"So far, so average." says the narrator about two-thirds into The Player of Games, my first foray into the highly recommended world of Iain M. Banks.
"Yup." I internally nodded to myself. Maybe it was my own fault for reading outlandish sci-fi right on the heels of the immacuately-constructed worlds of Infinite Jest and Post Captain. Maybe nothing could live up to those two giants of awesomeness.
Maybe I was just in the mood to be nit-picky. The book begins in a society called 'The Culture', in which all human needs are provided, humans can 'gland' any emotion or high they desire, and they coexist with sentient droids that have the full rights of people. The main character is Jernau Gurgeh, who is the Culture's most renowned game-player. Whatever game you care to mention, Jernau is the master of it (he's also something of a pompous ass, which makes it tough to sympathize with him, or indeed give a shit about the outcome of his fate- death for many a novel).
Jernau is driven into action after cheating in a game with the assistance of a droid, which then blackmails him (along with physical threats) into a course of action that ends up with Jernau on the other side of the universe, playing a very complex, dangerous game (the rules of which are frustratingly never explained in even the slightest depth) that dominates a primitive society.
Now, I have no problem with imagining societies that don't realistically make sense. Take Star Trek for instance- obviously if transporters really did exist, the society that would erupt from such discoveries would be one vastly different to what is portrayed in the Trekiverse (indeed, it'd be difficult to imagine). However I'm willing to put such fickle transgressions aside in the name of a good story.
However, the Culture's, ah, internal inconsistencies aside, I had two big problems with the opening premise of the book. The first is that if any human society would ever develop droids that were so overwhelmingly powerful that they could threaten humans to do their will, they would also develop safeguards against that happening- however Jernau seems completely and utterly suprised that such an event is occuring- surely it'd be commonplace? Fortunately, this complaint is actually addressed (quite satisfyingly) in the very last line of the novel, which made me very happy, but then opened up a much bigger can of worms, namely that while the Culture appears to offer its citizens complete freedom, it does in fact manipulate its citizens to do its bidding, via byzantine and overly-complex conspiracies- which begs the question: why does it bother?
The second problem is that Jernau is the greatest game player in the known galaxy and yet can't think a way out of a simple game of double-bluff! He seems flustered beyond all understanding by the droid's threats. He's obviously never played a decent hand of poker -or clam, for that matter. After that simple slip-up, any of his claims to brilliance just seemed to further irritate me.
[super nit-pick! Jernau, the greatest authority in gaming in the galaxy, states in one of his essays on gaming that chess 'has no element of chance'. Well, it's got one element. Muh.]
It's certainly well written, which I always enjoy, and there is some thought-provoking (although, by the standards of recent sci-fi, somewhat antiquated) material on what kind of society would be ruled by games, but I think the best review could be summarized by what I said immediately after I finished the book- I put it down, and said: "Done!"
"Any good?" my friend asked.
"Meh."
This is a 
Hmm.
Hmmm.
Hum.
Some authors take a few books to get into. Like Pratchett/Discworld. Player of Games was like the 3rd or 4th one I read so perhaps I had more context, which is why I enjoyed it. The first IMB/Culture book I read was "Use of Weapons which I didn't enjoy so much and think Banks blew it in the last chapter. But I'm not quite so sure I'll think that on a reread after reading all his other culture books. I lend it to you and see what you think.
The thing about the Culture is it raises some interesting questions about how humans could live in a society sufficient advanced that their is little relation to our own. When money has no value because you can get anything, when drugs have no value because you can gland them, and when everything is really taken care by droids and ships so sufficiently advanced that their intelligent exceeds our own. It raises the question of why humans are even needed (a question which is gladly never answers).
It's an interesting concept and the more Banks/Culture books you read the better the universe gets, as each book touches on the universe slightly differently. Some Banks books are terrible but it's worth reading them for the ones that are awesome.
The only other book I have found that does this well is the Dune series by Herbert, which starts off set 10000 in the future and ends it 20000 years in the future, so massively far into the future here is no relation to humans and humans really are aliens. CJ Cherry comes close in many of her books, but she always manages to retain some relation between humans now and humans to be.
Anyway, fair assessment of the book, but try read one or two other before writing off Banks. When you hit the sweet one, you'll thank me for it.
I must admit, I'm with you for a lot of the time when it comes to the Banks/Culture novels. I love the "normal" stuff he's written such as Espedair Street, Crow Road and so on, but the only one the of Culture novels I've enjoyed has been Use of Weapons, which is pretty good.
For a personal preference, though, I find Alastair Reynolds' stuff to be a lot better - Chasm City's a good starting place, as that one is more of a stand-alone, but otherwise start off with Revelation Space, and go from chere.
*there, too.
Complete agree re Reynolds. I read his stuff compulsively.
I've read all of Iain M Banks' books (other than the last 1/4 of The Algebraist which I'm working on) , and half of Ian Banks', and think he's a fantastic writer. As with Adrian I read them in the 'wrong' order although this doesn't matter too much.
They definitely get better as the series progresses - my favourites were Excession, Look to Windward and The Algebraist (which is non-Culture - at the end of the day there's only so much you can do with a "perfect" society in terms of developing a story [notably all of the Culture novels are really about its interaction with other cultures]).
I read very little other SF (other than Clarke and Asimov which Banks easily beats in terms of writing style) so have little to compare it with, but for sheer imagination combined with very clever writing I can't see it being easily beaten.
While on the subject of sci-fi, I also like Peter F Hamilton's stuff, although the Night's Dawn trilogy is a heft-fest.
For a decent taster of his writing, go for either Mindstar Rising (actually his first book, which is kind of impressive) or Pandora's Star, which has some nice funky ideas. Other than that, Fallen Dragon and Misspent Youth are good too.
Oh, and give Richard Morgan a thrash too - Altered Carbon is stunning, as are the other "Takeshi Kovacs" books, "Broken Angels" and "Woken Furies"
I absolutely *love* the Night's Dawn trilogy - it is, as Lyle says, HUGE, but utterly amazing and mindblowing. I borrowed the first two parts, and then couldn't wait for the final part to come out in paperback, so I have a doorstep sized hardback version of it that I got signed and everything.
Well worth the effort.
So much so that I'm almost scared to read his other stuff in case it's disappointing.
Pix, it's not disappointing at all. If you're really into the big-size stuff (and I've got hardbacks of both Neutronium Alchemist AND Naked god, which both weigh about a ton) then I'd say head for Pandora's Star (and the follow-on comes out this month too, so it's no biggie to wait)
The one-offs (Fallen Dragon etc.) are still pretty good - and god knows, he needs the practice at smaller stuff! - and Misspent Youth is also interesting, with some good ideas in it.
Use of Weapons is by far the best Culture novel - the Player is weak. The totality of the Culture novels go some way to explaining the relationship between the people and the Minds
Maybe I'll have to reread that then, as thelast chapter just completely threw me when I read it first.