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GeekNights Book Club - The Player of Games
Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we discuss Iain M Banks' The Player of Games. If ever there was a novel that was in our wheelhouse, it's this one. We also talk briefly about some of our more recent Kickstarter backings, and enjoy the "that guys" we poked on Reddit after one fifth of our Anime Boston performances.
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The point is that the words game and gamer are applied to such a wide variety of people who engage in a wide variety of activities that often don't have that much in common. But because we use the same vocabulary to refer to all of them, the community tries to falsely group these disparate peoples together as one.
1. Ship names: If I were a mind I'd call myself either 'I told you I was ill' or 'Take my wife...'
2. The Fire Planet inspiration (and others) are detailed in 'Raw Spirit' which is essentially about whisky making in Scotland but he talks about a lot of other stuff.
3. The order of reading. While Scott is generally right that there is no real order to these books and they can be read in any order you like there are two later books that make crucial references to earlier ones. So read 'Look To Windward' and 'Surface Detail' last (maybe Hydrogen Sonata too - I haven't finished it yet)
4. Ultraspace - explained in Excession. Also ship-name-tastic
My favourite Culture novels are,
- Player Of Games
- Excession
- Use Of Weapons
The weakest, I feel, is Consider Phlebas which read like a series of cool sci-fi ideas strung together.
His non-culture sci fi is good too but I hated 'Feersum Endjinn' which has a really annoying way of telling one of the characters stories.
And his contemporary work as Iain Banks is great too. Particularly The Wasp Factory.
No love for Matter? It was a tender book that covered some cool ideas. Had to give up on Consider Phlebas as I found most of the characters rather dull. Picking up The Wasp Factory this afternoon.
It's been a few months since I read Player of Games, but the episode reinforced how much I enjoyed it. Regarding the politics in multiplayer Azad, if I'm remembering it correctly, every game Gurgeh plays before Azad is also a two-player game (or a team game with two teams), so no opportunity for politics. I remember a game with Yay and a few other friends at his home that may have been multiplayer, but I would have to go back and reread that part to be sure.
Despite what Scott says about no order for Culture novels, it's best to read them in kinda-publication order. While events and characters aren't spoiled from one to the next, there are themes that are introduced in some which are better to read before others.
Read Consider Phlebus before Look to Windward.
Read Player of Games right before or after State of the Art.
Read those two before Surface Detail.
Read Surface Detail before The Hydrogen Sonata
Read Excession before The Hydrogen Sonata too.
Matter is my least favourite Culture novel. It's not bad, but compared to the others... meh.
I think the only other at the same level as Player of Games is Use of Weapons.
Anyway, here's some I remember:
GSV For the sake of all that's...
GOU Eat this
GCU Should have seen that coming
ROU Fueled by gravitas
GCV Boo!
GSV I see what you did there
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Culture_series#Guardian_interview
(I am waiting until I read the book to listen to the show so apologies if any of the following is redundant to what Rym and Scott have said.)
I'm now reading Hydrogen Sonata which is a much smoother novel, probably because he has had so much more time to live in the universe he created. What I liked in Phlebas was that the Minds weren't the focus of the story like the Changer was. What I like in Sonata is that the Minds are so much more the focus of the story (also they're very funny). That's good writing.
I really, really, really love the fact that these are all stand alone novels. It makes me want to read the series so much more because I know I'll get a complete story from each book and yet I also get what I like from a series -- a universe that is really interesting and challenging.
I am in awe of Bank's mastery of hard science. I haven't enjoyed hard science fiction this much since I was reading Hal Clement as a teen. Actually I am just in awe of Banks and now very aware of how much we lost when he died.
My culture ship name: You're kidding, right?
1. Player of Games. Probably the best introduction to the Culture, laying out Contact and Special Circumstances and all the rest. Viewpoint: normal culture citizen.
2. Consider Phlebas. The war in this is the main threat threat the culture experiences at its own level. It's also the first book chronologically, so it makes sense to go near the start. Viewpoint: outside enemy.
3. Excession. The best introductions to ships. While there are human-level characters, it's really all about the ships. It's also super fun! You need a break after some of the heavier books.
4. Use of Weapons. Really heavy stuff, showing how war isn't all about ship minds having fun. Viewpoint: outsider being used by Contact and SC.
5. The State of the Art. Once the Culture has been established, it's good to see where the Earth fits in with it. We also get to see more of Diziet Sma. Viewpoint: Culture insider looking at Earth.
6. Inversions. A Culture novel without any character knowing about the Culture. This fits well with State of the Art, as you can imagine what it would be like for someone on Earth to be in the same situation.
7. Matter. This is probably the most "minor" Culture book in the series, in my opinion. It's okay, and that's about it. At least after Inversions it'll get you back into the swing of spending time with ships and drones.
8. Surface Detail. The first on the list of three "death and afterlife" Culture novels. This shows "man's" attempt at creating an afterlife.
9. The Hydrogen Sonata. This shows the "science" of a true kind of afterlife on a civilization level, with much talk of subliming, or not subliming, and what life actually means when faced with something better after death.
10. Look to Windward. This is quite out of sequence chronologically and by publishing date, but could be the best way to finish off the series. While the viewpoint is from an alien visiting the Culture, most of the action takes place within it, rather than outside it (like most of the other novels). It also goes well with Consider Phlebas, so it's good to have them topping (almost) and tailing this list. Finally it rounds out the mini-series about what happens after death... but I don't want to spoil it.
What do you think of that then?
SFBRP #202
Use of Weapons is probably the most pointed and poignant to me.
Look to Windward is my second favorite in terms of personal enjoyment.
Yay, her job, and the friendship of Gurgeh and Chamlis are super interesting.
Also I found this and have no idea what it came from:
Apart from that (and Consider, which I enjoyed), (so far) the rest of the series has been more of a slog. I absolutely enjoy the Minds and the worlds and potential built of techno-candy. But despite Being So Different TM, (many of) the human characters feel cheap -- single dimensional (mostly petulant) and static vehicles for plot. The woman 40 years pregnant with the Excessive detailed descriptions of her pregnancy-centric introspections and means of mutual impregnation, followed by lesbian love scene setup: distracting, annoying. Use of Weapons didn't cohere well and failed to really develop a sense of tragedy. I'm left wanting more of the skeleton characters, and less of the fleshed out ones.
tl;dr -- Despite top notch world-building, Banks' best characters are the ones sparsely written. Caveat, I am halfway through the series.
ship name: the LCU Necessarily Complicated