Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Group

Heading into 2024, we’ll be continuing our Fantasy and Science Fiction reading group, exploring worlds both fantastical and horrific, monstrous and utopian. Whether your interests lie in exploring the ruins of a lost civilization, challenging fiends to save the world from ruin or delicately navigating the politics of a corporate interstellar McEmpire™ (Ask about our franchising options and get a free McNuke™!), I do hope you’ll join us.

For the twelfth reading group of 2024, we'll be heading into the reaches of space. In the far future, the Culture stands supreme. A post-scarcity society that has fused organic matter and machinery on levels unimaginable, the inhabitants of the Culture live a life of incredible ease, their every need, want and desire catered for no sooner than they can wish for it.

The Culture has created 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 game the Culture has.

Bored with success and the ease of his existence, 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.