Anderson, Poul (1970) A Circus of Hells, Sphere

Continuing the Dominic Flandry series, we see him isolated on a world controlled by an AI computer that has gone insane and is continually making chess pieces to fight a game with part of itself. Sounds weird but was quite a clever idea. We then see him escape and be captured by an alien race. The book seems to be two short stories squeezed together into one novel and we learn more about the cad Flandry and his overwhelming self-interest (deluding himself that it is in the interest of the Terran Empire) and arrogance. Not a nice character but strangely likable.