From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

Jerry Brown wrote:

Titus G wrote:

James Nicoll wrote:

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

A gaming adept is used as a weapon against a malevolent empire.

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/burning-it-down

It was Banks that rejuvenated my interest in Science Fiction late last >>century after decades away even though I frequently struggled with his
hard science. His plotting and prose were sublime in his general fiction
as well and the unpleasantness you refer to was usually deliciously
scary, eg The Wasp Factory and

chairmaker.

I found the concept to be close enough to the typically OTT denouement
of an E C Horror comic story that it utterly failed to bother me in
the slightest.

That said, I'm planning a complete reread of Banks' SF at some point,
so maybe my opinion will change this time round.

The deceit of the drone was a
little confusing initially but The Player of Games was one of my many
five star "M" reads.

So far Player is the only Culture novel I've read more than once.

My Science Fiction was winnowed down to Perry Rhodan. Because PR
motivates me to move beyond the German A1 level. One of my projects in
progress is to use Calibre to create PR audio books on the double - a
paragraph spoken in German followed by the same paragraph spoken in
English.

TRANSITION is the only Banks known to me. Some of its characters
arguably parallel political people. For instance, Looney Laura "Larry" Loomer's own sexual predation would make Madame d'Ortolan blush. While
Epstein pedo perp, Beelzebub Bibi brownie Trump Terrific, Troll
Triumphant, is a spitting image of Transitionary Empress Bisquitine:

Bisquitine sat sprawled, unladylike, on a rather grand
couch whose white covering had only recently been
removed. She picked her nose, then inspected the finger
involved, cross-eyed. ...


"Who's a bad boy, then?" they heard Bisquitine say over
the noises of evacuation coming from the young man, her
voice muffled as she hugged his shaking body and they
collapsed together onto the floor. A thick, earthy stink
filled the air. "Who's a bad boy?"

Danke,

--
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