|
|
|
A savage, even lacerating satire, this novel is a prime example of the sort of "literature of ideas" SF used to be some years ago, before commercial formula and ten-book trilogies took over the genre. I think a lot of today's readers might not get it, and will almost certainly be pissed off by its unresolved ending. But it is a very good story — though perhaps not quite on a par with the socially conscious SF Brunner had been producing ten years previously during his career peak — and its unapologetic defiance of convention is truly a breath of fresh air when damn near everything today seems just one more lame attempt at a franchise, and some of the field's brightest talents are happier chugging out Star Wars novels for an easy paycheck than coming up with original SF (I know a writer's gotta eat, but it's still depressing). Players at the Game of People is an attack on the leisure class, that fundamentally European institution of bygone days that Brunner translates into a near-future milieu. Godwin Harpinshield is one of a select number of people who has entered into this bizarre, quasi-Faustian arrangement with mysterious beings referred to only as the "owners." Harpinshield's every desire is catered to. He always gets the best table, the best women, he can travel across the globe and even, apparently, through time in the endless and yet increasingly futile pursuit of pleasure. Harpinshield only has one obligation to the "owners" in return for all this: he must recruit someone new, and this he does by rescuing a pathetic and naturally vulnerable young prostitute from her dead-end lifestyle while she still has a tiny spark of hope and ambition for the future inside her. But this very act, which is by no means altruistic, spells the beginning of the end for Harpinshield. Quite unexpectedly, he meets the girl's mother, who has come looking for her, and this encounter not only offers up a surprising personal revelation for Harpinshield, it also prompts him once and for all to be bold about questioning the nature of the "owners," who they are, and what they might be getting out of all this. Brunner deliberately leaves several aspects of his story unexplained, not the least of which is who the "owners" are, and while this certainly won't make those folks happy who have to have boldface explanations for everything, the novel as it is simply would not have worked as well without these elements of mystery. By leaving certain key questions up for speculation, Brunner puts you squarely on the same playing field (pun intended, I guess) with Harpinshield, and a book that could have been terribly obscure is made more accessible, not to mention suspenseful. True, the cynicism of Players will not appeal to all, and there are a few scenes early on which, by today's standards (and probably those of 1980 as well), come off as both uncomfortably racist and sexist. But readers who appreciate a dark, satirical edge to their fiction — stories that neither let you off the hook easily nor spell everything out for you moronically — will find this bitterly ironic yet truthful tale a winner. |
|
 |
