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Comment by sdenton4 | Hacker News Reader

This is clearly part of DeepMind's long-game plan to achieve world domination through board game mastery. Naming the new algorithm after the book is a real tip of their hand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games

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The abbreviation is PoG too. I bet that was totally on purpose. At least one person in Brain is a dota player, so you better believe they watch twitch.

Funny that most of the comments are about the name. What an excellent choice.

PSA: The "Culture" novels by Iain M Banks are fantastic and can be read in any order. "Player of Games" was the 1st one I read and still probably my favorite.

Player of Games is the second book, and the one I recommend people start The Culture series with.

The first book Consider Phlebas isn't bad, but it isn't as well developed as the rest of the series IMO.

It's a great starting point, since not only is the story both fun and interesting, but it also shows what the Culture's values and methods are in a very satisfying way by juxtaposing them against the Empire through the tournaments of the latter's own game.

Yes! I love this one. It's my favorite too.

I keep hearing recommendations for the Culture books so I tried reading it recently and it just didn't work for me -- I gave up on it halfway through, which is rare for me.

Which one? They each have a unique feel and setting.

Player of Games (thought that was obvious from context).

They are a slow burn, but the ends always justify the means with those novels. If you really did make it 1/2 way, I’d encourage you to go back and finish reserve judgment.

Not going to pick it up again.

My reaction is perhaps summarized by the old quip: "This is not a novel to be lightly tossed aside. It should be thrown with great force.".

It wasn't any one thing but I eventually hit a point where continuing just wasn't worth it for me. There's too much else on my to-read shelf which is less likely to seriously annoy me.

Me too with Consider Phlebas. Then I hit the Alastair Reynolds novels pretty hard and now I'm stuck for new material. Dune is en vogue so perhaps that's the right read next? I really enjoyed Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky but couldn't quite get into A Fire Upon the Deep but it still sits on my shelf taunting me.

> read next?

Stephen R. Donaldson: He's more known for The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but you might prefer The Gap Cycle; it's more typical SF.

Also, the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton. Perhaps Dan Simmons? And of course anything by Charlie Stross.

Pretty amazing book. I wish I could play a board game like that as well.

I second this, it was excellent. I've only read a few Banks books, but this was my favorite.

I started with Consider Phlebas but stopped because it seems too slow for me.

Does it get better in the later chapters?

It does, but IMO it's probably worth reading The Player of Games or Use of Weapons before it anyway. With the exception of perhaps Surface Detail, none of the Culture books rely on any others. Consider Phlebas gives a good view of The Culture from "outside" (the perspective of the Idrians) but is quite slow.

I mean, Player of Games has a pretty slow start too. I love that book, but the initial pacing is IMO its biggest flaw.

I know Use of Weapons doesn't depend on any of the other books for its plot, but is it a decent intro to the setting? If it is, that's where I'd recommend starting.

Yeah, it does take its time to build up, but in my opinion that just lays a stronger foundation for the latter half(-ish) of the book.

Use of Weapons is more than a decent intro, but I'd still personally recommend The Player of Games since it isn't as deep and heavy in comparison, and the narrative structure is simpler.

Of course, YMMV, but I started with TPoG, and reading UoW right after it was absolutely fantastic. I guess my biggest concern with recommending UoW as the starter would be that it might diminish TPoG, which I'm fond of, but I don't know if it actually would, since they're connected pretty much only bound by the setting.

I've read (in order) Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, Use of Weapons, and Excession thus far. Use of Weapons was the toughest one for me to get through so far. I started it and stopped it a few times over several years and just couldn't get past the halfway point. I eventually got over the hump with it and devour the last half of the book over a couple of days (which is fast for me). So for my money, Use of Weapons is a bad starting point.

My favorite by far is Excession but I don't know that I'd start there. I think the payoff of getting a story from the perspective of the Minds is better appreciated after you've heard about them and their capabilities from a distance in the preceding books.

My pick would be to start with Player of Games. That's the one that was a page turner for me nearly from the jump.

If you find Consider Phlebas too slow, try Excession before giving up on Banks.

Eeh, Excession is very good but a still bit hermetic for an introduction to the Culture. It's the only other book I wouldn't recommend as a first along with Consider Phlebas.

Consider Pheblas wasn't the best in my opinion. Player of Games is my favorite, but some of the other later ones are good.

I enjoy the settings and the concept of the Culture more than the plotlines.

The Player of Games is my favourite exactly for the same reason: it explores the Culture in contrast to the Empire, and even the drama is just an expression of the clash between the two structures.

I couldn't get through the cannibal part of Consider Phlebas, was soo weird.

There's one scene or so in each one of his books that's just too much for me. I just don't need to donate brainspace to that sort of thing. (Use of Weapons has one, Song of Stone too.)

I like 80% of his work, 15% is a pointless depressing slog, and the other 5% is just too much for me.

That confirms my decision to abandon reading the series after I hit a spot like that in Player.

Yeah, that was just...out-of-nowhere gruesomeness.

I guess I just took it as another possibility in a society of nearly infinite ones. I did use material from that encounter in running a horror RPG, so in a way I'm kind of thankful for it.

Use of Weapons and Consider Phlebas are the worst of the series IMO. I powered through Consider Phloebus just because I knew people loved the series, but there's really no reason to start there

Personally, I think Use of Weapons is by far the best of the Culture series - although I admit it took a few readings for me to get to that view...

He does a really good job exploring the theme "what is a weapon?"

Yes! And also, "why is a weapon?", "how is a weapon?" and "what isn't a weapon?"

Really, Culture is a great setting for discussing a lot of interesting philosophical questions and topics.

Sacrilege! Taste is subjective, but Use of Weapons, imo, is Banks best work. I personally consider it one of the best SciFi, period. It's been years I last read it, but that ending still gives me shivers whenever I think of it

Use of Weapons is generally considered one of the best, but it has a complex narrative structure that makes it a harder read, and it's probably not a good place to start.

I enjoyed Consider Phlebas a lot, but it is very different from the rest of the series.

I started with Consider Phlebas because I wanted to see why people raved about the Culture series. I found it kind of tedious and slow, and although I finished it, I wondered what all the hype was about. I'm thankful that I picked up the second book though (Player of Games) - because I couldn't put it down; it was fantastic. I've stuck with the series since then (Excession was another highlight). I'd would like to revisit Consider Phlebas at some point, I think I might enjoy it more now that I have more context for the story.

Consider Phlebas is easily the worst of the series. My top 3 in no particular order are Use of Weapons, Player of Games and Excession.

Curious that you put Consider Phlebas behind Matter (my least favorite, by far). My favorite is probably Look to Windward, closely followed by Player of Games and Use of Weapons.

I always imagine the board game as essentially being SM's Civilisation but really, really good in an indescribable way - with some card games inbetween.

I believe Banks himself said that he used to play Civ and took some inspiration from it

Definitely for his later books, but Player of Games came out three years before the first Sid Meier's Civ game.

What cool is that Paradox's Stellaris, a civ-in-space game, definitely takes pages from Ian's Culture series.

"In 2015, two SpaceX autonomous spaceport drone ships—Just Read the Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You—were named after ships in the book, as a posthumous tribute to Banks by Elon Musk"

Shame they didn't go with Pure Big Mad Boat Man.

The end game is pinball and we are the balls.

We are the pins.

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