A 2012 World Book Night selection.

Bored with success, Gurgeh - The Player of Games - travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game. This is a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor.

Comparison: David Wingrove
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Synopsis

A 2012 World Book Night selection.

The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game...a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.

Reviews

'Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth'
The New York Review of Science Fiction

'Poetic, humorous, baffling, terrifying, sexy - the books of Iain M. Banks are all these things and more'
NME

About the Author

Iain M. Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, in 1984. He has since gained enormous popular and critical acclaim for both his mainstream (published under the name Iain Banks) and his science fiction novels.   Maxim Jakubowski's view on MATTER... Banks’ Culture series, of which this the latest instalment, is space opera at its exuberant best: adventures and conflicts on a galactic scale, alien races by the dozen, non-stop action, a gallery of sharply-edged characters in search of the truth and racing against time. All the ingredients are perfectly stirred to provide first class entertainment and science fiction at its most stirring. Makes STAR WARS look simplistic. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation