Iain 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)

Much of his science fiction deals with a large pan-galactic organisation, The Culture, which he describes in intricate (and sceptical) 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, sf novels are:

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