Iain Banks Popular Books

Iain Banks Biography & Facts

Iain Banks (16 February 1954 – 9 June 2013) was a Scottish author, writing mainstream fiction as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks, adding the initial of his adopted middle name Menzies ( ). After the success of The Wasp Factory (1984), he began to write full time. His first science fiction book, Consider Phlebas, appeared in 1987, marking the start of the Culture series. His books have been adapted for theatre, radio, and television. In 2008, The Times named Banks in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".In April 2013, Banks announced he had inoperable cancer and was unlikely to live beyond a year. He died on 9 June 2013. Early life Banks was born in Dunfermline, Fife, to a mother who was a professional ice skater and a father who was an officer in the Admiralty. An only child, he lived in North Queensferry until the age of nine, near the naval dockyards in Rosyth, where his father was based. The family then moved to Gourock due to his father's work. When someone introduced him to science fiction by giving him Kemlo and the Zones of Silence by Reginald Alec Martin, he continued reading the series, which encouraged him to write science fiction himself. After attending Gourock and Greenock High Schools, Banks studied English, philosophy, and psychology at the University of Stirling (1972–1975).After graduation, Banks took a succession of jobs that left him free to write in the evenings. These supported his writing throughout his twenties and allowed him to take long breaks between contracts, during which time he travelled through Europe and North America. During this period he worked as an IBM 'Expediter Analyser' (a kind of procurement clerk), a testing technician for the British Steel Corporation, and a costing clerk for a law firm in London's Chancery Lane. Career Writing career Banks took up writing at the age of 11. He completed a first novel, The Hungarian Lift-Jet, at 16 and a second, TTR (also entitled The Tashkent Rambler) in his first year at Stirling University in 1972. Though he saw himself mainly as a science fiction author, his publishing problems led him to pursue mainstream fiction. His first published novel The Wasp Factory, appeared in 1984, when he was thirty. After the success of The Wasp Factory, Banks began to write full time. His editor at Macmillan, James Hale, advised him to write a book a year, which he agreed to do.His second novel Walking on Glass followed in 1985, then The Bridge in 1986, and in 1987 Espedair Street, which was later broadcast as a series on BBC Radio 4. His first published science fiction book, Consider Phlebas, emerged in 1987 and was the first of several in the acclaimed Culture series. Banks cited Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Brian Aldiss, M. John Harrison and Dan Simmons as influences. The Crow Road, published in 1992, was adapted as a BBC television series. Banks continued to write both science fiction and mainstream. His final novel The Quarry appeared in June 2013, the month of his death. Banks published work under two names. His parents had meant to name him "Iain Menzies Banks", but his father mistakenly registered him as "Iain Banks". Banks still used the middle name and submitted The Wasp Factory for publication as "Iain M. Banks". Banks's editor inquired about the possibility of omitting the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy" and the potential existed for confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a romantic novelist in the Jeeves novels by P. G. Wodehouse; Banks agreed to the omission. After three mainstream novels, Banks's publishers agreed to publish his first science fiction (SF) novel Consider Phlebas. To create a distinction between the mainstream and the SF, Banks suggested returning the 'M' to his name, which was then used in all of his science fiction works. By his death in June 2013, Banks had published 26 novels. A 27th novel The Quarry was published posthumously. His final work, a poetry collection, appeared in February 2015. In an interview in January 2013, he also mentioned he had the plot idea for another novel in the Culture series, which would most likely have been his next book and was planned for publication in 2014. A project to publish Banks's unseen early drawings, maps and sketches from the Culture universe alongs with his writings and notes on the setting was underway in February 2018. In 2021, the delayed single volume of The Culture: Notes and Drawings was cancelled and replaced with two separate volumes: a landscape artbook of The Culture: The Drawings and a companion volume containing notes, excerpts and new text from Ken MacLeod. The Culture: The Drawings was released on 7 November 2023, while the still-untitled companion volume was scheduled for late 2024.Banks wrote in various categories, but enjoyed science fiction most.In September 2012 Banks became a Guest of Honour at the 2014 World Science Fiction Convention, Loncon 3. Radio and television Banks was the subject of The Strange Worlds of Iain Banks South Bank Show (1997), a TV documentary that examined his mainstream writing, and was an in-studio guest for the final episode of Marc Riley's Rocket Science radio show, broadcast on BBC Radio 6 Music. An audio version of The Business, set to contemporary music, arranged by Paul Oakenfold, was broadcast in October 1999 on Galaxy Fm as the tenth Urban Soundtracks. Banks's The State of the Art, adapted for radio by Paul Cornell, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009 with Nadia Molinari producing and directing. In 1998 Espedair Street was dramatised as a serial for Radio 4, presented by Paul Gambaccini in the style of a Radio 1 documentary. In 2011 Banks featured on the BBC Radio 4 programme Saturday Live. Banks reaffirmed his atheism in this appearance, explaining death as an important "part of the totality of life" that should be treated realistically instead of feared.Banks appeared on the BBC television programme Question Time, a show that features political discussion. In 2006 he captained a team of writers to victory in a special series of BBC Two's University Challenge. Banks also won a 2006 edition of BBC One's Celebrity Mastermind; the author selected "Malt whisky and the distilleries of Scotland" as his specialist subject.His final interview was with Kirsty Wark, broadcast on BBC2 Scotland as Iain Banks: Raw Spirit 12 June 2013.BBC One Scotland and BBC2 broadcast an adaptation of his novel Stonemouth in June 2015. Theatre Banks was involved in the stage production The Curse of Iain Banks, written by Maxton Walker and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe festival in 1999. Banks collaborated frequently with its soundtrack composer Gary Lloyd, for instance on a song collection they co-composed as a tribute to the fictional band Frozen Gold from Banks's novel Espedair Street. Lloyd also scored for a spoken word and music production of his novel The Bridge, which Banks himself voiced and which featured a cast of 40 musicians, released on.... Discover the Iain Banks popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Iain Banks books.

Best Seller Iain Banks Books of 2024

  • Exzession synopsis, comments

    Exzession

    Iain Banks

    Eine Reise an die Grenzen des VorstellbarenIn einem entlegenen Sektor des Weltraums taucht eines Tages ein rätselhaftes Artefakt auf – eine riesige schwarze Kugel, die sich allen K...

  • Pack of Iain M. Banks synopsis, comments

    Pack of Iain M. Banks

    Iain M. Banks

    Contiene: El Algebrista, El Artefakto, Contra la oscuridad.

  • Roboteer synopsis, comments

    Roboteer

    Alex Lamb

    The starship Ariel is on a mission of the utmost secrecy, upon which the fate of thousands of lives depend. Though the ship is a mile long, its six crew are crammed into a space ba...

  • Pentatonic synopsis, comments

    Pentatonic

    Jonathan Coe

    Jonathan Coe's Pentatonic is a daring and original story about family and memory inspired by music.When a family celebrates the prizegiving day at their daughter's secondary school...

  • Vor einem dunklen Hintergrund synopsis, comments

    Vor einem dunklen Hintergrund

    Iain Banks

    Gnadenlose JagdSharrow war einst Anführerin einer schlagkräftigen Kampftruppe in einem kleinen Handelskrieg. Sie lebt auf dem Planeten Golter im Exil, wo ein Glasstrand noch von äl...

  • The Steep Approach To Garbadale synopsis, comments

    The Steep Approach To Garbadale

    Iain Banks

    'As good as anything Banks has ever written, if not better' Sunday TelegraphAfter years of exile, Alban Wopuld has been summoned back to his family's highland estate, Garbadale. Th...

  • Stone synopsis, comments

    Stone

    Adam Roberts

    Sprung from a prison in the centre of a star, the universe's last criminal is employed to kill the population of a planet. It is a crime that will tear apart an interstellar utopia...

  • Stolen Earth synopsis, comments

    Stolen Earth

    J.T. Nicholas

    Firefly meets The Expanse in a future where humanity has destroyed the Earth through ecological disaster and warfare, and a totalitarian state prevents any access to their home...E...

  • Surface Detail synopsis, comments

    Surface Detail

    Iain M. Banks

    Surface Detail is among Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, a breathtaking achievement from a writer whose body of work is without parallel in the modern history of science fiction.It b...

  • The Transgressive Iain Banks synopsis, comments

    The Transgressive Iain Banks

    Martyn Colebrook & Katharine Cox

    This collection of 12 new essays brings together prominent literary experts to explore the importance of Scottish writer Iain (M.) Banks, both his mainstream and science fiction wo...

  • Inversionen synopsis, comments

    Inversionen

    Iain Banks

    Alte Feinde Auf einem fernen Planeten widerstehen die Bewohner seit Jahrhunderten den technischen Errungenschaften der Zivilisation und halten an ihrer uralten Gesellschaftsform fe...

  • Empty Space synopsis, comments

    Empty Space

    M. John Harrison

    EMPTY SPACE is a space adventure. We begin with the following dream:An alien research tool the size of a brown dwarf star hangs in the middle of nowhere, as a result of an attempt ...

  • The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again synopsis, comments

    The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again

    M. John Harrison

    WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2020A New Statesman Book of the Year'A mesmerising, mysterious book . . . Haunting. Worrying. Beautiful' Russell T. Davis'Brilliantly unsettling' Oli...

  • Raw Spirit synopsis, comments

    Raw Spirit

    Iain Banks

    A fascinating journey through Scotland's famous distilleries with legendary author Iain Banks No true Scotsman can resist the allure of the nation's whisky distilleries. In an abso...

  • On The Third Day synopsis, comments

    On The Third Day

    Rhys Thomas

    Society is on the brink of collapse. The Old World is vanishing, the New World is taking over. There are no rules. Not now that a deadly disease is spreading that causes its victim...

  • Die Maschinen synopsis, comments

    Die Maschinen

    Ann Leckie

    Was wird aus den Menschen, wenn die Maschinen frei sein wollen?Breq ist eine Kämpferin, die auf einem einsamen Planeten auf Rache sinnt. Hinter ihrer verletzlichen, menschlichen Fa...

  • Marauder synopsis, comments

    Marauder

    Gary Gibson

    Pilot Megan Jacinth has three impossible goals. She has to find her friend Bash, who she left for dead to save her own life. She needs to locate a spacefaring entity, using Bash to...

  • The Culture Series of Iain M. Banks synopsis, comments

    The Culture Series of Iain M. Banks

    Simone Caroti

    This critical history of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels covers the series from its inception in the 1970s to the The Hydrogen Sonata (2012), published less than a year before Banks'...

  • King Of The Ants synopsis, comments

    King Of The Ants

    Charles Higson

    'Charlie Higson's thrillers are major events' Mark Billingham'Funny, very tough and full of action' Patricia Highsmith 'Uncoils with wit and imagination' Time OutIt seemed straight...

  • Romain Gary synopsis, comments

    Romain Gary

    David Bellos

    Airman, war hero, immigrant, law student, diplomat, novelist and celebrity spouse, Romain Gary had several lives thrust upon him by the history of the twentieth century, but he als...

  • Fireflies synopsis, comments

    Fireflies

    Shiva Naipaul

    Shiva Naipaul was the brother of V. S. Naipaul and author of Firefles and The ChipChip Gatherers. Fireflies, his first novel, published in 1970 and longlisted for the 'Lost Man Boo...

  • The Testimony synopsis, comments

    The Testimony

    James Smythe

    A global thriller presenting an apocalyptic vision of a world on the brink of despair and destruction.What would you do if the world was brought to a standstill? If you heard deafe...

  • Two Wheels In The Dust synopsis, comments

    Two Wheels In The Dust

    Anne Mustoe

    India is no place for the fainthearted cyclist. The streets are jammed with cars, busses, rickshaws, animals, fortunetellers, barbers, beggars and people sleeping or cooking. Follo...

  • After The Deafening synopsis, comments

    After The Deafening

    Gerard Woodward

    With the publication of his first book, HOUSEHOLDER, Gerard Woodward emerged as one of the most talented and unusual new poets of the 1990s. In his forthcoming collection AFTER THE...

  • Stars and Bones synopsis, comments

    Stars and Bones

    Gareth L. Powell

    Shortlisted for the BSFA Award, a stunningly inventive actionpacked sciencefiction epic adventure for fans of Becky Chambers and Ann Leckie from the multi BSFA awardwinner, Gareth ...

  • Mediating the World in the Novels of Iain Banks synopsis, comments

    Mediating the World in the Novels of Iain Banks

    Katarzyna Pisarska

    This book offers a detailed analysis of all mainstream novels of Iain Banks. It explores the question of mediation, the process of a semiotic (re)construction of the world on the p...

  • Iain M. Banks synopsis, comments

    Iain M. Banks

    Paul Kincaid

    The 1987 publication of Iain M. Banks’s Consider Phlebas helped trigger the British renaissance of radical hard science fiction and influenced a generation of New Space Opera maste...

  • Liveforever synopsis, comments

    Liveforever

    Andres Caicedo

    Andrés Caicedo's novel Liveforever is a wild celebration of youth, hedonism and the transforming power of music.María del Carmen Huerta lives a respectable middleclass life in Colo...

  • The Highland Vet synopsis, comments

    The Highland Vet

    Guy Gordon & The Thurso Veterinary Team

    Discover the charms and challenges of working at Scotland's most northerly mainland veterinary practice.From performing farm animal caesarean sections at all hours to missing speci...

  • Canal Dreams synopsis, comments

    Canal Dreams

    Iain Banks

    'Banks once again demonstrates his extraordinary dark powers of imagination' Sunday TimesHisako Onada, worldfamous cellist, refuses to fly. And so she travels to Europe as a passen...

  • Artifact Space synopsis, comments

    Artifact Space

    Miles Cameron

    Die Galaxis ist besiedelt. Großschiffe bringen Passagiere und Fracht von einem Sternsystem zum anderen, und ihre Handelsrouten sind die Adern der menschlichen Zivilisation. All das...

  • The Player of Games synopsis, comments

    The Player of Games

    Iain M. Banks

    The Culture a human/machine symbiotic society has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of ev...

  • Consider Phlebas synopsis, comments

    Consider Phlebas

    Iain M. Banks

    The first book in Iain M. Banks's seminal science fiction series, The Culture. Consider Phlebas introduces readers to the utopian conglomeration of human and alien races that explo...

  • Embers of War synopsis, comments

    Embers of War

    Gareth L. Powell

    From BSFA Award winning author Gareth L. Powell comes the first in a new epic scifi trilogy exploring the legacies of warThe sentient warship Trouble Dog was built for violence, ye...

  • Licht - Die Trilogie synopsis, comments

    Licht - Die Trilogie

    M. John Harrison

    Hinter dem EreignishorizontDer Wissenschaftler Michael Kearney ist mit der Arbeit an dem neuen Quantencomputer beschäftigt, als ihm zunehmend unwirkliche Erscheinungen aus seiner V...

  • On The Slow Train synopsis, comments

    On The Slow Train

    Michael Williams

    'A trip back in time' DAILY TELEGRAPHA love of railways, a love of history, a love of nostalgia.Get ready to board the slow train to another era, to a time when travel meant more t...

  • Re-Coil synopsis, comments

    Re-Coil

    J.T. Nicholas

    The Expanse meets Altered Carbon in this breakneck science fiction thriller where immortality is theoretically achievable, yet identity, gender and selfhood are very much in jeopar...

  • The Bridge synopsis, comments

    The Bridge

    Iain Banks

    'A stunning book. Banks' powerful imagination is joined to a rare ability to be truly funny while exploring a nightmare world' Sunday TimesA man lies in a coma after a nearfatal ac...

  • Espedair Street synopsis, comments

    Espedair Street

    Iain Banks

    'Charming, sad, comic... the funniest, truest rock biopic yet' ObserverDaniel Weir used to be a famous not to say infamous rock star. Maybe still is. At thirtyone he has been b...

  • Walking On Glass synopsis, comments

    Walking On Glass

    Iain Banks

    'Establishes beyond doubt that Iain Banks is a novelist of remarkable talents' Daily TelegraphGraham Park is in love. But Sara Fitch is an enigma to him, a creature of almost perve...

  • Mediating the World in the Novels of Iain Banks synopsis, comments

    Mediating the World in the Novels of Iain Banks

    Katarzyna Pisarska

    This book offers a detailed analysis of all mainstream novels of Iain Banks. It explores the question of mediation, the process of a semiotic (re)construction of the world on the p...

  • Nemesis synopsis, comments

    Nemesis

    Alex Lamb

    Years ago, one starship and its crew discovered an alien entity which changed everything. Its discovery finally bought an end to the interstellar war being fought between the masse...