Iain Banks

A 27th Novel The Quarry was published posthumously.

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 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.

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.

After the success of The Wasp Factory (1984), he began to write full time.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

His final work, a poetry collection, appeared in February 2015.

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.