The Player of Games

That´s Brave new world and 1984 on space opera steroids, one of the best allegories on human culture ever written, described from the point of view of an objective observer of a far higher developed civilization who visits the primitive, cruel, capitalistic, hierarchical bigots. Us in our past, curr......more

UPDATED REVIEW, 2nd read in 2015: even more ingenious the second time around. The Player of Games is taken to the Empire of Azad to play the greatest of games. the game is Azad is the Empire of Azad is the U.S. and the U.K. and all such toxic empires. in a civilized culture, all empires must fall. th......more

Watch my video review by clicking here. A decent read but suffered from a constant feeling of blandness and nothing really captivating at any point.......more

In 1938, Yasunari Kawabata, a future Nobel Prize winner, was assigned by the Mainichi newspaper to cover a Go match between Honinbo Shusai, the top player, and his challenger Kitani Minoru. Go has an importance in Japanese culture that is hard for a Westerner to understand, and was one of the four t......more

My third Culture book, a series of epic space opera about a post-scarcity human society in the far future. If you are not familiar with this series you may want to read this Wikipedia entry first and come back (or not, as you prefer). I love Consider Phlebas but I followed that up with fan favorite......more