Victoria BC science fiction book club discussion

This book is made up of 4 parts of very different lengths. None the less, I will divide the discussion based on these parts.

This is the thread for part 1: Culture Plate

I finished the book a week ago, and I've been meaning to post my thoughts. So here goes.

I must admit, in this part, I didn't find Gurgeh to be a very interesting character. I was more interested in the machine characters, especially Chamlis Amalk-ney. Having not read the preceding book, I didn't have much of an idea how the Culture worked.

I found it surprising that Gurgeh would cheat at the game against Olz Hap, especially considering his disdain for Mahwrin-Skel (or maybe it was Chamlis who really hated him).

I thought the discussion of the empire of Azad was interesting, with the different biology of the Azadians.