John Brunner: Players at the Game of People

John Brunner is probably best known for his Stand on Zanzibar. This one's somewhat less known, but I just had to read it because of the title. The book's about Godwin Harpinshield, who leads a sweet life. He has all he wants, and the price is cheap: he has to do small missions to an unknown employer, and he doesn't even remember anything about the missions after he's done with them.

The book starts in a very confusing way, but gets a grip and becomes interesting fairly quickly. Harpinshield's life gets interesting, when he first recruits a girl to share his style of life and then meets the girl's mother and has to reflect on his life a bit.

If you like to hear explanations, avoid this book: Brunner doesn't explain much and leaves plenty of interesting details in the dark. Players at the Game of People isn't a brilliant book, not even a very good one, but perhaps still worth reading.