel directly and flippantly tells the reader that Gurgeh is long dead. What happened after Gurgeh came back from Azad? You don't get to know.
After how much I enjoyed the rest of the book, especially the climax, the ending alone was enough to lower my rating.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual content
timpark's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Child abuse and Sexual assault