Iain Banks & Iain M Banks

(born February 1964 -) – North Queensferry, Fife

One of the most inventive British authors, Iain Banks writes contemporary biting fiction and, under the name Iain M. Banks, grand science fiction novels. His first novel, The Wasp Factory, established Banks as a new and fresh voice in Scottish writing. Many of his books share the dark tone of The Wasp Factory, although none are as graphically violent. Tackling politics, religion, pop culture, science and technology, Banks is unafraid of controversy. His fiction can be grounded in reality – Dead Air was one of the first post-9/11 novels – or in strange dreamscapes like the world of The Bridge.
His science fiction novels are mostly set in a futurist, idealistic, socialist anarchy called The Culture, where everything is possible and anyone can become anyone – or anything – they want. The non-Culture novels (Feersum Endjinn, Against A Dark Background and The Algebraist) are nevertheless fantastic worlds where technology and society are markedly different from our own.
Iain Banks usually rotates between 'M' and 'non-M' novels; his most recent novel, The Steep Approach to Garbadale, was published in Spring 2007 and Matter, the next Culture novel, is due in 2008.

Key Titles

The Bridge
A man lies in a coma, his body broken, his memory vanished. He finds himself in the surreal world of the bridge - a world free of the usual constraints of time and space, a world where dream and fantasy, past and future, fuse.
The Business
Kate Telman is a senior executive officer in The Business, a powerful transglobal organisation. Her job is to keep abreast of current technological developments. In the course of her journey she must learn to control the world at arm's length.
Canal Dreams
By the author of The Wasp Factory and The Bridge, this book is set in Japan and on the Panama Canal. It concerns a world famous Japanese cellist, who refuses to fly, and as a result finds herself involved in the ominous realm of global realpolitik.
Complicity
A few spliffs, a spot of mild S&M, phone through the copy of tomorrow's front page, catch up with the latest from your mystery source - just a regular day at the office for free-wheeling, substance-abusing Cameron Colley. Cameron senses a scoop and knows more about the case than he'd care to admit.
The Crow Road
Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Relations with his father are strained, his brother is funnier and better-looking than he is, and the woman of his dreams is out of reach.
Dead Air
In a loft apartment in the East End of London they're dropping fruit from a balcony at a wedding breakfast. Soon things get out of hand and they're dropping TV sets out. Then the phone rings and they're told to turn on the TV. It's September 11th 2001.
Espedair Street
Danny used to be a famous - not to say infamous - rock star. Maybe still is. At 31, he realises he only has two problems: the past and the future. He knows how bad the past has been. But the future - well, the future is something else.
A Song Of Stone
The war is ending. For the castle and its occupants the troubles are just beginning. Armed gangs roam a lawless land, and taking to the roads seems safer than remaining in the ancient keep. But the captain of an outlaw band has other ideas.
The Steep Approach To Garbadale
Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million pound gaming business lie at the heart of this Iain Banks' novel.
Walking On Glass
Graham Park's in love. Steven Grout is paranoid - he knows that they're out to get him. Quiss is forced to play interminable, impossible games. Park, Grout, Quiss - no trio could be further apart. But their separate courses are set for collision.
The Wasp Factory
Frank, no ordinary 16-year-old, lives with his father outside a remote Scottish village. His elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital. When news comes of Eric's escape, Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return.
Whit, Or, Isis Amongst The Unsaved
Isis Whit, no ordinary teenager, is the Elect of God of the Luskentyrian Sect, a sect based near Stirling. It's Isis' role to bring Morag, who's become a porn queen, back into the fold. This is Banks' latest novel following the success of Complicity.

Bibliography

As Iain Banks

Against A Dark Background
Sharrow was once the leader of a personality-attuned combat team in one of the sporadic little commercial wars in the civilization based around the planet Golter. Now she is hunted by the Huhsz, a religious cult which believes that she is the last obstacle before the faith's apotheosis.
The Algebraist
The year is 4034. The Nasqueron Dwellers, regarded as barbaric by the rest of the solar system, live on a gas giant at the edge of the universe. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Dwellers, must uncover a secret hidden for half a billion years, but everyday war comes closer.
Consider Phlebas
War ranged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. The Idirans fought for their faith, The Culture for its moral right to exist. There could be no surrender.
Excession
Set in the Culture universe, this is Iain M. Banks' latest novel, following the success of Feersum Endjinn. The Culture ships strive to retrieve an ancient, powerful artefact before it falls into the hands of their rivals.
Feersum Endjinn
Feersum Endjinn is a science fiction novel of great imagination, from the highly celebrated Iain M. Banks. His previous titles include Use of Weapons and Against a Dark Background.
Inversions
In the winter palace, the King's new physician has more enemies than she at first realises. In another palace across the mountains, the chief bodyguard of the Protector General also has his enemies.
Look To Windward
When the Chelgrian Ziller, a composer of galactic renown, living in self-imposed exile, learns that an emissary from his home world is being sent to the Orbital, he fears that they want him to return.
Matter
There was nobody of her own kind within several thousand light years of where Djan Seriy Anaplian sat. However, news from her home world of Sursamen would still reach her. But would the news be good or bad?
The Player Of Games
Bored with success, Gurgeh - The Player of Games - travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game. This is a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor.
The State Of The Art
The first ever collection of Iain Banks' short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, 'The State of the Art'. The stories range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale.
Use Of Weapons
Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, this novel from Ian M. Banks, author of 'Consider Phlebas' and 'The player of Games', is science fiction at its best.