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You are here: Home / Books / Look to Windward

Look to Windward

by Sarah, Proud and Tall|  June 9, 20139:42 pm| 44 Comments

This post is in: Books

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Picture: Cheugn Wattie

Iain Banks is dead of cancer at age 59.

I have long been a devotee of his books written as Iain M. Banks, and in awe of his ability to create fantastic and bizarre worlds and characters while ensuring that they were always, somehow, deeply human.

It is a sad day.

[Picture: Cheugn Wattie]
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44Comments

  1. 1.

    jamus4

    June 9, 2013 at 9:49 pm

    Indeed. If folks haven’t tried his stuff, they should. The Culture stuff is wonderful, but my favorite one-off is the Algebraist – I really wish we all lived in slow time on a gas giant.

  2. 2.

    Spaghetti Lee

    June 9, 2013 at 9:55 pm

    Seems like a lot of fantasy/sci-fi authors die too soon, doesn’t it? Douglas Adams, Robert Jordan, now Banks.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    June 9, 2013 at 9:55 pm

    I think the only Iain Banks book I have on my shelf is Complicity. It’s really fascinating — like Se7en as told by a really good writer.

  4. 4.

    Mnemosyne

    June 9, 2013 at 9:58 pm

    Also, too, if you’ve seen Hot Fuzz, there’s an inside joke there where you can tell the difference between identical twin police officers (both played by Bill Bailey) because one of them reads Iain Banks at the front desk and the other reads Iain M. Banks.

  5. 5.

    Redshirt

    June 9, 2013 at 10:07 pm

    Where ya been, Sarah, P&T?

  6. 6.

    Yatsuno

    June 9, 2013 at 10:08 pm

    :: squees ::

    :: kisses Granny on both cheeks ::

    Missed u. Luv u. :)

  7. 7.

    Yatsuno

    June 9, 2013 at 10:10 pm

    FYWP.

    @Spaghetti Lee: It was that durn socialised medicine what killed em.

    /wingnut

  8. 8.

    cyntax

    June 9, 2013 at 10:17 pm

    I picked up Matter from the loan library in a hotel my wife and I were staying at on our honeymoon–loved it. His vision was what pulled me in, but SPT is right; I stayed for the characters.

  9. 9.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    June 9, 2013 at 10:18 pm

    @Redshirt:

    I’ve been travelling, and wearing off my politics fatigue. Hopefully I’m back now, with the odd exciting story to impart.

    What’s been going on in my absence?

  10. 10.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    June 9, 2013 at 10:18 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    Awww. I love you too, strangely-named facsimile person.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    June 9, 2013 at 10:21 pm

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall:

    Oh my, you picked a bad time to return to politics…

    But then, when is a good time? Welcome back.

  12. 12.

    Yatsuno

    June 9, 2013 at 10:22 pm

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall: It was FYWP. It decided to play games with the old nym.

  13. 13.

    Redshirt

    June 9, 2013 at 10:24 pm

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall: Cole got rid of Zsa Zsa. Nothing much else happened. Welcome back! Do regale us with tales of your adventures!

  14. 14.

    Mary G

    June 9, 2013 at 10:26 pm

    What would you suggest I read first? Are they a series, or all stand-alone novels. I am almost at the end of the Patrick O’Brian series, which is fantastic.

  15. 15.

    Herbal Infusion Bagger

    June 9, 2013 at 10:34 pm

    Ah bugger. One of the greatest SF writers, and one who crossed genres into ‘literary’ novels.

  16. 16.

    Mathguy

    June 9, 2013 at 10:34 pm

    It was freaking depressing to read about his cancer (go to his blog-it’s an excellent read). I understand they were hoping to get his last book published before he died, but it sounds like that did not happen.

  17. 17.

    Scott Alloway

    June 9, 2013 at 10:34 pm

    I’m in the middle of “Transitions,” having read a number of Banks’ books. It is a sad time.

  18. 18.

    JeremyH

    June 9, 2013 at 10:36 pm

    Really sad news – Iain Banks was such an important part of my teens and twenties. I started with his first book, “The Wasp Factory” when I was seventeen, and it just blew my socks off. Standouts over the following decade included “Espedair Street”, “The Crow Road”, “Walking on Glass”, and “Complicity”. Brilliant, brilliant writer.

  19. 19.

    ? Martin

    June 9, 2013 at 10:37 pm

    @Yatsuno: Don’t believe him. He transported Yutsano down to the hostile planet, shaved off his goatee and is impersonating our fun-loving IRS agent. He’s really a Koch brother lackey here to turn Balloon Juice into an evil for-profit enterprise that will crush poor blogs under his fashionable iron boot.

  20. 20.

    MattR

    June 9, 2013 at 10:39 pm

    @Mathguy: From the Independent:

    His final novel, The Quarry, will be released on June 20, 2013. The book depicts the final weeks of protagonist Guy, who is suffering with cancer. Banks is believed to have drawn heavily from his own experiences when writing the book, which he started after his diagnosis.

  21. 21.

    Biff Longbotham

    June 9, 2013 at 10:40 pm

    Start with the first Culture book–Consider Phlebas–but be prepared to skip over some dreadful parts (like the island cannibals) as you learn the basics of the Culture culture. Excession is my personal favorite of the Culture novels, but do read his non-culture novel Against a Dark Background for some good sci-fi with a tinge of the gothic thrown in!

  22. 22.

    Flanders

    June 9, 2013 at 10:41 pm

    You could do worse than just jumping right into HYDROGEN SONATA. It’s one of his better ones. Also second THE ALGEBRAIST. I also highly recommend his “Straight” fiction. COMPLICITY and THE STEEP APPROACH TO GABRADALE are both quite good, and THE WASP FACTORY, which made Banks’ name as a Writer To Be Watched, is unforgettable.

    Seriously, just pick one up and go. Even his weaker ones (by my lights SURFACE DETAIL, MATTER, and STATE OF THE ART, though opinions vary widely) are worth a read.

  23. 23.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    June 9, 2013 at 10:46 pm

    @Mary G:

    Crikey. Its a bit of a leap from Aubrey and Maturin to the Culture, but you’ll need something to fill that yawning gap.

    All of his books are standalone. “Iain Banks” books are real-world focussed and all very different – usually lead-character driven, often with unlikeable narrators, and often about business and family and war, when they’re not about serial killers. I particularly liked The Business.

    “Iain M. Banks” books are mostly set in an extremely technologically advanced society called the Culture, filled with alien beings, idiosyncratic super-intelligent machines and secret agents. I think that Player of Games is a good place to start, as it’s quite accessible, but my favorites are Excession and Look to Windward.

  24. 24.

    gogol's wife

    June 9, 2013 at 10:47 pm

    I never heard of Iain Banks, but may he rest in peace. But I’m glad to see Sarah Proud and Tall back. Where have you got General Stuck hidden?

  25. 25.

    JoeK

    June 9, 2013 at 10:48 pm

    Goddamnit. Happy trails, Iain :'(

    I will agree that “Excession” is one of the best Culture books. It is the first one that isn’t entirely grim IIRC. Also extremely fond of “Matter” & “Surface Detail”. Might have to try his mainstream stuff now that there will be no more Culture books.

  26. 26.

    Yatsuno

    June 9, 2013 at 10:49 pm

    @? Martin: TARGET FOR ELIMINATION ACQUIRED

    :: shakes head ::

    Sorry, what were we discussing again?

  27. 27.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    June 9, 2013 at 10:53 pm

    @? Martin:

    here to turn Balloon Juice into an evil for-profit enterprise that will crush poor blogs under his fashionable iron boot.

    You mean it isn’t that already? I’ve been sadly misinformed.

  28. 28.

    RSA

    June 9, 2013 at 10:54 pm

    @Mary G: Like a lof of SF writers, Banks has created a universe (the Culture) in which a lot of his stories are set. Use of Weapons is typically held up as the best of the Culture novels. It’s the third he wrote in the series, and I think it could be picked up as a starting point. It has very dark moments, just so you know.

    And then there’s his non-SF writing. Banks’s first novel was The Wasp Factory, about which a Scotsman newspaper reviewer wrote, “There’s nothing to force you, having been warned, to read it; nor do I recommend it.” Really dark.

  29. 29.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    June 9, 2013 at 11:20 pm

    “Iain M. Banks” books are mostly set in an extremely technologically advanced society called the Culture, filled with alien beings, idiosyncratic super-intelligent machines and secret agents

    Except for “GCU Ultimate Ship The Second” – by definition, not idiosyncratic…

  30. 30.

    Diana

    June 9, 2013 at 11:43 pm

    @Mary G: If you’re interested in the Culture novels, I started with Consider Phlebas, which I still think is one of his best. I’d also start with Use of Weapons or the Player of Games. Look to Windward is flawed, and Excession reminded me a little too much of early usenet. Matter is straight-up boring, and since I never finished it I never went on to read any of his other books.

    The problem I have with the Culture is that it’s too powerful; it has no antagonist worthy of the name, and therefore no truly significant victories to be won. Because Consider Phlebas is told from the point of view of an antagonist, it’s more interesting than, say, Excession.

    They spoke true when they say that Satan is the secret hero of Paradise Lost. Because, really, how interesting can the obediant angels ever really be?

  31. 31.

    stibbert

    June 9, 2013 at 11:56 pm

    I’m saddened by Iain Banks’ death, his books are just wonderful. He published his sci-fi as Iain M. Banks, & perhaps the best entry-point is ‘The Player of Games’. Of his sans-M fiction, my favorite is ‘The Crow Road’, which features perhaps the most truly hilarious first chapter in all of fiction, beginning w/ “It was the day my grandmother exploded.”

    There’s a great section in one of the Culture (M.) novels where 2 ship-Minds are giving each other the needle via tight-beam across interstellar distances, using only other ship-names in their conversation.

  32. 32.

    Steeplejack

    June 10, 2013 at 12:04 am

    @Mary G:

    As others have said above, “Iain M. Banks” is the science-fiction side, “Iain Banks” is the “regular” fiction side.

    Banks’s Culture novels are a “series,” but nowhere as tight as Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels. It’s more that they share a general mise-en-scène—the galaxy-spanning “Culture” of humanoids and related AIs, and the other civilizations and entities they encounter. The first two novels are Consider Phlebas (1987) and The Player of Games (1988). You could start with either of those—or the third one, Use of Weapons (1990), as Sarah suggested—without much loss of continuity. But I would start with one of those, because in the later books Banks relies on the reader having some footing and he just sketches in some background elements.

    I remember Consider Phlebas as being a little space-operatic—bombs! lasers! interstellar war! pew-pew-pew!—but Banks’s big ideas are there, just a little rough around the edges. The Player of Games is a step up, and also has a big dose of Banks’s trademark dark side.

    What I like about the Culture novels is that Banks is one of the few science fiction writers who can do “big” really well: he seamlessly (and plausibly) immerses you in a semi-distant future where relatively few “humans” live on planets and most live on asteroid- or planet-sized “ships,” each guided by its own resident AI, and he develops things consistently from there.

  33. 33.

    Steeplejack

    June 10, 2013 at 12:16 am

    @Flanders:

    I was really disappointed with The Hydrogen Sonata. Back to the pointless pew-pew-pew!, and I thought the central trope of the sonata, and the improbable instrument on which it is played, was utter fail. I also did not buy the central idea of the civilization that had decided to “ascend” (or whatever it’s called—“sublime”?); they seemed way too ambivalent and un-Zen to have gotten to that point.

  34. 34.

    Viva BrisVegas

    June 10, 2013 at 12:42 am

    Seeing that he was one of my favourite authors, I was feeling obliged to say something profound about Banks’ work, but since Banks was far more profound than I’ll ever be, I’ll just recommend to everyone; go and read them, your life will be better for the effort.

    Also too, my other favourite author died just two weeks ago, Jack Vance. Although one of the most influential fantasy writers of the post WW2 era, he could also turn out damn good science fiction when he felt like it. His Lyonesse Trilogy really truly needs to be made into a lavish TV series before I die.

  35. 35.

    Flanders

    June 10, 2013 at 12:53 am

    @Steeplejack: First of all, nobody does pew!pew!pew! like Banks. Second, the pointlessness really was rather the point, dig?

    And I think that the Gzilt being a bit bumblefooted on their way towards Subliming was again the point. In the Culture universe, once the technological threshold has been reached (and it’s intimated the the Culture has been there a long time, but has simply chosen not to Sublime because it’s just not their bag, man), any society can Sublime. It’s a technological achievement, not a moral one. If the Culture series had to end, Surface Detail was a great note to go out on.

    My personal favorite Culture novel remains Look to Windward. I liked Hydrogen Sonata because it was a bit of a break away from the polemical turn Banks had taken in Surface Detail (even though I agree with his politics!)

  36. 36.

    Batocchio

    June 10, 2013 at 2:12 am

    Yeah, I’m really bummed out over this. I wrote a post about Banks last week (haven’t updated it yet):

    http://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2013/06/iain-banks.html

    My favorites are The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Surface Detail, and The Crow Road.

  37. 37.

    daveNYC

    June 10, 2013 at 3:46 am

    @Diana: I’d have to totally disagree with starting someone out with Use of Weapons. It’s a great book, but dark in a way that I wouldn’t recommend it to someone as an introduction to The Culture. Player of Games or Consider Phlebas are solid intro books.

    Two things I like about The Culture books:
    Very little tech exposition, if there’s tech, it’s just used, there’s no attempt to try and explain how and why it works. It’s an initial shock, but I like that much better than books that try and ease the reader into the technology of the setting.

    It’s an optimistic view of the future that manages to have realistic people and cultures within it. Very different from the Roddenberry Trek future where everyone just suddenly became good people for some reason. The Culture, and all the other civilizations out there, is made up of the same sort of people as we have today, it’s just the technology is such that most crime is pointless and punnishment is swift, sure, and effective.

    Added bonus is that Earthlings have been specifically chosen to not be part of The Culture. We’re officially a control group to determine the correctness of the Contact groups policies.

  38. 38.

    Batocchio

    June 10, 2013 at 3:50 am

    @Mathguy:
    @MattR:

    Banks actually was deep into writing The Quarry before he knew he had cancer. His publishers did manage to show him some finished copies of the book before he died, at least. It’s scheduled to hit bookshelves in a few weeks, apparently.

    Ach, what a loss.

  39. 39.

    stibbert

    June 10, 2013 at 5:51 am

    @Mary G: when Patrick O’Brian passed away, his cover-illustrator, Geoff Hunt, drew up a sketch of “HMS Surprise in Mourning”.
    http://www.prismnet.com/gibbonsb/pob/HuntTribute.html

    When members of the Culture chose to die, they’d typically have their bodies blipped out into the center of a nearby star, for eventual recycling. Alternately, they might try an individual Sublimation, or join an off-line group-mind, or have themselves Stored for re-animation in advance of a specified event (say, if their home team ever wins the Quidditch Cup).

    I like the idea that Mr. Banks could have chosen any of those options, he might show up again, sooner than we’d expect!

  40. 40.

    Singular

    June 10, 2013 at 6:25 am

    Someone on his tribute site said if he had chosen to sublime, then who were we to argue?

    He’ll be sorely missed. He announced his illness around when Maggie Thatcher died. All the tributes in British media about her, and all I could say was “But what about Iain Banks??”

  41. 41.

    Barney

    June 10, 2013 at 9:28 am

    For anyone wanting a non-SF Banks to start on, in addition to those already suggested, I like ‘Whit’ a lot – an engaging heroine, and lots of humour in it (though, inevitably for Banks, there’s darkness at the centre of the story too). Unlike some of his ‘non-SF’, it really is completely free of anything remotely SF, fantasy, alternate-world, or dream-world, related – which he handles really well when he does use it in a book, but isn’t to everyone’s taste. And it’s just one narrative, not 3 waiting to be resolved.

    I’m going to miss his Ship names. I’ve nicked them for posting comments in various places – I’ve been both ‘Ethics Gradient’ and ‘Prosthetic Conscience’. Who can resist a galaxy-spanning culture with immensely powerful intelligent Ships that name themselves “Funny, It Worked Last Time…” ? The full list:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Culture_series

  42. 42.

    terraformer

    June 10, 2013 at 9:31 am

    He was one of the best hard SciFi authors out there, and will be sorely missed. A reminder that any of us can go, anytime. Iain had a pain in his back, and scans showed an inoperable cancer metastasis.

    You never know – enjoy life, love the one you’re with, and give hugs. We are but mayflies.

  43. 43.

    sarcastodon

    June 10, 2013 at 12:50 pm

    Ugh. Late to this story, and it just hit me in the gut. Even though I knew he was sick and failing and unlikely to make it much longer, I still held out hope.

  44. 44.

    Herbal Infusion Bagger

    June 10, 2013 at 7:40 pm

    I missed Vance’s death. I have a whole shelf of his books. The Durdane trilogy was my second favorite of his works, after The Dying Earth. Great dialogue.

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