firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
firecat (attention machine in need of calibration) ([personal profile] firecat) wrote2005-12-07 09:43 am

A good read

As a result of the many recommendations in this thread for Iain M. Banks, specifically The Player of Games, I ordered it from the library.

I devoured it in several days, and would have taken less time about it if not for the deadline on the book I'm writing.

Some of the folks who recommended the book are game-players. I'm not and in fact I dislike most games. So that The Player of Games can appeal to both me and them seems like a pretty impressive achievement.

I see from re-reading the thread that he's written other books in this universe. I'm looking forward to reading them.
sev: (closeup)

[personal profile] sev 2005-12-07 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
I like a lot of Ian Banks, but Player of Games is one of my least-favorites in that universe. I'm interested to hear what you think of the others.

[identity profile] flippac.livejournal.com 2005-12-07 10:03 pm (UTC)(link)
The bits I like are mostly on account of my being a gamer. Most of the rest is better explored in the rest of the series.

[identity profile] epi-lj.livejournal.com 2005-12-07 07:20 pm (UTC)(link)
I enjoyed, "The Wasp Factory," a lot, but have not even managed to get past Chapter 1 of anything else of his that I've read. I'll have to check that one out and see what I think of it.
ext_15095: (Default)

[identity profile] neongraal.livejournal.com 2005-12-07 08:15 pm (UTC)(link)
From memory "The Wasp Factory" is one of his "Iain Banks" books, which are literary as opposed to his "Iani M Banks" books which are sci-fi and generally set in or around "The Culture"

[identity profile] epi-lj.livejournal.com 2005-12-07 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)
That's correct. I've never read any of his sci-fi books.
ext_481: origami crane (Default)

The Player of Games

[identity profile] pir-anha.livejournal.com 2005-12-07 07:30 pm (UTC)(link)
yeah, i was wondering about that after i recommended it. it's hard for me to tell because i do enjoy some kinds of game playing, though not in the way that i'd add it to my self-definition.

glad you liked it!