Iain Banks : Iain M. Banks

Iain Menzies Banks (born on February 16, 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) is a writer of, as Iain Banks, mainstream novels and, as Iain M. Banks, science fiction.

His mainstream novels are:

• The Wasp Factory (1984)
• Walking on Glass[?] (1985)
• The Bridge (1986)
• Espedair Street (1987) – adapted for BBC radio in 1998 (dir. Dave Batchelor[?])
• Canal Dreams[?] (1989)
• The Crow Road (1992) – adapted for BBC TV in 1996 (dir. Gavin Millar[?])
• Complicity[?] (1993) – filmed in 2000 (dir. Gavin Millar[?]), retitled Retribution for its video release
• Whit (1995)
• A Song of Stone[?] (1997)
• The Business[?] (1999)
• Dead Air (2002)

Much of his science fiction deals with a large pan-galactic organisation, The Culture, which he describes in intricate detail:

• Consider Phlebas (1987)
• The Player of Games (1988)
• The State of the Art (collection 1989; not all stories deal with the Culture)
• Use of Weapons (1990)
• Excession (1996)
• Inversions (1998) (makes covert references to the protagonists being Culture citizens)
• Look to Windward (2000)

His other, non-Culture, science fiction novels are:

• Against a Dark Background (1993)
• Feersum Endjinn (1994)

Like Ken MacLeod, another writer of technical and social science fiction also from Glasgow, and an acquaintance of his, a strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy viable (or even inevitable) is one that many consider would be an interesting experiment, were it testable.