Iain Banks is dying. That’s not supposed to happen, and I’m quite dissatisfied with this turn of events. I would register a grievance to the appropriate authorities, but Special Circumstances won’t answer.
Banks produced a body of work that was deeply engaging and often darkly satirical. Perhaps his greatest achievement was the Culture series, a science-fiction universe of massive scope, grim wit, and oddly self-defeating optimism. The last novel in the series centers around the last days of an advanced civilization that has decided to simply walk away from this universe. I wonder now if that’s not a coincidence.
…and here I am, already talking about the man in the past tense.
He recently completed a book called The Quarry, and his publisher is moving the release date forward so Banks can live to see it on the shelves. At a recent talk, he claimed to have a new Culture novel “ready to go,” though its status is now uncertain. Continued...
