sadIain Banks Has Died of Cancer at the Age of 59
One of the giants of 20th and 21st century Scottish literature has left the building.
I had never met Iain Banks, other than seeing him give talks and the like at a couple of science fiction conventions, but I've enjoyed his work. Starting with The Wasp Factory in 1984, Banks produced some absolutely marvellous books that showed his creativity and imagination, but it was with Consider Phlebas and the start of the Culture series in 1985 that his career started to take off. While Banks wrote a lot of more convention literary works that I found rather enjoyable, edgy, and fully engaged with the world he set them in, it was his science fiction that achieved more, that rare positive element that was a conviction that a future was possible in which people could live better.
Rest In Peace, Iain Banks. As writer Paul McAuley tweeted, a big bright bold boisterous light has gone out. And speculative fiction has lost a giant and will be that much dimmer for it.