{"id":118,"date":"2008-02-01T08:51:41","date_gmt":"2008-02-01T15:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/2008\/02\/01\/family-games\/"},"modified":"2008-02-01T08:51:41","modified_gmt":"2008-02-01T15:51:41","slug":"family-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/2008\/02\/01\/family-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Steep Approach to Garbadale, Iain Banks, 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Loch Mond <a href='https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/lomond.jpg' title='lomond.jpg'><img src='https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/lomond.jpg' alt='lomond.jpg' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The 23rd novel from Scottish Banks is an engrossing page turner. Alban, the main character, is the renegade member of an extended family made rich and successful by the game <em>Empire<\/em>, invented by a great-great ancestor in 1880. The game has survived all competitors and is now a hit video game for the new generation. Alban has left the family business to become a lumberjack.<\/p>\n<p><a href='https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/monopoly-game.jpg' title='monopoly-game.jpg'><img src='https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/monopoly-game.jpg' alt='monopoly-game.jpg' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Plenty of wise swipes at the Americans (including their game <em>Monopoly<\/em>) with particular aim at Bush and Iraq. Tension builds as an American company bids to buy the family out. Incest, family secrets (held until the last pages) and exotic settings in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai as well as Paris and the Lochs of Scotland, the book holds your attention.<\/p>\n<p>Hong Kong Harbor <a href='https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/hong-kong-harbour.jpg' title='hong-kong-harbour.jpg'><img src='https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/01\/hong-kong-harbour.jpg' alt='hong-kong-harbour.jpg' \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Steep Approach to Garbadale, Iain Banks, 2007 Loch Mond The 23rd novel from Scottish Banks is an engrossing page turner. Alban, the main character, is the renegade member of an extended family made rich and successful by the game Empire, invented by a great-great ancestor in 1880. The game has survived all competitors and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/2008\/02\/01\/family-games\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Family Games&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/agog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}