A stunning new reissue edition of the second Culture novel from Iain M. Banks - one of the most important and influential writers in modern science fiction.



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.



Praise for the Culture series:



'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday



'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian



'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman



'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph 



The Culture series:

Consider Phlebas

The Player of Games

Use of Weapons

Excession

Inversions

Look to Windward

Matter

Surface Detail

The Hydrogen Sonata

The State of the Art



Other books by Iain M. Banks:

Against a Dark Background

Feersum Endjinn

The Algebraist



Also now available: 

The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.