Iain Banks: one or two thoughts

I used to think that the Iain-and-Iain-M-Banks phenomenon was as if somebody, say Kazuo Ishiguro or Ian McEwen, roughly his contemporaries, wrote twice as fast, twice as much, twice as wittily and with double the range too. Don't forget Banks began his career as the enfant terrible of literary fiction, with The Wasp Factory  , Walking on Glass and The Bridge. How were we readers to know he was actually a frustrated sci-fi author, with several completed, unpublished books already under his belt? Well, Walking on Glass should have clued us in, I suppose.

Late last year I finished his latest 'M Book', The Hydrogen Sonata - a real return to top form, I thought, after the not completely satisfying Surface Detail. I felt seduced once more by The Culture, Banks's near-utopian civilisation where death is essentially optional and technology unlimited, and decided to re-read the entire series, becoming satisfyingly stuck after Excession. I would, I thought, return to the brilliant wit of the ship minds in due course.

Stonemouth, the last 'M-less' book, I wasn't sure about. An unaccustomed looseness of plotting was eased by the assurance and ease of the writing, but there was a nagging sense that we'd been here before. Transition, on the other hand, the 2009 book that crossed the division between 'M' and 'M-less', I loved in every way. Bracing and brimful of ideas, slippery and full of pungent fun, trenchant questions.

It will be apparent that I am a Banks fan. I have read the entire canon, much of it twice, in one instance - Raw Spirit -  with a degree of irritation. I have interviewed him, never face-to-face, on several occasions, always enjoying encounters with a man of great good humour and insight, but who I always felt, even in a full-on Stark Talk encounter with Edi Stark, gave a lot away to avoid giving away too much. Maybe kind of shy, I don't know. He's responsible for the only daytime play ever on BBC Radio Scotland of a Frank Zappa tune.

And now this. Now this foul and appalling news, two days after April Fool's (doubtless a quirk of timing that appeals). Bravely and humorously faced. No way out but the worst.

Things can happen. It's not over yet. Like thousands of others, I wish Iain and his wife Adele the best during the difficult months ahead. I look forward to the new book, which like all the others I could afford to, I'll buy in hardback.

"There's an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it."
Iain M Banks, Look to Windward.