This month marks the first anniversary of the passing of science fiction author Iain M. Banks, who died on June 9th, 2013. He was taken from us at the tragically young age of only fifty-nine, after many months battling against terminal cancer. His death robbed the science fiction world of one of its greatest authors and leading lights.
Under his \”Iain M. Banks\” name (as opposed to \”Iain Banks\”, which he used for his mainstream literary works) he has written some of the best SF, primarily Space Opera, of the past couple of decades. And he has blazed a trail for (and competed with) the current generation of New Space Opera giants such as Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton, Stephen Baxter and others who have dominated the SF field in recent years. New Space Opera fuses the best of Classic Space Opera and Hard SF, to produce what has become by far my favourite sub-genre of modern SF.
Most of Banks\’s SF books are set in his remarkable Culture universe, and the Culture novels have created legions of adoring fans. And rightfully so, too, as they are excellent. So far, I\’ve only read a couple of them, Player of Games and State of the Art (which is actually a short story collection), and I can fully recommend both books. I haven\’t actually got around to reading any of the other Iain M. Banks books yet, although I have picked up copies of all of them, and they are sitting on the bookshelves, calling out to me. If Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter, Surface Detail and The Hydrogen Sonata are half as good as Player of Games and State of the Art, I have a lot of really good reading ahead of me.
Banks has also written a couple of non-Culture books – Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist – which I\’ve also got sitting on my bookshelves, waiting to be read. It\’ll be interesting to read something NOT set in the Culture milieu, but I fully expect them to be up to his usual excellent writing standards.
Iain M. Banks is rightfully credited with being in the vanguard of a relatively small group of modern SF authors who helped spearhead the reinvigoration and rehabilitation of the humble Space Opera in the world of SF literature, during the late 1980\’s and early 1990\’s. He helped play a fundamental role in reinventing that much-maligned format as a serious literary sub-genre within the wider spectrum of SF, after it had spent many years out of fashion with most serious SF authors and readers.
For this, as an ardent Space Opera fan, I\’ll be forever indebted to him.
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