#58 in Science fiction
The Player of Games
- 320
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
- Tähtivaeltaja Award
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Our view
The second Culture novel gathers force as it goes: some readers find it takes a while to get going, but it tightens around a vast game that Banks makes feel intricate without explaining every rule. The contest becomes a way of examining a society very unlike ours. It has served some readers well as a first Culture novel; others find the tone uneven between the game’s intrigues and the rest of the story.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Player of Games is a 1988 science-fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks. It was the second-published Culture novel.
Reading order · Culture series
Full order & progress →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.5 across 818 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 85% of the weight and the score stays at 8.4 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.5 | 83 | 10% |
| Hardcover | 8.5 | 735 | 90% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Player of Games?
It has 320 pages — shorter than 76% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Science fiction — and a score of 8.4, the closest to this book.
