Iain Banks

By Patrick Ness Iain Banks has made a prolific career out of dividing himself in two, publishing novels such as his classic debut The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road as "Iain Banks" and adding a middle initial as "Iain M Banks" for a separate and very successful strand of hard science fiction. What, then, to m...

By Rachel Redford AudiobooksScience fiction, fantasy and horrorIain BanksRachel Redford guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Scottish author Iain Banks talks to Max Walker about the reception of The Wasp Factory, obsessive fans and writing novels that you can't read in the bath

By Maxton Walker Readers of both Banks's mainstream work and his hardcore science fiction (published under the name Iain M Banks) agree that the quality of his science fiction has held up much better over the years; the "M" novels Look to Windward (2000) and Matter (2008) were among his most ambitious and...

By Charlotte Higgins Iain Banks's new novel Transition, published next month, contains – among myriad other threads – something of a satire of the banking collapse. Speaking at the book festival, he noted that in Britain the novel will be published under the name Iain Banks, while in the US it will go out under...

By Stuart Jeffries This is a golden age for British science fiction, chiefly thanks to a wave of writers who are tackling an area their American rivals tend to leave well alone - far-future set, space-operatic, hard sci-fi. Americans tend to set their sci-fi in soft (ie, scientifically unsupported) near fu...

 UK Wigtown is playing host to the whisky and books festival-within-a-festival, celebrating the connections between whisky and writing, with appearances from Iain Banks (who took time out from science fiction to pen Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect ...

It's safe to say that grand science fiction in the tradition of Iain Banks, Larry Niven and Greg Bear helped inspire many 'Halo' motifs in the first place, so in some ways we've come full circle. If you'll pardon a 'Halo' pun," O'Connor said. ...

 United Kingdom BEST UNUSUAL PLACE NAME: The Lumps of Garryhorn (East of Loch Doon in Ayrshire); Rig of the Jarkness (above Loch Valley east of Glen Trool); Pendicles of Collymoon (on banks of River Forth west of Stirling, courtesy of Iain Banks in Whit); Loch Brandy, ...

A great book by Iain Banks that should be made into a film- so I created a title sequence animation for a movie that will most likely never be made. vids.myspace.com

 UK Titles in the four sets up for grabs include The Front, by Patricia Cornwell; Body Surfing, by Anita Shreve; The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks; and High Noon, by Nora Roberts. Fans of the music of Freddie Mercury and Queen are in for a treat as their ...

 UK Since breaking through in 1996 film Small Faces, Joe has gone on to star in the 1997 adaptation of Iain Banks novel The Crow Road and also appeared last year in Cranford alongside Judi Dench. He admits that he tried to get the revered Dame into ...

 UK There’sa good track record of literary writers dabbling in science fiction, from Doris Lessing and Margaret Atwood to Iain Banks, and we can add to that fine company this remarkable and moving offering from Toby Litt. Having long been an experimental ...

By Paul Cornell(noreply@blogger.com) I'm most excited that my adaptation of Iain Banks' 'The State of the Art' is going to be broadcast this week, at 2.15pm on Thursday 5th., on BBC Radio 4, as an Afternoon Play.  It'll be available afterwards, internationally, on the BBC's IPlayer, and I'll post a link to that as soon as it's up.  It...

By Michelle Hodgson I got grief from my uncles when The Wasp Factory was published. My middle name is Menzies but I took the "M" out of my name and was published as Iain Banks. I decided to put it back in for my science-fiction books. I found out years later that our original family name was Menzies. My paternal grandfa...

By theferrett@theferrett.com I'm not sure where to start with this one. I think I'll begin with Ted Chiang, since he's the masterof the short story (or so I hear), but I have to figure out which books are the "classic" books by those authors; in most cases, I'll have only time to read one, so it has to be a good one. And I'm gonna b...

 IL - Dec 16, 2008 of his career—publishing 12 works of mainstream fiction under the name Iain Banks, and a nearly equal number of science fiction works as Iain M. Banks. ...

Excession Iain M. Banks. Eye to Windward Iain M. Banks. Song of Stone Iain Banks. The Skies of Pern Anne McCafferey. The Kingdom of the Cults Walter Martin. Ai Yori Aoshi vol. 1 Kou Fumizuki. Consider Phlebas Iain M. Banks ...

By info@leedsmusicscene.net (Shane Spencer) I first heard The Wasp Factory being played on XFM earlier this year and their name stuck in my head as it's taken from the title of one of my favourite novels (by Iain Banks), so it seemed as good a reason as any to check out their ...

By Del Northampton, October 11th and 12th 2008 Guests of Honour: Iain Banks Ken MacLeod Storm Constantine Plus Special Guest: Paul Cornell Don’t miss out! Don’t forget, BSFA members currently qualify for a double discount – both for being a member and for booking prior to Eastercon.

By the aardvark And if someone is talking about science fiction, it's Iain M. Banks, as opposed to Iain Banks. Really. Posted by: Gary Farber | August 02, 2005 at 04:02 PM. This one may take some hunting, for it has been out of print at various times, ...

 India - Oct 24, 2008 My favourite book is Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham, but my favourite genre is actually science fiction. I enjoy reading Iain Banks. ...

By Jason Consider Phlebas is the first book in Iain Banks’s well-known “Culture” series of novels. It stars a man carrying out acts of espionage for aliens in a war against a human society of touchy-feely, liberal hedonists. ...

By Paul Cornell(noreply@blogger.com) ‘The good news: no more six in the morning phone calls from Gordon ... The bad news: he's coming round in person.' It’s been quite a week. On Monday and Tuesday, I was in Manchester, recording my BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Iain M. Banks’ 'The State of the Art'. I’ve never been involved in radio drama bef...

By Paul Cornell(noreply@blogger.com) Back at my desk, lots of work at once, and many announcements to make, so here we go... I've arranged with the BBC and the organisers of Newcon in Northampton (11th-12th October) to premiere clips from my Afternoon Play adaptation of Iain Banks' 'The State of the Art' at the event. That'll be at 6....

By Darren talks to Writing Magazine. October 10, 2008. Iain has been interviewed for the latest edition of Writer's News Writing Magazine and talks about a number of writing-related subjects, including plotting, character development, ...

The Player of Games by Iain Banks is a sci-fi novel about culture, temptation, sexism, and deception, but most of all about the mind of a gamer. A few weak spots don't detract from the otherwise well plotted enjoyment. ...

Lacking new reading, and I am suffering, I have been opening my suitcase of books from my life in Zürich and working through the ones I can find pleasure in. Much Charles Stross, William Gibson, some Iain Banks, with and without an M., I'm running through them at a rate and… oh thinking about ho...

I sold all my fast cars and don't fly any more

By David Hadley Review: The Steep Approach to Garbadale – Iain Banks. A British family company, the Wopulds, built its fortune on a board – then later a computer - game called Empire. Now they are considering selling it off to the Americans. ...

By CanPou The Steep Approach to Garbadale. by Iain Banks category Literature & Fiction. status (set by CanPou): available. Global Overview for this book. Click to browse for books from our affiliates. Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk ...

By Joe “Q: Could you write a science-fiction novel without wars and violence? Iain Banks: Good grief yes. I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a Shakespearean - okay, a sub-Shakespearean - comedy set in the Culture where some feckless / rather ...

By John Mullan Banks offered readers his "anti-body" theory of critical response. The Wasp Factory was not supposed to be shocking, yet was found so. His later novel Complicity, which was supposed to shock, caused no such ripples: the first novel had created antibodies to defeat the shock of the later on...

By Darren Q: Could you write a science-fiction novel without wars and violence? Iain Banks: Good grief yes. I've toyed with the idea of writing a Shakespearean - okay, a sub-Shakespearean - comedy set in the Culture where some feckless / rather ...

By Cory Doctorow Iain Banks is my favourite autor of all time, I love his work. There was a pretty interesting article about the Wasp Factory over the weekend, comparing the original shocked/horrified reviews to it's current status as syllabus material ...

By John Mullan Iain Banks speaks to John Mullan about his novel The Wasp Factory and takes questions from the audience at the Guardian book club

By Darren In the article we learn that The Wasp Factory was Iain's sixth completed novel, and that at the time he regarded it as something of a step-backwards from his dream of becoming a published science fiction writer: ...

By Darren on Radio 4 next week. July 10, 2008. Via Dave H of The Banksoniain fanzine, we hear that Iain is listed as a contributor to the programme 'The Disappearing Art of the Mix Tape', which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 11:30 ...

By John Mullan · John Mullan is professor of English at University College London. Join him and Iain Banks for a discussion on Thursday July 10 at the Newsroom, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1. Doors open at 6.30pm, talk at 7pm. Entry is £8 (includes a glass of wine). To reserve a ticket call 020 7886 9281 or email...

By Darren Turpin Douglas tells us: "The Tron Theatre is thrilled to announce that Cumbernauld Theatre will premiere their new production of Iain Banks' celebrated cult novel, The Wasp Factory, at the Tron, from the 17th - 26th April, before embarking ...

By Steven Poole Iain Banks is back on home turf with his latest novel Matter, but Steven Poole wishes he'd got settled a bit quicker

By Interview by Sarah Kinson a man with not one but two careers as a bestselling author - of both regular and science fiction - explains that he took up writing because he seemed to be good at it, and because it seemed like an easy life

By healingmagichands I decided to read ”The Crow Road” by Iain Banks because when I was interviewed by Aphra Behn, she mentioned she thought I would enjoy it. I put a request for it on Bookmooch, and for a wonder it was available. ...

is a miniseries made by BBC Scotland that is basedon a novel by Iain Banks. The back of the case states that this seriesis a mystery, and in a way it is. A more accurate description wouldbe that it's a character study of a Scottish family with some black comicmoments. While the program does have s...

Hay festival: As the book world settles into Wales, Iain Banks talks to Stuart Jeffries about why he tore up his passport, his first mainstream novel for five years, and his enduring passion for science fiction.

By Stuart Jeffries Banks is one of the few writers to successfully write both mainstream realistic fiction (he has written 12 novels as Iain Banks) and science fiction (he has written 10 sci-fi novels as Iain M Banks, and another title under that name is coming soon), and there are many who argue that it's wit...

By Neil Ian Sinclair, who is one of my favourite writers, and was at Alan's wedding, described me, Alan Moore, Iain Banks and Kim Newman circa 1990 as "a hair retrospective" when we appeared in his novel Radon Daughters, and, in the same sequence, told the world that "Graphic novelists in expensi...

Mark Sanderson reviews The Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks

By Gerard Woodward Iain Banks's The Steep Approach to Garbadale mixes board games and Ealing comedy, says Gerard Woodward.

By Killian Fox Iain Banks returns to familiar territory in his new novel, The Steep Approach to Garbadale.