Where to Begin: Iain Banks

Shit. Just read it on The Guardian, searched for this thread to post. Awful news.

seriously cancer when are going to fuck off already :((((

That is terrible news. I only read Wasp Factory but I still feel like a friend is leaving. Just read that Roger Ebert has cancer again as well :(

That's horrible :(

Here's the statement:

I am officially Very Poorly.
After a couple of surgical procedures, I am gradually recovering from jaundice caused by a blocked bile duct, but that – it turns out – is the least of my problems.

I first thought something might be wrong when I developed a sore back in late January, but put this down to the fact I’d started writing at the beginning of the month and so was crouched over a keyboard all day. When it hadn’t gone away by mid-February, I went to my GP, who spotted that I had jaundice. Blood tests, an ultrasound scan and then a CT scan revealed the full extent of the grisly truth by the start of March.

I have cancer. It started in my gall bladder, has infected both lobes of my liver and probably also my pancreas and some lymph nodes, plus one tumour is massed around a group of major blood vessels in the same volume, effectively ruling out any chance of surgery to remove the tumours either in the short or long term.

The bottom line, now, I’m afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I’m expected to live for ‘several months’ and it’s extremely unlikely I’ll live beyond a year. So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last.

As a result, I’ve withdrawn from all planned public engagements and I’ve asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow (sorry – but we find ghoulish humour helps). By the time this goes out we’ll be married and on a short honeymoon. We intend to spend however much quality time I have left seeing friends and relations and visiting places that have meant a lot to us. Meanwhile my heroic publishers are doing all they can to bring the publication date of my new novel forward by as much as four months, to give me a better chance of being around when it hits the shelves.

There is a possibility that it might be worth undergoing a course of chemotherapy to extend the amount of time available. However that is still something we’re balancing the pros and cons of, and anyway it is out of the question until my jaundice has further and significantly, reduced.

Lastly, I’d like to add that from my GP onwards, the professionalism of the medics involved – and the speed with which the resources of the NHS in Scotland have been deployed – has been exemplary, and the standard of care deeply impressive. We’re all just sorry the outcome hasn’t been more cheerful.

A website is being set up where friends, family and fans can leave messages for me and check on my progress. It should be up and running during this week and a link to it will be on my official website at www.iain-banks.net as soon as it’s ready.

Fucking dreadful news. I've read all his sci-fi over the last few years and enjoyed them all, some very much indeed. Beyond that, he's one of the best we have for just speaking sense and supporting the important stuff in politics. A group of us saw him doing a Q&A in Manchester when The Hydrogen Sonata was published and he was as charismatic, engaging and rascally a speaker as I've ever seen; seemed like a really lovely man and eminently wkiw-able.

Such a damn shame.

One of the terrible things about this is that there's no way of knowing whether it could have been caught in time. If he first developed symptoms in January and had had the relevant tests then, maybe it could. Or even if he had been screened before symptoms began to develop.

God, this is horrible. I've fallen way behind now, but when I was younger he was the only author whose paperbacks I would buy the week of release without fail. Loved them.
God dammit.

Sad, love his work.
My have to get them out and read them all again.

Never read any non 'M' stuff after Canal Dreams, except for Transition, but all his SF was worthwhile to some degree and although I have some issues with the directions he took it in, The Culture is sustained world-building without peer, deliciously inventive, playful, and optimistic.

bahhhhhh :( :( :( :(

oh no! sad news.

Soooooo lame ;_;

This is so wrong. As his statement shows he's a necessary antidote to all the shits in the world. Hopefully chemo can be of some help to him if he takes it.

I read The Bridge when I was in hoptl with crohns, and a lot of it rang very true with me and it helped without it being for that purpose..

I have read most of his non scifi books (it ain't for me, all that) but a great many of them have altered sensibilities and I do love them.

The last one I read was Transition, the next one I have but haven't started

For me his mainstream novels are somewhat patchy, but I adore his SF. He was arguably the best writer of Space Opera in the world for much of the late 80s/90s, certainly the funniest and most playful.

Gastric cancers have a very poor prognosis, I don't think it would have made much difference if it had been caught earlier.

wish the Culture mythos could continue solidly enough, the way lovecraft stuff did: faithful but also, maybe, continuing improving it.

What a terrible shame :(

Ian Rankin ‏@Beathhigh

E-mail from Iain Banks this morning. Enjoying life to the max with partner Adele in Italy, and aware of everyone's good wishes and support.

RIP

Aw goddammit. RIP

Shit, I was holding out hope for some kind of miraculous pull-through. RIP.

So much quicker than expected.

He seemed like a man who made the very best of his life. RIP.

:(

:(

rip ian.

i loved your stories.

fuck cancer.

RIP, fuckin hell.

RIP

Such a shame.

dug out my copy of The Bridge and as well as the usual receipt (Tewkesbury Bookshop 13-09-89 £4.99) it contained a postcard of the Forth Bridge and the train tickets my one trip to scotland. haven't read it since 1997, which i must remedy. the SF books get re-read at the rate of about one or two a year, every year.

Aw man, he had no time left at all. RIP. And fuck cancer.

How sad, and fuck cancer in the teeth.

this looks good - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02xf70k

Iain Banks is one of Scotland's most popular and critically acclaimed novelists. In April 2013, he revealed he has terminal cancer, and is unlikely to live beyond a year. In this exclusive television interview, he talks in depth to Kirsty Wark about his career, life and facing up to death.

(Wednesday 21:00 for an hour)

bbc scotland only... (although iplayer too i guess)

RIP :(

RIP

fuck

probably not the place for this, but i am over seeing tyrannical pieces of shit live well into their 80s/90s and by-all-accounts good people lose their lives so very early

Only ever read 'The Crow Road', but what a book it is. Can still recall how I visualised passages of it now, a few years later. I have another of his books waiting to be read ('Aspedaire St'? I'm not by the bookcase just now), struggle to find a reason why I haven't already read it and more other than laziness. I did worry after 'The Crow Road' that I wouldn't like any of his other books as much.

Anyway, it's sad to hear of his passing.

Read a lot of his stuff during standard grades/highers/csys and loved them, especially The Crow Road and Complicity. He seemed like a really nice, down to earth fella too. RIP.

Was wandering up by the actual real Espedair Street on Friday afternoon and wondered how he was getting on :-(

fuck cancer

one of the greatest sf authors of all time

As somebody said yesterday, all of his books are different ..

Easily my favorite author, and I still have some of his to catch up with.

My new favorite is Transition, previously it was, ooh, probably each time I read a new one..

Fuck. RIP banks, RIP the culture.

RIP. Loved his stuff as a teen.

I hope some other talented SF writers get permission from his estate to write more Culture books, it's a concept that would lend itself very well to a shared universe. Maybe Ken McLeod could give it a bash.

One of the constant comforts during my entire adult life has been the knowledge that there was always a new Iain/Iain M. Banks novel underway.
RIP. And fuck cancer.

that scottish bbc2 thing isn't showing up on iplayer. surely it has appeal this side of hadrian's wall.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b02xf70k/Iain_Banks_Raw_Spirit/