Where to Begin: Iain Banks

Espedair Street, The Crow Road, Walking On Glass (if this is the one with the three different stories that kind of connect in a semi-sci-fi way at the end) are pretty good.

The Wasp Factory is overrated, but has a good twist at the end.

Whit was a load of shite.

I haven't read any of the sci-fi ones. I started to read another one about a woman who belonged to a secret one world government (or something) but it was utterly crap - just loads of descriptions of fast cars, and helicopters and stuff. Sometimes he comes across as an ugly, geeky, middle-aged man, with a car obsession, who keeps trying to be down with the kids and getting it painfully wrong.

I hate that opening line. It's so "Woo! Ha ha crazy first line you've got to read on!"

I don't think Iain Banks is very good.

"Then Papa deflated and we had to patch him up using a bicycle inner tube repair kit. As if that wasn't enough, Uncle Rampak melted and Aunt Widdle drowned in the resulting puddle."

I like your latest photos, Alba. I have no other way of communicating this fact at the moment, being emailless.

This is very true, but he gets away with it because he's funny and usually original.

Forgot to mention: Culture Ship Names! 'Fate Amenable To Change', 'Attitude Adjuster', 'Size Isn't Everything', 'Prosthetic Conscience', 'I Blame Your Mother', 'Unfortunate Conflict Of Evidence', etc.

I've never tried his scifi stuff which may be better.

Yup. The Business

Is it really as bad as stated upthread?

I'm surprised I didn't write more on this thread first time round. Whit was the first one I read, and I liked it, even though it feels like an easy read without that much content. I loved The Bridge and Espedair Street, but couldn't get into Song Of Stone (despite it being the one where the BDSM leanings I'm sure he has are most visible). The Business is rubbish, but enjoyable nevertheless - when I read the synopsis I thought that a very good book could have been made from it, but The Business isn't it.

As for the sci-fi, the first one I read was Player Of Games, and - as someone who isn't a big sci-fi reader - I thought it was very good indeed. To be honest I can't remember which of the sci-fi books I have and haven't read - Feersum Endjinn, definitely, and the one with the giant flying whale creatures (Use Of Weapons?). Apart from Player Of Games, their names seem to blend into one.

it started a bit like a Belle and Sebastian song in prose

Pointless trivia moment: when Radio 4 adapted Espedair Street, back around 1997-8, the vocalist they used for Frozen Gold's songs was Monica Queen, B&S's guest vocalist on Lazy Line Painter Jane.

> I think he's only publishes The Algebraist (sci-fi) since Dead Air, which is typically full of great crazy ideas, but a little leaden in pace.

have just read the algebraist (and have just restarted ...Dark Background, signed and dated copy, watford 1995). after 4 or so years of thinking that alastair reynolds writes a bit like iain m banks i now think that iain m banks writes a bit like alastair reynolds (AR is big on the acceleration / deceleration required for space travel, huge space travel epics, a lot like the algebraist)

(there's also been a small book on whisky since dead air, but that's it, i think. that, dead air and the business are the only things i haven't read)

first line of wasp factory is about checking the sacrifice poles.

felt the same about the algebraist tbh.

Look to Phlebas is a nice easy romp with a dark ending.

Player of Games is the 1st Culture book he wrote, not the 1st published though.

Most of the Culture novel are about how a supposed fully democractic utopia has to have a dark side in order to survive. All books WILL contain a torture sequence or a reference to torture.

xpost - exactly.

As I said above, I'm sure IMB is a bit kinky. Doesn't Look To Windward have a brief sentence about the main protagonist's surprised joy when his wife introduced him to bondage?

SC are the "dark side" the people that allow the vast majority of the Culture to live in a peaceful utopia.

is the new one (steep approach to garbadale) any good? all amazon reviews seem to suggest it is a rehash of the crow road (which I still haven't read).

new Culture book out in 3 weeks time!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matter-Iain-M-Banks/dp/1841494178/

i couldn't finish the crow road, it was interminably meandering and dull

ooh. psyched!

agree on crow road. much of the non-M. stuff is really half-baked. there are obv, and magnificent, exceptions however. (my underrated fave is Walking On Glass.)

OK, I'm excited about Matter. He really should stick to sci-fi these days.

YAY!!!

i love culture books!

Me too!

the business is one of the worst books i have ever finished

That gives me an idea for a thread.

Oh, there already is one.

i was really hoping that was what i would learn when i clicked this thread. about the new culture book i mean.

i couldn't finish the crow road, it was interminably meandering and dull

-- akm, Thursday, 17 January 2008 04:59 (3 hours ago)

^^^

The Bridge <-- A++++

Doesn't he do a good dream sequence Almy? He's so good at depicting the surreal.

I am a geek, Banks and Reynolds are guilty pleasures.

Matter will be a purchase.

Doesn't he do a good dream sequence

Yes. I love his Culture books, but I really think this is his ultimate strength -- surrealism. In fact, a David Lynch adaptation of The Bridge would be... I don't know, something amazing and very different?

yes, he quoted 5 to 1 ratio in a recent post (which it's now, of course, impossible to find)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_(novel)

On the cusp of "M", some countries had it, some did not.

My favourite one of recent vint.

not impossible

http://friends.banksophilia.com/28-2/

20 May 2013
...
"I think I’ll only comment on any of the posts if there’s something factually wrong mentioned in them, and so far the only point I can remember is one where an ex-neighbour of ours recalled (in an otherwise entirely kind and welcome comment) me telling him, years ago, that my SF novels effectively subsidised the mainstream works. I think he’s just misremembered, as this has never been the case. Until the last few years or so, when the SF novels started to achieve something approaching parity in sales, the mainstream always out-sold the SF – on average, if my memory isn’t letting me down, by a ratio of about three or four to one. I think a lot of people have assumed that the SF was the trashy but high-selling stuff I had to churn out in order to keep a roof over my head while I wrote the important, serious, non-genre literary novels. Never been the case"
...

A last interview.

there's a review show special which appears to be culled from the bbc2 scotland interview but which is only half an hour long.

watched said bbc2 scotland thing and the heart-breaking thing is that he looks fine, a bit whiter than i remember him, beard and hair-wise, but otherwise fine. he also plays some of his music. he makes it for his own amusement and if anyone else likes it then it's a bonus (which, in this case, is fortunate)

http://minorplanetcenter.net/blog/sci-fi-author-iain-m-banks-gets-asteroid-named-after-him/

close, but no cigar. should've had the m in the name imo.

also

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074t1q

Crow Road repeats on BBC4 start wednesday.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2333693

!!!

Dennis Kelly could be a good fit for this. Fingers crossed.

much Banks talk lately on the yearly polls. watch this bump die a death...

Feersum Endjinn, i have re-read ever, but i remember being impressed at the level of detail he squeezed into the 'dialect' this race of things lisps, this one thing additionally has a cold and you can hear the difference. fun, but hard work at times.

I guess now I should check my read
/unread list against the recommendations here...

Are the final two Culture novels worth reading? I found Matter a bit of a slog.

I gave up after Inversions, but The Algebraist is worth a try for a non-Culture SF novel. Shame he never followed up with more books in the same universe.

I gave up after Inversions

Just before Look to Windward, which is cracking.

I have a grudge against Look to Windward for betraying the ideals of the culture. Only read Matter once I think but I recall it as a cracking read, it's high on my list for a reread.

Hydrogen sonata is, remarkably for a culture novel, a snooze fest.

Crow Road documentary and repeat of the series starts tonight on bbc4