‘An explosion of talent’: Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory at 40
As a new anniversary edition of the late author’s landmark debut is published, high profile fans reflect on an extraordinary career
June 2023
Where to start with
Where to start with: Iain Banks
He catapulted to fame with depraved, funny novel The Wasp Factory in 1984, but the much-loved Scottish writer had a parallel career as an influential sci-fi writer
November 2020
'It had been on my shelf for years': readers share their lockdown reads
Publishers report that coronavirus has boosted sales of long, classic novels. You reveal the great baggy monsters you’ve found the time to tackle
August 2020
Amazon TV adaptation of Iain Banks' Culture series is cancelled
Author’s estate says timing wasn’t right, while scriptwriter says he is ‘mystified’ by move
June 2020
Top 10s
Top 10 books about remaking the future
The urgent need to reorganise life on Earth is clear to almost everyone, how we do it less so. Fortunately science fiction has drawn up some good plans
February 2019
Books blog
'I can't even look at the cover': the most disturbing books
From hiding from a copy of The Exorcist to being unnerved by the likes of Shirley Jackson, Stephen King and Iain Banks, here are your most alarming reading experiences
June 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 books about the afterlife
Books blog
Does Elon Musk really understand Iain M Banks's 'utopian anarchist' Culture?
February 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 spaceships in fiction
From Jules Verne’s far-sighted Victorian moonshot to the self-aware starships of Iain M Banks, here are some of the most compelling flights of fantasy
Iain M Banks's drawings of the Culture universe to be published in 2019
Late author’s friend Ken MacLeod is to publish a collection of the writer’s own images, sketching out the science fiction universe where he set 10 books
Top 10s
Top 10 books about the Scottish Highlands and Islands
Remote yet magnetic, the rugged environments of Scotland’s north have been inspiring writing for centuries, whether in memoir, natural history or tales of alien hitchhikers...
December 2017
Books blog
Tips, links and suggestions: what are you reading this week?
Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
June 2017
A brush with greatness
The day Iain Banks drove me through the Scottish Highlands
It’s June 1991, and Peter Cosgrove, a young Iain Banks fan, is hitching a lift. Guess who pulls up in a black BMW?
February 2017
Books blog
30 years of Culture: what are the top five Iain M Banks novels?
These gritty space operas combine extravagant, high-tech invention with real human drama. Thirty years after they began appearing, here are some of the best
January 2017
Top 10s
Top 10 unreliable narrators
From Edgar Allan Poe to Gillian Flynn, storytellers who cannot be trusted are great devices for writers, and a compelling challenge for readers
October 2016
Books blog
Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song voted Scotland's favourite novel
The 1932 elegy to crofting sees off contemporary stars including Iain Banks, Irvine Welsh and JK Rowling in BBC poll
August 2016
Books blog
Scotland's favourite books: readers' picks
Iain Banks, Ali Smith and more – here are 10 books the BBC missed, as recommended by readers
July 2016
Damien Walter's weird things
Big Dumb Objects: science fiction's most mysterious MacGuffins
From 2001 to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, these awesome structures loom large over the genre, loaded with inscrutable significance
June 2016
Damien Walter's weird things
How sci-fi simulates simulated reality
Elon Musk caused a stir last week by suggesting ours is not the real world, but sci-fi writers have been speculating about this for at least 70 years
March 2016
Damien Walter's weird things
When AI rules the world: what SF novels tell us about our future overlords
Science fiction has offered many visions of a computer-controlled future, and the future doesn’t look good for humanity
