Iain M. Banks (1954–2013) was born #OTD, 16 Feb: a 🎂 🧵1/13

[scotlit@mastodon.scot]

@bookstodon

“THE BRIDGE bends reality, breaks the rules of physics, invents technologies & plays around with impossible inventions”

—Sam Jordison explores the link between Iain Banks’s “mainstream” & science-fiction novels

5/13

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/23/iain-banks-the-bridge-link-mainstream-literature-science-fiction

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

[lordwoolamaloo@mastodon.scot]

@scotlit @bookstodon I miss Iain. Here he is in happier days, with another Ian, in the writer's natural habitat (the pub) https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/6780055390/

[scotlit@mastodon.scot]

@bookstodon

HIPPY COMMIES WITH HYPER-WEAPONS

“I think space opera in general celebrates a certain manic wildness and vivacity of vision, a refusal to be constrained”

A Few Questions About the Culture – an interview with Iain M. Banks, on Strange Horizons

6/13

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/a-few-questions-about-the-culture-an-interview-with-iain-banks/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

[scotlit@mastodon.scot]

@bookstodon

“As a humanist, atheist, and socialist, he preferred to place his trust in techno-scientific development, rather than his faith in gods, or his capital in the market”

Joseph S. Norman on the legacy & utopianism of Iain M. Banks’s #scifi Culture series

7/13

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2023/11/better-to-create-your-own-on-the-legacy-and-utopianism-of-iain-m-bankss-culture-series/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #utopia

[scotlit@mastodon.scot]

@bookstodon

“Banks… envisions the overcoming of scarcity as the signal achievement of the civilization made by the Minds, & yet he focuses time and again on objects of unfulfilled desire”

—Alan Jacobs on the Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M Banks, for The New Atlantis

8/13

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-ambiguous-utopia-of-iain-m-banks

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #utopia

[scotlit@mastodon.scot]

@bookstodon

“Our strange wee country is as complex as any alien civilization, & getting it as right as Banks did in The Crow Road required every bit as much world-building skill as his Culture”

—Simon Stephenson travels THE CROW ROAD for Reactor Magazine

9/13

https://reactormag.com/the-difference-is-entirely-one-of-setting-iain-banks-the-crow-road/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

[scotlit@mastodon.scot]

@bookstodon

Why has Iain Banks’s Culture series – “a world where your Bezoses & your Musks are not just irrelevant, but actively sought out & disempowered” – garnered a billionaire fanbase? Kurt Schiller examines ultra-rich misreadings & delusions for Blood Knife

10/13

https://bloodknife.com/culture-war-iain-m-banks-jeff-bezos/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture #billionaires

[scotlit@mastodon.scot]

@bookstodon

The New Scientist Book Club read the science-fiction masterpiece THE PLAYER OF GAMES by Iain M. Banks. In this video, Iain’s friend & fellow author Ken MacLeod discusses Iain’s schooldays, his literary influences, & his idea for a final Culture novel

11/13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7OW6A8XCgg

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

[scotlit@mastodon.scot]

@bookstodon

“Pay attention to the moments of contradiction & uncertainty threaded through character dialogue & self-reflection…Watch his tone. Watch his humour. For me, that’s where the sharpest lessons are”

—Dr Bethany Jacobs for the New Scientist

12/13

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2506129-why-sci-fi-novelist-iain-m-banks-was-an-astounding-world-builder/

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

[scotlit@mastodon.scot]

@bookstodon

“I mean, your society’s broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No let’s blame the people with no power & no money & these immigrants who don’t even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault.”

—Iain Banks, the final interview

13/13

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/15/iain-banks-the-final-interview

#Scottish #literature #fiction #sciencefiction #IainBanks #IainMBanks #TheCulture

[ericlawton@kolektiva.social]

@scotlit

I've read "The Culture" novels at least 5 times.

@bookstodon @AnnaAnthro