Where to Begin: Iain Banks

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/

wasn't there this morning. honest.

ordered the last two M books the other day and they've already arrived. both weighty hardbacks, £18 for the pair.

Watched this today, sad to say that the sections from The Quarry sound tiresome and ranty, imo. The ascension of this style is when I got off the bus (Dead Air iirc)

I read Stonemouth over a weekend last month, and that was breezy fun where you just basically hang out with this character as he reconnects with old friends and gets into scrapes. It's lightweight but it's an enjoyable read.
I need to read more M. novels.

M>>>>non-M imo.

Have non-M. novels traditionally outsold M. novels?

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.