The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game...a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.

Praise for Iain M. Banks:

"Poetic, humorous, baffling, terrifying, sexy -- the books of Iain M. Banks are all these things and more" -- NME

"An exquisitely riotous tour de force of the imagination which writes its own rules simply for the pleasure of breaking them." -- Time Out

伊恩•M.班克斯 Iain M.Banks （1954— ）：英国著名作家，生于苏格兰，曾就读于斯特林大学，主修英语文学、哲学和心理学。他以伊恩•班克斯为笔名写作主流小说，以伊恩•M.班克斯的笔名写作科幻小说。

一九八四年，班克斯以处女作《捕蜂器》 一举成名。自一九八七年起，他开始涉足科幻小说领域，创作了一系列以“文明”宇宙为背景的太空歌剧小说，反响巨大。《卫报》称其作品为“科幻小说评判的标杆”；赛博朋克宗师威廉•吉布森也盛赞其为科幻小说界的“不可多得的奇才”。《时代》周刊更是称其为“英国同时代作家中最有想像力的小说家。”

二○○八年，《泰晤士报》将班克斯评为一九四五年后英国最优秀的五十位作家之一。