Iain Banks

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Iain Menzies Banks (born on February 16, 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) is a Scottish writer. As Iain M. Banks he writes science fiction; as Iain Banks he writes more mainstream novels.

His father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was once a professional ice skater. Banks studied English and Philosophy at the University of Stirling.

Married in 1992, he lives currently in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth near the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge. His next book will be a mainstream one and is due for publication in September 2006.

1 Politics
2 Miscellany
3 Bibliography
4 External links

Politics

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

In late 2004 Banks was a prominent member of a group of left-leaning British politicians and media figures who campaigned to have Prime Minister Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. In protest he cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street.

Banks is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.

Miscellany

Banks tends to produce 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.

In the wake of the release of his last book, The Algebraist in 2004 (a non-Culture novel), Banks has stated that he intends to write more Culture novels. However, as he intends to decrease the release of such books from one every 12 months to one every 18 months, the next Culture novel cannot be expected until sometime after 2006.

Although Banks generally confines his writing to his own novels, he has written occasional reviews for The Guardian newspaper and is a semi-regular music reviewer for Marc Riley's Rocket Science radio show on BBC 6 Music. He has been the subject of South Bank Show television programme broadcast on 16th November 1997, subtitled The Strange Worlds of Iain Banks which concentrated on his mainstream work. The Curse Of Iain Banks, a play written by Maxton Walker, was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1999, with Iain contributing as a voice on tape. He has appeared on the BBC's political discussion television programme Question Time.

While a student at Stirling University, Banks appeared as an extra in the final battle scene of the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which was filmed at the nearby Doune Castle.

Bibliography

Mainstream novels

His 'mainstream' novels (although some contain fantastical elements), i.e. those written as Iain Banks, 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 US DVD/video release
Whit (1995)
A Song of Stone (1997)
The Business (1999)
Dead Air (2002)

Science fiction novels

Much of Banks' science fiction deals with a large pan-galactic civilisation, the Culture, which he has developed in some detail over the course of six novels and a collection of short stories. These are written as Iain M. Banks.