I've never read anything by Iain Banks.

[avevale_intelligencer]

I encountered The Wasp Factory when it first came out. I picked it up, read the blurb, looked at a page or two and had put it down again and moved on almost before I realised what had happened. The sensation of Do Not Want was practically physical. And that has shaped and conditioned my reaction to every Banks book I've looked at ever since.

My loss, I realise. I know, intellectually, that he was a great sf writer (with the added M,. of course) and breathed new life into a part of the genre that had grown moribund, and a part of which I was particularly fond. I hope, some day, to be able to embark on his sf oeuvre and discover it for the first time.

And now, suddenly, he's gone, and that oeuvre is finished, choked off by a pointless and premature demise. I can't claim to know him as many of my friends do. I don't even know his books. But it's a cause for grief and anger when anyone dies before they have finished with life, before they have done all the good they might do, before they have spoken the whole of the truth within them...before they have laughed and sung and loved for the last time.

Too many of my friends, too many good people, have gone before. Too many are fighting for a few more years, or days. Too many will lose too soon.

Laugh. Sing. Love. Speak your truth. Time is short.

Rest in peace, Mr Banks.

Comments

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

I've read some of the SF books, and I'm sad he's gone now, because they really are good.

The non-SF doesn't appeal, but hey. Each to their own.

[feetnotes.livejournal.com]

that's because it is horrible, and horrid - and extremely well written;
it was meant to be.

also avoid Walking on Glass, for pretty well the same reason(s).

but The Crow Road is superb - eerie, sometimes confusing, sometimes scary,
but i recommend it to you quite highly: and it's borderline fantasy too, arguably.

his most recent i've read is Stonemouth, which is.. different. and, er, entertaining.
definitely "er, entertaining." humanly so.

iain banks was silver-tongued and dangerous to drink with.

i didn't know him at all well, but he was a friendly con-bar companion and an excellent raconteur.

i'll sip another glass of islay single malt in his memory
- there's no-one round here to drink to him with, alas.

[wolfette]

Wasp Factory was a book that was horrid and horrible and hard to read - then suddenly there is a point at which everything changes and all that has gone before makes sense. and then you cry. (or I did)

Crow Road has one of the most amazing opening paragraphs ever.

[feetnotes.livejournal.com]

*vbg*

- doesn't it just! :-))

- on a par with "the doorknob opened a blue eye and looked at him."

[thalinoviel.livejournal.com]

Try Feersum Enjinn, or however it's spelt