Iain Banks

Iain Menzies Banks (born on February 16, 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) writes mainstream novels as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks.

Table of contents

1 Mainstream novels 2 Science Fiction novels 3 Politics 4 Miscellany 5 External Links

Mainstream novels

His mainstream novels are:

• The Wasp Factory (1984)
• Walking on Glass (1985)
• The Bridge (1986)
• Espedair Street (1987) – adapted for BBC radio in 1998 (dir. Dave Batchelor)
• Canal Dreams (1989)
• The Crow Road (1992) – adapted for BBC TV in 1996 (dir. Gavin Millar)
• Complicity (1993) – filmed in 2000 (dir. Gavin Millar), retitled Retribution for its video release
• Whit (1995)
• A Song of Stone (1997)
• The Business (1999)
• Dead Air (2002)

Science Fiction novels

Much of his science fiction deals with a large pan-galactic organisation, The Culture, which he describes in intricate detail:

• Consider Phlebas (1987)
• The Player of Games (1988)
• The State of the Art (collection 1989; not all stories deal with the Culture)
• Use of Weapons (1990)
• Excession (1996)
• Inversions (1998) (makes covert references to the protagonists being Culture citizens)
• Look to Windward (2000)

His other, non-Culture, science fiction novels are:

• Against a Dark Background (1993)
• Feersum Endjinn (1994)

Politics

As with his friend Ken MacLeod (another writer of technical and social science fiction, also from Scotland) a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy viable (or even inevitable) attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable.

Miscellany

Banks tends to write a novel in around three months, working solidly, then take nine months off. In his leisure time, he has had flying lessons and records his own rock music.

He has been the subject of a South Bank Show television programme.

He refuses to write magazine articles, reviews and other similar pieces.

External Links

• Official site
• Internet Movie Database entry