/lit/ - Literature

>be me
>denizen of the Culture
>everyone's a similar shade of brown because of genetic admixture
>can change sex at will in a few months as many times as I like, looking androgynous as the transition progresses
>gender roles are not at all strict anyway
Kill me now, for I've been denied a life in the paradise of brown tomboys and not wageslaving.

On a related note, I finished The Player of Games yesterday and I did like it more than Consider Phlebas, the narrative's a lot more cohesive, it has much less cutting and jumping from moment to moment and new chapters and plot points that weren't at all relevant to the plot, all in favor of a more straight forward story about what happens to a character and why albeit with an unsatisfying ending where nothing explicit is said of Gurgeh's state of mind and feelings aside from him being overwhelmed by emotion in the very last page.
Also one thing that's probably a lie is that Gurgeh was, in some way, groomed by Special Circumstances to be their representative in the game of Azad, since the drone Mawhrin-Skel, who turns out to be Flere-Imsaho in disguise, appears and befriends him months before he first expresses interest to have Contact find him something new and interesting to do; though it's not like Mawhrin-Skel pushed him to cheat before he expressed interest in Contact, and there's no way to know if he was actually groomed in any way.
Still, story aside, the writing is much the same, some dry and matter-of-fact description of what's happening, a metaphor at the end, then one more matter-of-fact description, then a colorful description of the surroundings or something about a character, clothes, thoughts... then rinse and repeat.
I read it years ago so my memory might be flattering, but I remember Against a Dark Background being much better in this regard.

I remember someone from a few threads ago saying that the Culture's interference with other civilizations could have serious negative consequences, and that I would see that in The Player of Games, but I don't think these were negative consequences, so to speak.
There was, indeed, an interference, which led to the fall of Azad the empire, but these were the precisely intended consequences, and the fall of an empire that, for the whole story, was being made to look as tyrannical as possible, sharing many characteristics with current Earth but also being worse, which is only bad I'm that it was an aggression via external interference, but the good (or, less bad) guys won over the bad (the baddest pretty much), even if it meant manipulating Gurgeh, which is, again, bad, but he's the only one being made to unknowingly work for SCs' schemes, while everyone in the empire save for a small elite is working for the emperor who lies to everyone about anything in addition to the discrimination, racism, poverty...
So in the end the Culture's bad, but everyone else's even worse, so it's allright.

>be the most skilled game player out of your entire species
>get blackmailed and used as a pawn to bring down a primitive and less-advanced civilization whose entire culture revolves around a certain game

>>20407944

>>11683321
huh meant this

>>10060191
"The Player of Games" by Iain M. Banks.