The Player of Games
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The Player of Games is a science fiction novel by Iain M. Banks, and the second published to feature The Culture, his fictional utopian society. It is widely considered the most immediately accessible of the Culture books, and is therefore perhaps a better introduction to the sequence than the earlier Consider Phlebas.
Jernau Morat Gurgeh, a master gamesplayer from the Culture, is bored with life. The Culture's Special Circumstances section suggests that he goes to participate in a games tournament in an alien civilisation, the Empire of Azad, where a complex game (also named Azad) is used to determine social rank and political status. The game itself is sufficiently subtle that a player's tactics come to reflect their own political and philosophical outlook. As he plays successively more powerful Azad politicians, Gurgeh ultimately plays for the position of Emperor of Azad. Belatedly, he discovers that his participation is essentially as part of Culture plot to overthrow the corrupt and savage Empire, and that he, the player, was in fact a pawn in a larger game.