Iain Banks (1954—2013)

[pokerfan]

Damn...

The writer Iain Banks, who has died aged 59, had already prepared his many admirers for his death. On 3 April he announced on his website that he had inoperable gall bladder cancer, giving him, at most, a year to live. The announcement was typically candid and rueful. It was also characteristic in another way: Banks had a large web-attentive readership who liked to follow his latest reflections as well as his writings. Particularly in his later years, he frequently projected his thoughts via the internet. There can have been few novelists of recent years who were more aware of what their readers thought of their books; there is a frequent sense in his novels of an author teasing, testing and replying to a readership with which he was pretty familiar.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/09/iain-banks-dies-59-cancer

[nomorenomore08]

1. I need to read more of his stuff. 'The Wasp Factory' was excellent.

nt

[pokerfan]

2. The Culture series is worth reading

He will be missed.

[nomorenomore08]

3. Is that sci-fi? I'm more interested in his "literary" stuff like 'Crow Road.'

nt

[pokerfan]

4. It's SF but it's good SF (nt)

[nomorenomore08]

5. Okay. Maybe I'll check it out then.

nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. If you want ones without too many spaceships

I'd suggest "Player of Games" or "Use of Weapons"; the sci-fi stuff is more incidental to the plot than the point of it in them. Or 'Inversions', which is more 'quasi-medieval' than sci-fi.

If you liked 'The Crow Road', then 'The Steep Approach to Garbadale' is extremely similar to it.

[nomorenomore08]

7. I don't care about spaceships one way or the other. Just good, non-cheesy writing.

And I haven't actually read 'Crow Road' but I plan to. As I said, I really enjoyed 'The Wasp Factory' but it's the only Banks I've gotten to thus far.

[Flaxbee]

8. Sad; too young to go.

Though his obit mentions a character who tortures animals. Which means I'll never, ever read his books. Might want to prepare other readers for that part of his writing...

[nomorenomore08]

9. Even the ones that don't feature animal torture? Just saying...