Iain Banks was a highly acclaimed Scottish novelist, born in 1954 and sadly passed away in 2013. He is known for his exceptional work in both regular literary fiction and science fiction. To distinguish between his two genres, he used his middle initial 'M' when writing science fiction, under the pen name Iain M. Banks. He is widely recognized for his celebrated series of science fiction novels, 'The Culture'.
Banks was educated at the University of Stirling, where he studied English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. He lived in London and the south of England until 1988, when he returned to Scotland, living in Edinburgh and then Fife. He was married to Annie in Hawaii in 1992, but they later separated in 2007. Banks lived most recently in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth near the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.
His works have been adapted for television and film. 'The Crow Road' was turned into a 1996 television miniseries, 'Complicity' became a film in 2000, and a television series called 'Stonemouth' was based on his novel.
Banks was a prominent figure in left-wing politics and was a signatory to the Declaration of Calton Hill, which calls for Scottish independence. He was a vocal critic of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and even cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street in protest. His political views and concerns often found their way into his novels, such as 'Raw Spirit' and 'The Steep Approach to Garbadale'.
In 2013, Banks revealed that he had late-stage cancer and unfortunately passed away the following June. His last novel, 'The Quarry', was published in June 2013, as he had announced earlier that year.
Culture Books
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
Consider Phlebas
1987
2
The Player of Games
1988
3
The State of the Art
1989
4
Use of Weapons
1990
5
Excession
1996
6
Inversions
1998
7
Look to Windward
2000
8
Matter
2008
9
Surface Detail
2010
10
The Hydrogen Sonata
2012
Standalone Novels
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
The Wasp Factory
1984
2
Walking on Glass
1985
3
The Bridge
1986
4
Espedair Street
1987
5
Canal Dreams
1989
6
The Crow Road
1992
7
Complicity
1993
8
Against a Dark Background
1993
9
Feersum Endjinn
1994
10
Whit
1995
11
A Song of Stone
1997
12
The Business
1999
13
Dead Air
2002
14
The Algebraist
2004
15
Transition
2009
16
Stonemouth
2012
17
The Quarry
2013
Non-Fiction Books
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
Raw Spirit
2003
Poetry Collections
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
Poems
2015
Iain M. Banks Anthologies
#
Title
Year
Goodreads
Amazon
1
Arrows Of Eros
1989
2
Dark
2000
3
The Space Opera Renaissance
2006
4
Shoreline of Infinity 8½: Edinburgh International Book Festival Special Edition