I’m not doing that great with my plan to fill in the gaps in which Culture novels I’ve read, because I skipped The Player of Games since I’ve definitely read it before, but halfway through Use of Weapons I realized I’d read it already. And unlike with Consider Phlebas I was sure that I’d read the whole thing because I remembered the twist ending. Oh, spoiler, there’s a twist ending. As usual with a Culture book, this one takes place outside the Culture with a non-Culture war strategist who is used by the Culture on various other non-Culture planets to achieve their ends.

The book has an interesting structure, with one set of chapters moving forward in time and another set moving back through our protagonist’s life. And did I mention the twist ending? I keep mentioning it because I think it’s kind of cheap.

FuzzyCo grade: A-