The Player of Games

Own and read. Recommended by Eliezer Yudkowsky (see below).
==First read==
===Format===
1989 paperback Orbit edition, 2011 reprint, bought new at Waterstones. 307 pages, 40 lines per page, 27 blank pages. ~11.0 words per line441 words on page 4 according to Notepad++., implying ~123480 words in the book. About 60 characters per line2419 characters on page 4 according to Notepad++., implying ~677320 characters in the book. Taking 350 5.5-character words per page as a standard, this book should be 352 pages.
===Journal===
Bought at Waterstones on May 9th, along with Dragonflight, A Game of Thrones, and The Magician's Apprentice, as I was about to finish Consider Phlebas and wanted to move right on to something, and these leapt out at me from the shelves. I was extremely uninspired by Consider Phlebas, but its appendix showed promise for the future of the series and this was highly recommended, so I'm still interested.
Started reading it after finishing Dragonflight on May 15th.
Timed myself reading 33 pages on the 20th. I lay reading for 58 minutes, seemingly concentrating the whole time, and managed to get to page 200 from 167. So we're talking 1.75 minutes per page, or 1.5 per 'standard' page. Maybe I'll be able to collect data like this in the future...
Finished it on the 25th of May, on the way to Andrew's wedding. It was enjoyable, I could see why Yudkowsky praised the Culture, but the book itself wasn't actually all that amazing. Interesting, sure, worth reading, probably (well definitely if you're not yet enlightened...).
===Rating===
1 (high)
===Reading record===
Previous book: Anne McCaffrey, Dragonflight
Next book: George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
==Ratings, awards, mentions and recommendations==
===Yudkowsky's recommendation===
====Books of future shock====
"So what the heck is this 'Culture' everyone is talking about?", you ask. Well, the Culture is as close as science fiction has ever gotten to describing a real utopia. It's the society SL3 transhumanists would build, given full rein. It's More Fun In the Culture... even if you're exposed to danger while bringing the blessings of civilization to less fortunate societies as part of the do-gooder Contact section... even if you're part of Special Circumstances.
If I had to choose one poster child for the dictum that the technology creates the society, this would be it.
=Links and references=
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Category:Science fiction books
Category:Hard science fiction books
Category:1980s books
Category:Books read in 2012
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