Iain Menzies Banks

Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory (1985)

The Wasp Factory was published in 1984 in hardback, but the picture is of my copy of the first paperback edition through Futura. This was sent to me when it came out, as a gift from my pen-pal (pre-internet, indeed) Norman, who a year later would send me William Gibson's Neuromancer.

Fitting then that, on Twitter, which is all atweet about the awful news, that William Gibson's first tweet of the day (as with many contemporary authors as it happens) is to note, with sadness, the news that Iain Banks will be dead within the year from multiple-tumour, aggressive, inoperable cancer. I don't bother with Twitter, or much any (un)social media any more but it is a useful source of actual news, more so than the media's alleged news-sites.

So, I read his first novel when it came out, and I read his latest, The Hydrogen Sonata, when it came out last year, and all those in-between likewise. And I will read The Quarry, his last novel, when it is published in a few months, hopefully on the shelves before he dies. His publishers' own little race to the finish.

His work, his books, are mostly outstanding and worthy of anyone's time. In particular his science fiction ouvre, under the Iain M. Banks pen-name, is one that has introduced many non-SF orientated readers happily to the field; even if they only read his novels.

Thank you for my favourite reading experiences Iain Banks. Per ardua ad astra.