Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games (1988)

Iain M. Banks

• Scottish writer, born 1954• Writes both SF and mainstream fiction; mainstream

fiction is published without his middle initial• Also writes non-fiction on Scotland, whiskey, science,

and music• Supporter of Scottish independence,

environmentalist, “evangelical atheist”• Had a cameo appearance in Monty Python and the

Holy Grail

Banks on SF and Mainstream Writing

• “I wear two hats: I'm a science fiction and a mainstream writer. And in terms of keeping my writing believable, a lot of it comes down to common sense - having a rough idea of how things really work. But that's the case in all types of writing, not just science fiction. You need to pay attention to the psychology of characters, the way things work in organizations and politics. But certainly, to write science fiction, you need to have an idea of the way science and technology work too.”

• “In my science fiction, I merrily break as many laws as I can get my hands on. Especially faster than light travel - I have my starships going at unfeasibly high speeds. Sometimes I pay no attention whatsoever to what's possible and realistic. It really depends on the novel. This approach to science fiction comes from a general respect for science. And, for me, that's all bound up with being an atheist and a humanist.”

Banks’ SF Writing

• Began writing SF before publishing mainstream novels, but had three mainstream novels published before his SF (thus the presence or absence of the middle initial)

• Often characterized as “space opera”, but Banks does not find this designation belittling - it’s SF that is primarily meant to entertain

• Began The Player of Games in 1979, published it in 1988

• Has also written four SF books outside of the Culture series

The Culture Books

• Consider Phlebas (1987)• The Player of Games (1988)• State of the Art (short stories, 1989)• Use of Weapons (1990)• Excession (1996)• Inversions (1998)• Look to Windward (2000)• Matter (2008)

The Culture

• “The Culture: a functioning, hedonistic utopia with no laws, no monetary system, no exploitation, and spaceships 30 km long” (Culture Shock)

• “an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable”

• Parallel development to Earth, although everything after Consider Phlebas takes place in our future

Excerpts from Iain M. Banks’ 1994 essay, A Few Notes on the Culture

• “The Culture is a group-civilisation formed from seven or eight humanoid species, space-living elements of which established a loose federation approximately nine thousand years ago. The ships and habitats which formed the original alliance required each others' support to pursue and maintain their independence from the political power structures - principally those of mature nation-states and autonomous commercial concerns - they had evolved from.”

• “The Culture, in its history and its on-going form, is an expression of the idea that the nature of space itself determines the type of civilisations which will thrive there.”

• “Essentially, the contention is that our currently dominant power systems cannot long survive in space; beyond a certain technological level a degree of anarchy is arguably inevitable and anyway preferable.”

• “a planned economy can be more productive - and more morally desirable - than one left to market forces.”

• “The Culture, of course, has gone beyond even that, to an economy so much a part of society it is hardly worthy of a separate definition, and which is limited only by imagination, philosophy (and manners), and the idea of minimally wasteful elegance; a kind of galactic ecological awareness allied to a desire to create beauty and goodness.”

• “Artificial intelligence….is not only likely in the future of our species, but probably inevitable (always assuming Homo sapiens avoids destruction).”

• “The future of our species would affect, be affected by and coexist with the future of the AI life-forms we create.”

• “To live in the Culture is to live in a fundamentally rational civilization....The Culture is quite self-consciously rational, sceptical, and materialist.”

• “Philosophically, the Culture accepts, generally, that questions such as 'What is the meaning of life?' are themselves meaningless. The question implies - indeed an answer to it would demand - a moral framework beyond the only moral framework we can comprehend without resorting to superstition (and thus abandoning the moral framework informing - and symbiotic with - language itself).”

• “In summary, we make our own meanings, whether we like it or not.”

• “virtually everyone in the Culture carries the results of genetic manipulation in every cell of their body; it is arguably the most reliable signifier of Culture status.”

• Genetic manipulation such as that present in the Culture “is partly wish-fulfilment, but then the fulfilment of wishes is both one of civilisation's most powerful drives and arguably one of its highest functions; we wish to live longer, we wish to live more comfortably, we wish to live with less anxiety and more enjoyment, less ignorance and more knowledge than our ancestors did.”

• “Contact is the part of the Culture concerned with discovering, cataloguing, investigating, evaluating and - if thought prudent - interacting with other civilisations.”

• “people travel because they can, not because they have to; they could stay at home and appear to travel to exotic places through what we would now call Virtual Reality, or send an information-construct of themselves to a ship or other entity that would do the experiencing for them, and incorporate the memories themselves later.”

• “The Culture doesn't actually have laws; there are, of course, agreed-on forms of behaviour; manners, as mentioned above, but nothing that we would recognise as a legal framework. Not being spoken to, not being invited to parties, finding sarcastic anonymous articles and stories about yourself in the information network; these are the normal forms of manner-enforcement in the Culture.”

• “In a society where material scarcity is unknown and the only real value is sentimental value, there is little motive or opportunity for the sort of action we would class as a crime against property.”

• “Day-to-day life in the Culture varies considerably from place to place, but there is a general stability about it we might find either extremely peaceful or ultimately rather disappointing, depending on our individual temperament. We, after all, are used to living in times of great change; we expect major technological developments and have learned to adapt….In contrast, the Culture builds to last.”

• “In general the Culture doesn't actively encourage immigration; it looks too much like a disguised form of colonialism. Contact's preferred methods are intended to help other civilisations develop their own potential as a whole, and are designed to neither leech away their best and brightest, nor turn such civilisations into miniature versions of the Culture.”

Is the Culture as Perfect as It Seems?

• Contact as traders/missionaries/military intelligence

• Assimilationist policy, and can be dangerous if provoked: “Let’s…show these constipated bonebrains what Culture guys are like when they really put their minds to it”

• For people like Gurgeh, boredom is a constant risk

• Contact uses individualistic people such as Gurgeh as part of its interventionist projects

The Culture vs. the Actual World?

• Some have seen the Culture as what Western societies hope to become - or even see themselves as

• Banks sees the Culture as an alternative to what Western societies actually are

• “Is the Culture’s policy of assimilation an echo of the West’s cultural imperialism? Sort of, yes. Except the Culture doesn’t have its own economic self-interests at heart.”

• Banks’ fictional world is a middle ground between the right-wing leanings of much American SF and the more stridently left-wing leanings of some British SF (especially the New Wave writers)

• Culture as ideal left wing; Empire as ideal right wing?

Banks and Technology

• Images taken from www.fastness.co.uk• Spaceships have AI, even to choosing their own

names (usually something quirky or intimidating)• The Minds that oversee the Culture are ship AIs• Banks described the Minds as “technological gods”

The Ships Mentioned in the Novel

• Clipper Screw Loose• GCU Flexible Demeanour• GCU Just Read The Instructions• GCU Of Course I Still Love You• GOU Limiting Factor• GSV Cargo Cult• GSV Little Rascal• GSV So Much For Subtlety• GSV Unfortunate Conflict Of Evidence• GSV Youthful Indiscretion• LOU Gunboat Diplomat• dROU Zealot• Superlifter Kiss My Ass• Superlifter Prime Mover

Drones

• Drones have humanlike, complex personalities (and are named similarly to humans too) but also have nonhuman appearances

• The story is narrated by a drone - and an unreliable one at that

• The Culture doesn’t usually live on planet surfaces, but usually on artificial platforms, orbiting rings, or starships

Banks’ Views of Technology

• “Technology is neither good nor bad; it’s up to the user. We can’t escape what we are: a technological species. There’s no way back.”

• “humanity can find its own salvation. It doesn't necessarily have to rely on machines. It'll be a bit sad if we did, if it's our only real form of progress. Nevertheless, unless there's some form of catastrophe, we are going to use machines whether we like it or not. This sort of stuff has been going on for decades and mainstream society is beginning to catch up to the implications of artificial intelligence.”

Genetic Engineering

• Culture people can live for about 300 years - and even death is optional

• Limbs can regenerate

• Drug glands: produce various substances with no harmful side-effects

• Ability to change genders

Banks’ Views on Language

• The Culture language, Marain, is an idealized artificial language

• The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: language as influence on thought processes, or vice versa?

• Gaming as a language

The Empire of Azad

• “God, Game, and Empire” – theocracy and meritocracy

• Is it more recognizably close to the actual world than the Culture, and if so, in what ways?

• Eä (the Empire’s homeworld) – reference to Tolkien’s fictional universe?

The Game of Azad

• Social Darwinism: “The strong survive. That’s what life teaches us…what the game shows us.”

• “a battle that is not a battle, and...a game that is not a game.”

• Final round as literal baptism of fire

• Euchronedal – “good time” / “no time” – analogue to “utopia”?

• Origin, Form, Becoming – suggests the game as a master narrative / sacred text

The Game and the Empire

• Hierarchical society, based on gender, race, and merit (in the games)

• Games are designed such that only certain genders (apex) and races (light-skinned) can succeed, but everyone is allowed to participate

• Gurgeh is triply marginalized: a dark-skinned male outsider, but he possesses the necessary skills

Game Theories

• Ludwig Wittgenstein: “family resemblance” – there is no one definition of ‘game’, but rather a series of definitions with common elements

• Roger Caillois (Games and Man, 1957): an activity that is fun, separate from the everyday world, has an uncertain outcome, is non-productive, has rules that don’t apply outside of the game, and is fictitious (takes place in its own reality).

• Chris Crawford: “an interactive, goal-oriented activity, active agents to play against, which any player (including active agents) could interfere with one another, and which is designed to make money for the creator.”

More on Game Theory

• A branch of applied mathematics, also used in logic and semantics, relating to the strategies of interactions between entities

• John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern: Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) (Banks refers to Von Neumann in A Few Notes on the Culture)

• Defines “game” as a situation with a set of players/participants, a set of strategies, and a set of payoffs or goals

• Also applied to evolutionary theory and development of AI - both of which are significant to Banks’ fictional worlds

Gamer Culture

• Relation of Banks’ depiction of gamers to the actual world?

• What types of games and gamers are present?• Influence of Banks on actual-world games and gamers• Game mastery as marker of prestige and/or subject of

academic study• Life as a game• Politics as a game• “All reality is a game....the very fabric of our universe

results directly from the interaction of certain fairly simple rules, and chance....The future is a game; time is one of the rules.”

• Significance of Gurgeh’s middle name - “you should have called yourself… ‘gambler’”

• Position of a gamer in a culture with no inherent challenges

• “The better I do the worse things get because the more I have to lose.”

• “The game’s the thing....The fun is what matters, not the victory.”

The Dark Side of the Empire

More than “just a few venerable game-players, some impressive architecture, and a few glorified night-clubs”

Walter Benjamin, 1940: “There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism”

Art in the Culture (and the Empire)

• Yay’s interest in planetary formations (floating islands, volcanoes, etc.)

• Games as an art form• The “body artist” in the

Empire• Visceral nature of Azadian

entertainment

Propaganda in the Empire (and the Culture)

• Role of the media in creating its own reality (cf. Baudrillard’s simulacrum theory)

• “such is the pervasive nature of the idea of the game within the society that just by believing that, they make it so”

• “They want to have something on you, just in case…you keep surprising them and winning games”

• But: “Where nothing could be authenticated, blackmail became both pointless and impossible”

• “The common people must be remarkably stupid if they believed all this nonsense”

• Who’s been keeping what from whom?

• “our real reality…the official version…that will have documentary evidence to support it”

• “One can be the player, or one can be played upon” - literally

• Violent subjugation of ‘undesirables’, invariably depicted as “incapable of producing high art and genuine civilization”

• “The Emperor had set out to beat not just Gurgeh, but the whole Culture…he had set up his whole side of the game as an Empire, the very image of Azad”

• Gurgeh “remodelled his whole game-plan to reflect the ethos of the Culture militant”

• The true purpose of the game: “you were playing for the Culture, and Nicosar was playing for the Empire….we’d smash the Empire and impose our own order”

• How necessary was Gurgeh’s intervention?

The Narrative Structure and the Narrator

• Double-layered narrative• Differences in narrative tone between introductory

paragraphs (and conclusion) and the main narrative• Clues in the story to the true identity of the narrator?• What effect does the revelation have on the story?• How does the narrator characterize his different

personas?• “I admit I have not hesitated to make it all up”

Banks and Other Writers

• Characterized as “space opera” – or at least neo-traditionalist – but is there influence from the New Wave?

• Common elements with cyberpunk, at least in the treatment of gamers?

• Banks vs. Lem: treatment of academic discourse; use of the contact theme (though in different ways)

• Banks vs. Dick: roles of AI, mixture of serious and light-hearted tones, blurring of the us-them division, undertones of paranoia and questioning of reality, utopia/dystopia scale

• Banks vs. Adams: use of humour (esp. with the names of ships); playful approaches to serious questions; use of traditional SF conventions in innovative and often playful ways