Iain Banks & Iain M Banks

(born February 1954 -) – 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. He was born in Fife, and studied English, Philosophy and Psychology at Stirling University. 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; the novel, The Steep Approach to Garbadale, was published in Spring 2007 and Matter, the subsequent Culture novel, was published in 2008.

In 2009 Banks dropped the 'M' in his name for the Science Fiction, but non-Culture novel Transition.

Writing as Iain Banks

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The Bridge
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.
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The Business
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.
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Complicity
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.
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The Crow Road
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.
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Dead Air
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.
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Espedair Street
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.
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A Song Of Stone
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.
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The Steep Approach To Garbadale
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million pound gaming business lie at the heart of this Iain Banks' novel.
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Stonemouth
Iain Banks - Hardback - Little, Brown
Stewart Gilmour is back in Stonemouth. After 5 years in exile his presence is required at the funeral of patriarch Joe Murston, and even though the last time Stu saw the Murstons he was running for his life, staying away might be even more dangerous than turning up.
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Transition
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
A world that hangs suspended between triumph & catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall & the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism & global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand & a guiding light. But does it need the Concern?
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Walking On Glass
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.
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The Wasp Factory
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.
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Whit, Or, Isis Amongst The Unsaved
Iain Banks - Paperback - Abacus
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.

Writing as Iain M Banks

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Against A Dark Background
Iain M. Banks - Paperback - Orbit
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.
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The Algebraist
Iain M. Banks - Paperback - Orbit
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.
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Consider Phlebas
Iain Banks - Paperback - Orbit
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.
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Excession
Iain M. Banks - Paperback - Orbit
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.
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Feersum Endjinn
Iain M. Banks - Orbit
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.
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The Hydrogen Sonata
Iain Banks - Hardback - Orbit
It is the end for the Gzilt. They've made the decision to follow the well-trodden path to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new rich and complex existence. Amidst preparations, though, High Command is destroyed. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved and she is now wanted - dead, not alive.
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Inversions
Iain M. Banks - Paperback - Orbit
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.
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Look To Windward
Iain M. Banks - Paperback - Orbit
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.
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The Player Of Games
Iain M. Banks - Paperback - Orbit
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.
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The State Of The Art
Iain M. Banks - Paperback - Orbit
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.
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Surface Detail
Iain Banks - Paperback - Orbit
Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture.
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Use Of Weapons
Iain M. Banks - Paperback - Orbit
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.