Israel continues to operate with impunity in what seems to be a brutal and protracted experiment, while much of the world looks on, says RAMZY BAROUD
The Players of Games
The links between interventionist wars and game theory
A new report by Amnesty International pulls no punches in highlighting the Labour government’s human rights violations of those on benefits, says Dr DYLAN MURPHY
With Reform UK surging and Labour determined not to offer anything different from the status quo, a clear opportunity opens for the left, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
A recent Immigration Summit heard from Lord Alf Dubs, who fled the Nazis to Britain as a child. JAYDEE SEAFORTH reports on his message that we need to increase public empathy with desperate people seeking asylum
By sticking together, working collectively and building the union, we can weather any uncertainty ahead, writes general secretary of Usdaw PADDY LILLIS
The announcement of a Women’s Justice Board should be cautiously welcomed, writes SABINA PRICE, but we need to see a recognition that our prison system is in crisis and disproportionately punishes some of the most vulnerable people in society
Cuba Solidarity Campaign secretary BERNARD REGAN says the inhuman blockade of Cuba not only continues, but the Donald Trump administration is ratcheting up aggression against both Havana and Latin America more widely
IN Iain M Banks’s sci-fi novel The Player of Games, one of the best game players in the galaxy, Gurgeh, is sent to play a fiendishly complex game called “Azad” on an alien planet.
Azad is played on a vast three-dimensional board with a dizzying array of cards, pieces, and strategies. The alien civilisation venerate it so highly that they are known as the Empire of Azad, and they hold a regular tournament where the overall winner is crowned emperor.
Gurgeh has been sent by his civilisation in an attempt to destabilise the aliens. He has only a few years to learn how to play, using his knowledge of all other known games in co-ordination with mind-enhancing drugs. The novel hinges on his growing addiction to the game of Azad, to the extent that he overlooks the wider games in which he is just a small part.
The novel is Banks at his satirical best. Gurgeh is from The Culture, a future “post-scarcity” civilisation run by benevolent AIs called “Minds.” The Culture don’t officially intervene in other alien worlds, but in this novel they unofficially they send Gurgeh to undermine.
In contrast, the Empire of Azad is not dissimilar to our present society: a strict hierarchy with vast suffering and cruelty. Banks manages to make the reader sympathise with Azad, understanding its citizens’ outrage as “superior” beings with unfair advantages condescend to play games with their civilisation at no risk to themselves. Banks allows for ambiguity in Gurgeh’s motives: is he doing it for the love of the game or to prevent the suffering of others?
More from this author
A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Science has always been mixed up with money and power, but as a decorative facade for megayachts, it risks leaving reality behind altogether, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
A small Japanese trial has reported some positive results for stem cell therapy to treat spinal-cord injuries
Man-made canals like Panama and Suez face unprecedented challenges from extreme weather patterns and geopolitical tensions that reveal the fragility of our global trade networks, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
