Where to Begin: Iain Banks

the last chunk of phlebas is a bit weak.

just finished matter. SPOILER: some great stuff but ya there's kind of an plot-destroying explosion at the end there.

the last chunk of phlebas is a bit weak.

:-/ I thought it was pretty sharp, but what didn't you like?

maybe I'll try the bridge. but I've not liked his other two books I've read, so this is the last try I'll give him.

SPOILER: some great stuff but ya there's kind of an plot-destroying explosion at the end there.

Yeah, I felt a bit cheated by that. I was looking forward to how he was going to resolve to 8th/9th political stuff, then he just didn't bother.

ya SPOILER but he seemed to be setting up a LOT that never got resolved. i guess he's confounding expectations by not doing a big culture deus ex machina but i figured that whatsherface was a pawn of SC all along, meant to return to the 8th and rule the sarl or something like that... plus the shellworld stuff was so begging for at least some more explanation.

:-/ I thought it was pretty sharp, but what didn't you like?

-- Ned Raggett, Tuesday, June 3, 2008 11:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

i just remember all the running around tunnels stuff taking too long

Hell, I loved the way that slowly racked up the tension -- multiple points of view, everyone chasing after everyone else, and then one forgotten figure slowly making his own last move...

In an interview Banks gave the lame excuse that Matter is supposed to read like the first part of an imaginary trilogy, so of course it leaves loose ends.

Yesterday I walked by a construction lot in which there was a giant two-story concrete cube with one tiny window in it, looking very much like my mental image of the Mysterious Alien Artifact.

>> where should I start with Alastair Reynolds?

> i've read three Alastair Reynolds books & boy could that guy use an editor.

i have never thought this. i get to the end and wish they were longer, if anything. (he has a tendency to introduce completely new things in the last 50 or so pages, stuff that has potential)

> the only one i'd recommend was "Century Rain" which (i think) is pretty much self-contained.

the big trilogy is revelation space / redemption ark / absolution gap and should be read together. chasm city is set in same universe but is unconnected. pushing ice is self contained. century city is self contained (and a bit of a departure from the other stuff). the prefect and the recent one, house of suns (which has only just come out in hardback so you could be waiting a while).

Pushing Ice would be a good start, i think. then The Prefect or Century City.

(there are also two short story collections, Galactic North (which shares a universe with the long stories) and Zima Blues which is all unconnected. oh, and a twofer novella thing, Diamond Dogs and Turquoise Days, which i need to re-read.)

In an interview Banks gave the lame excuse that Matter is supposed to read like the first part of an imaginary trilogy, so of course it leaves loose ends.

-- eater, Wednesday, June 4, 2008 5:19 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

that IS lame!

algebraist was much better.

s1ocki I want you to know that every post of mine on here is the first part of an imaginary googleplexology

Haha, sign of how the language is transmogrified. That should be googolplexology.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hv1dz

Radio 4 Afternoon Play

"Paul Cornell's dramatisation of the science-fiction novel by Iain M Banks. A spaceship from The Culture arrives on Earth in 1977 and finds a planet obsessed with alien concepts like 'property' and 'money' and on the edge of self destruction. When Agent Dervley Linter decides to go native can Diziet Sma change his mind?"

3 days left to listen via bbc iplayer

http://www.iain-banks.net/

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.

:(

Was just coming here to post that very thing. I've lost track of his work recently but it's immensely sad news - his work meant a lot to me when I was in my teens. I saw him on a train to Edinburgh when I was 15 or so and he was really great when I plucked up the courage to speak to him. He's only 59 :(

that sucks. Statement is very dignified, contains some nice praise for the NHS.

404 on the link but fuck, that's gutting.

think it's getting too much traffic...

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.