Life in The Culture is idyllic there is no crime, government, money, poverty. Banks has mentioned in interviews that The Culture is a place he would like to live in (who wouldn't in fairness) and conforms to all his left wing ideals. Most of his SF novels revolve around The Culture, an 11,000 year old galactic civilisation, in which humans and sentient machines exist in a symbiotic relationship. This novel is the clearest description of Bank's science fiction cosmology.
Having already read Inversions and Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games was next on my list. I know this book has been published for 25 years, but since Bank's untimely death I have decided to work though his science fiction catalogue. We get a taste of the dystopian Iain Banks and it is not sweet. What at first might be described as Utopian Space Opera becomes more political towards the end of the novel as Gurgeh gets more involved with The Empire and their problematic style of society. In fact this comparison is blatantly obvious in places. The society he inhabits, The Culture, appears relatively speaking to have reached a certain niveau especially when compared to the world he visits for The Games, the latter which I cannot help feeling the author is modelling on our own human race here on Earth, albeit in many ways more technologically advanced than ours. Our hero Gurgeh is a pretty sombre, Been There Done That kind of guy - not easily impressed - his only regret seems to be not having succeeded in forging intimate relationships with certain ladies - yep - know the feeling. It is our wit and imagination that will be rewarded. The idea of a world where games and entertainment play a large role in society is interesting.
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