I sit here with a tear in my eye after reading of the untimely death of one of the great authors of our time.

Iain Banks was a Scotsman, a few short years older than me, who I encountered as an author about 15 years ago. He wrote incredibly detailed novels full of humanity, looking at some of the less-explored aspects of being human. His output was prodigious and his talent incomparable in our time in my view. I never read one of his books without coming away feeling I was enriched for the experience, although I had to have a couple of goes at some, which were very dense with emotion and uncomfortable ideas.

He also enjoyed great success with his science fiction/fantasy novels which he published as Iain M Banks.They explored many of the aspects of our interactions with others in a way not possible in a more conventional tale of manners. He developed a huge fantastical future society called The Culture, which was a fantastically rich and powerful melding of humanity and intelligent machines that were self-determining, independent entities who interacted with the humans not out of need but because of their shared culture, which was one of unending curiosity and no restrictions except an abstract sense that there must be a quid pro quo in every transaction, but only within the Culture; the rest of the universe was available to be played with at will, for good or ill. Modern Greek Gods, with their actions left to be judged by the reader's own morality.

He was diagnosed with gall bladder cancer in March and his final actions included marrying his partner and astoundingly, writing his final novel, about a man with terminal cancer. He saw the proofs a week or two ago and it will be published soon.

I will miss him.

That is a lovely epitaph Antiseptic. I have never read Iain Banks but after reading your post am encouraged to do so now.

Dear Antiseptic,

I write to echo your salute to Iain M Banks. The Culture series is an astounding, mind wrenching, evocative body of work and I consider him in my top ten list of authors. I credit him with creating possibly the most villainous villains in literature, one Archimandrite Luseferous, from The Algebraist. In Banks' hands the normally fraught mixing of Gothic and Sci-Fi became a tour de force.

I have also this morning been reading about Edward Snowden, the ex-NSA employee who has been responsible for leaking to the Guardian facts about how extensive the surveillance of ordinary citizens has become. It is a measure of Banks' work that seeing Snowden as a Culture War hero is so easy.

“He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance

To learn of Iain's early death today was a real shock. He will be greatly missed.

Yes, I just read that Guardian piece. It's a very courageous thing to do, especially when you know as much as he does.

I've been planning to re-read all of Banks' stuff, but I got out of the habit of reading. Couldn't be a better time to get back into it.

Antiseptic,

You are giving us really sad news. Although I never met Iain Banks in person, his wonderful Culture novels are permanent guests in our house.

Dear Antiseptic,

I've not read any of the works of Iain Banks.
However Thank You for drawing my attention to
this author. I'll try to get hold of "The Wasp
Factory," and go from there.

"Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord
And let perpetual light shine on them
May they rest in peace. Amen."

Divergence, I mourn Iain Banks as I would a dear friend. I never met the man either, but I feel I know him as well as anybody through his work. I reckon he and I would have solved every problem facing the world if we'd had a few nights on the grog or something stronger.

A genuine mad Scotsman of the best sort.

Lexi, do it. He'll make you look at things differently. I'm going to go through chronologically. The only writer I can really compare him to is Neil Gaiman, but Iain was so much more expansive and had a natural ear for language and eye for human relations rarely encountered.

His range of imagination and ability to put it on paper with clarity and a light touch put him outside the box. I hope you feel the same way after you read some of his books.

Dear Anti,

You've sold me.

He sounds intriguing and I shall keep you posted
on the progress I make. You may not hear from me
for a while though. ;-);-);-).

Lexi,
You're in for a treat, The Wasp Factory is a wild read, I borrowed that and Peter Carey's "The Fat Man In History" from the Goths who lived over the road from me when I was at Uni, blew my tiny mind. Fortunately it only gets better from there, The Bridge and The Crow Road are outstanding as well, I read a couple of his science fiction books plus a compendium of his short stories in that genre, they're also excellent.

Oh yeah, Espedair St and Whit are also a must, I haven't read much of his later work though,

Dear Jay,

Wow. What a list. Thank You.
It will keep me busy for sometime.
I shall try to get hold of them all.
I'm always on the look-out for book
recommendations.
Many Thanks!

I only just noticed there is another Banks afficionado. Jayb, I'm not terribly surprised after reading your contributions here. He was not limited by social convention.

It's sad that there are so few, because the body of work is really quite extraordinary and the imagination it sprang from so free, while the man was just an ordinary bloke who loved ordinary blokey things, like driving fast, drinking too much and other risky behaviours.

While I obviously love to write, given the amount of time I've spent on doing so over the past years just on this site, which is perhaps 20% of the total amount I've contributed to various such sites, I'm pedestrian, unable to rise above my own nature, education, style but able to watch open-mouthed as others do so with apparent ease.

I hope that this thread inspires others to read Iain's work. He deserves your effort.