The Banksoniain Issue #20, Page #1

The Banksoniain #20

An Iain (M.) Banks Fanzine February 2014

Editorial

This edition unfortunately mainly looks back to the illness and death of Iain Banks. This has meant that there has a great deal of media coverage to dissect in the Media Scanner article. The story of Iain’s final book is somewhat entwined with his death especially given the nature of his illness and the subject matter of the book. The article on The Quarry on page #2 will attempt to document the timeline of the book and Iain’s health.

The opera/music theatre version of The Wasp Factory had its premiere in Austria before performances in Berlin and London in 2013 and coming in 2014, Cork and Amsterdam. This issue reports on the production and its reception.

Banks in Translation looks at some recent Chinese publications with some great SF covers, and we have an interview with Mark Ecob who has been creating a set of UK paperback covers that has now all been released.

There are Banks related events to report on and books by and about him being published. Plus we dig Iain’s appreciation of Edwin Morgan out of the Banks Obscura archives.

Whilst there are news and events to report on The Banksoniain will continue to do so, most likely at yearly intervals unless there is a particular need. We can expect translations, adaptations, and there is the possibility of unpublished Banks works being made available, perhaps with the Iain Banks Archive now at the University of Stirling. On 16 February 2014 it was announced on www.iain-banks.net that in February 2015 a collection of Iain and Ken MacLeod’s poetry will be published. Iain had mentioned this possibility in his interview with Stuart Kelly, see page #4.

A Personal Note

Issue #1 of The Banksoniain was posted on the twentieth anniversary of the publication of The Wasp Factory, which was Iain’s fiftieth birthday as well.

There had been a previous Banks fanzine, The Culture, run by a couple of guys from Manchester, and for which your editor had contributed a couple of articles. After that came to an end I eventually started this as I missed the regularly reading about Iain and his books. Writing my own fanzine gave me the opportunity to be nosy about something I enjoyed and wanted to know more about. I sent a copy of the first issue to Iain via his agent and got a letter in reply beginning a correspondence of nearly ten years that generally consisted of me asking questions to clarify things for articles I was writing, and he patiently responding but usually very quickly, and often taking the trouble to check his diaries when I wanted to check dates. This was usually because I pointed out had inadvertently contradicted himself in separate interviews. Perfectly understandable when recalling events of twenty or even thirty years ago, but The Banksoniain has always striven to be as accurate as possible.

I came to know his schedule of generally writing letters on a Sunday, so would post mine to him on a Thursday, hoping that the reply would be with me on Tuesday. His responses were somehow both anonymous and distinctive, a white windowed envelope, with a typed address and a first class stamp, but my wife learnt to spot them and let me know one was waiting for when I got home. Iain did send me his email address, but I wrote back that I would prefer to write letters in order to have something to physically wave at people if they asked for the my source, and being the man he was he indulged me in this.

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #2

The Quarry

What turned out to be Iain’s last novel was originally listed for publication in October 2013. It was brought forward and published on 20 June, less than two weeks after the author’s death, although he did get to see the finished product. The dedication reads, “For all my friends, family and fans, with love.”

Iain started writing the book in January, having previously worked out the plan as usual. At the beginning of April in a personal statement which was published on his website

1 he revealed the back pain to jaundice

to gall bladder cancer progression that accompanied the writing of the book. Iain was around 87 thousand words, about 90%, into the book before he got his diagnosis, although some of the press coverage called the book a reaction to his illness this is not the entire story. The diagnosis had come in early March, and Iain had his laptop in hospital with him and wrote one of Guy’s cancer rants – “I shall not be upset to leave this country”.

The publication date of the book was moved forward, with Amazon sending out emails in the third week of March to that effect before knowledge of Iain’s illness was publically announced. The new publication date was 20 June. Iain saw copies, they are piles visible in the Kirsty Walk interview, but he died on the morning of the ninth before the official publication date. This led to much media coverage see Media Scanner pages #3-4. There was also heavy discounting of the book with process going as low as £3.99 at Amazon and Sainsbury’s, which drew a reaction from independent sellers not able to match that price

2. The book peaked at #4 in

the charts in The Bookseller (28/06/2014). .

Reviewers often had trouble disengaging Iain’s illness and death from the subject matter of the book. The reviews fit into some sort of spectrum which went from “stinker”, Helen Lewis in the New Statesman (8/7/2013) to “very, very good” Brian Morton Independent (14/06/2013). Iain himself said

1 http://www.iain-banks.net/2013/04/03/a-personal-

statement-from-iain-banks/ 2 http://www.thebookseller.com/news/anger-dramatic-

discounting-banks-quarry.html

of the book “If I'd known it was going to be my last book, I'd have been quite disappointed that I'm going out with a relatively minor piece; whereas something like Transition, a wild splurge of fantasy, sci-fi and mad reality frothed up together . . . now that would have been a book to go out on. I'm still very proud of The Quarry but ... let's face it; in the end the real best way to sign off would have been with a great big rollicking Culture novel.” The Guardian (15/06/2013).

Cory Doctorow on boingboing3 enjoyed it ending his review by describing it as “a goodbye letter to the world and all of its wonder and terror.” Five starts out of five was the view of Jake Kerridge in The Telegraph (11/06/2013) “dark satire about old friends, lost dreams and approaching mortality”. In The Scotsman (15/06/2013) Alan Massie spared a thought for the writer’s fans, “Many will read it with pain. Yet, if, thanks to its inventiveness and vitality, you are able to forget the author’s condition when he wrote it, you are also likely to read it with a smile on your face; remarkable.”, and described it as “wonderfully exuberant”. Rosemary Goring the literary editor of The Herald (15/06/2013) called it “a powerful and affecting book.”

A novel “full of rage and defiance” was Phil Baker’s view in The Sunday Times (16/06/2013) who managed to get six asterixed words into his review, which ended by saying, “it's the testimony of a writer refusing to go quietly, and with its posthumous publication Iain Banks has got the last word.” On Amazon the average of the near 150 reviews is 3.9 (out of 5), just nine of them single star reviews..

A couple of characters from the book work for a fictional search engine company called Grayzr. On 26 June 2013 the domain grayzr.com was registered by a reader who did not want a web marketing site set up on the address. It currently displays a simple tribute to Iain M. Banks, along with a link to the search engine: www.duckduckgo.com.

3 http://boingboing.net/2013/07/26/iain-bankss-the-

quarry.html

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #3

Media Scanner

There has been a vast amount of coverage of Iain’s death and before that his cancer announcement. For both events Iain Banks was trending on Twitter, and they were on the list of most shared articles on the BBC News website, and the news was further spread via Facebook and Twitter posts. Iain’s Wikipedia page saw more edits on 3 April 2013 than it had over the previous six months combined.

The day after the cancer was made public his picture was on the front page on many of the UK’s broadsheets. He explained this to Kirsty Wark by claiming it was a slow news day.

The website http://friends.banksophilia.com/ was set up allowing Iain to get messages from fans and to keep us updated as to how he was. There are over 12,500 comments, although some of these are recommendations of unproven cancer treatments as well as the odd hatemonger, the vast majority express dismay at the news and/or thanks for the books.

At the 2013 Eurocon in Kiev in April Iain was given the title of European Grandmaster of Science Fiction (along with Sir Terry Pratchett)

4.

There was a small event in London in mid-May for Iain to catch up with friends

4 http://esfs.info/esfs-awards/2010-2/

in/around London. There is a report in Ron Gemmell's special fanzine

5.

In May 2013, The Hydrogen Sonata was one of 13 books listed for the juried John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year (2012). It eventually lost out to Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer, by Adam Roberts.

The interview with Kirsty Walk was broadcast in Scotland on Wednesday 12 June

6

in an hour long slot, and in the rest of the UK on Tuesday 18 June but half the length

7. It

had been shot just three weeks before. It was here that Iain said he had had a “brilliant life” and talk very candidly about everything he was asked about. He talked about writing a gushing “fanboy” letter to Alasdair Gray and getting a lovely reply.

Iain and Kirsty walked about North Queensferry and part of the interview was filmed practically under the Forth Bridge. He revealed that the idea for The Bridge came to him in a dream he had when living in Kent about a bridge the size of a city. Asked about his science fiction he said that it was the freedom to do anything that he loved, and that The Culture his idea of as close to a functioning utopia we could get to, but it looked as if “humanity is too nasty” to go that way. From there the conversation went into his political beliefs via an extract read from The State of the Art. Iain and Kirsty moved to his music room, where there were a couple of copies of The Quarry in evidence in the background.

Iain admitted that he liked his music to look good on the screen and avoided using chords,

5 http://efanzines.com/Eric/WhiteHart.pdf

6 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02xf70k

7 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02z40z8

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #4

“because everybody else does”. As this was his hobby it was more fun than the writing, “simply meant to be a giggle”. Returning to discussing his writing method he talked about his book plans, 20 or 30 pages, maybe 40 for a Culture novel. He did say he would “try and get the plot for the next Culture novel together … just in case there is a miracle cure”, adding he would have mixed feelings if someone else wrote it.

Concerning his ashes he revealed that small amounts would be scattered in the Grand Canal in Venice, outside a certain café in Paris, in a rocket fired over the Forth and a beach in Barra, with the majority sunk in their urn in Loch Shiel where his father’s were.

There was also the final print interview which was with Stuart Kelly in The Guardian (17/6/2013). It was here that he revealed that he was “going to see if I can get a book of poetry published”, saying that “I’ve got 50 I’m proud of.” The plan then was to joint publish with Ken MacLeod as that “would “look more respectable”. The interview ended with Iain saying that he liked to believe he cancer was caused by a cosmic ray. “I won’t brook any contradiction; it was a high-energy particle. A star exploded hundreds or thousands of years ago and ever since there's been a cosmic ray - a bad-magic bullet with my name on it, to quote Ken - heading towards the moment where it hit one of my cells and mutated it. That's an SF author's way to bow out; none of this banal transcription error stuff.”

In the week after his death sales of Iain’s book increased by 445% on the previous week, to a total of 10,100 books8.

A Memorial Celebration of Iain’s life took place in Stirling on Saturday 6 July. A Humanist celebrant led the remembrance which started with two high school friends (Les McFarlane & Ken MacLeod) and a cousin (Alastair Wreford) talking about personal memories of Iain. A musical interlude saw the invited guests listening to Jackson Browne's, For A Dancer, and then singing, Always Look On The Bright Side of

8 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-

22965151

Life. Mary Wallace who had conducted Iain’s funeral in June then spoke before introducing a number of local writers / friends who read from Iain’s works. Lesley Glaister chose a section from Stonemouth, and Ron Butlin a very sweary extract from The Quarry, before Ian Rankin read from Raw Spirit. So there was Ian Rankin reading the words of Iain Banks, where he (Iain Banks) gets mistaken for him (Ian Rankin). There was more music to finish, Mahna Mahna, from the Muppets, and Led Zepplin’s Kashmir as the throng departed.

The Scottish Book Trust ran a public vote to find the Favourite Scottish Book of the last fifty years. Iain’s two names managed to get two of his works on the shortlist, The Bridge and Excession. The split in Iain’s vote meant that the end result was that he came both 4

th

and 6th

leaving Irvine Welch to top the vote with Trainspotting

9.

The British Fantasy Awards 2013 gave their special award, the Karl Edward Wagner Award to Iain Banks / Iain M. Banks

10.

In November news came of Iain’s nomination for the Waterstones UK Author of the Year

11.

The ceremony was held in December but he lost out to Kate Atkinson and her Life After Life.

Teddy Jamieson review of Jo Walton's book, What Makes This Book So Great, in the Sunday Herald (19/01/2014) noted she asked, “Why is it that Iain Banks writes these mainstream books with great characters and voice and a strong sense of place and then writes SF with nifty backgrounds and ideas but almost lacking in characters?”

The winner of the Costa Book of the Year prize, Nathan Filer, revealed that he read The Wasp Factory as well as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Catcher in the Rye whilst writing his novel, The Shock of the Fall, The Times (29/01/2014)

9 http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-

lists/10-favourite-scottish-novels 10

http://www.britishfantasysociety.co.uk/british-fantasy-awards/winners-of-the-british-fantasy-awards-2013/ 11

http://www.nationalbookawards.co.uk/authoraward/uk-author-of-the-year/

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #5

China Banks

A few recent Chinese editions mean there is now a growing body of Banks's work available to a very large potential audience.

捕蜂器 (The Wasp Factory) was first

published in 2006 by the Chongqing Publishing House with the translation by Lin Xin into what is known as Simplified Chinese the form used on the Chinese mainland. Interestingly the cover gives away the plot twist in English. ISBN: 7-5366-7488-0.

In 2012 a second Simplified Chinese edition was released on the mainland by the People's Literature Publishing House. ISBN: 978-7-02-009232-1.

In 2009 an edition was published in Taiwan by Yuan-Liou translated by Li Xin again, but this time described as Traditional Chinese which is the form used on Taiwan. ISBN: 978-957-32-6475-0.

Moving away from Bank’s most famous work

and back to Simplified Chinese, 2012 saw 桥

(The Bridge) also from the People's Literature Publishing House ISBN: 978-7-02-009872-9.

On the Iain M. Banks side of things, in 2012 New Star Press began publishing the science

fiction with 游戏玩家 (The Player of Games)

ISBN: 978-7-5133-0819-9, followed by

武器浮生录 (Use of Weapons) in 2013.

ISBN: 978-7-5133-11014.

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #6

The Wasp Factory – Opera / Musiktheater

The production of The Wasp Factory was part of the Art of Our Times strand of the annual music festival in Bregenz. The Austrian town is on the shore of Lake Constance and is famous for the floating stage (Seebühne) that was featured in the opening sequence of the Bond film Quantum of Solace. The two performances of The Wasp Factory took place in the Werkstattbühne (“Workshop Stage”) where new works are presented. The German language coverage called it musiktheater, whilst that in English called it an opera.

The current director of the Bregenz Festival is the Englishman David Pountney but the Art of Our Times strand has been run by Laura Berman since 2009. It was she who wanted to work with the Australian composer Ben Frost, and it was Ben who particularly wanted to stage The Wasp Factory. Frost thought that it would be impossible to create a libretto from the book which Pountney took as a challenge which he described in an article for The Guardian

12. Frost had already decided that

he wanted to use three performers and this gave Pountney the opportunity to break up the first-person narrative of the original. Pountney said Banks used “almost Wagnerian language”. Despite saying that librettos require dialogue Pountney practically excises all characters apart from Frank, Eric and Angus from the plot. Although there are three actors on stage they all take the role at Frank during the show.

Frost was interviewed by Berman before each of the two performances in Bregenz, and took questions from the audience after one of the London shows. He said that he had the original concept four years ago (i.e. 2009). He had worked with Mariam Wallentin before and wanted to again and cast Lieselot De Wilde and Jördis Richter to be vocally different from her, saying that in music two or four voices are bland and three is a “magic number” in music. Once he had his cast in place, which he said was difficult, the work

12

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/21/mission-impossible-wasp-factory-opera

changed considerably and he went as far as saying the work was written for “these three women”.

From the top: Jördis, Lieselot and Mariam

Mariam is Swedish and performs in a duo called Wildbirds and Peacedrums. Lieselot is Belgian and a member of the renaissance quartet Encantar and also the baroque trio Bel Ayre. Jördis is a German actress but also a classically trained singer.

Frost described the piece as a deconstruction of both chamber and vocal music. The singers and musicians were involved in the composition in a process Frost termed “half improvisation”. However, the dialogue is one where he gets to manipulate the situation, for example, by turning the performers headphones up so loud they get scared by their own voice. Asked by Berman about why he created such beautiful music for such a harrowing story he quoted from Tom Waits saying, “I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.” His final recommendation before the premiere was “get a drink”.

The musicians who are from the Reykjavik Sinfonia are: Una Sveinbjarnardóttir (violin), Gunnhildur Daðadóttir (violin), Þórunn Ósk

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #7

Marinósdóttir (viola), Hrafnkell Orri Egilsson (cello), and Borgar Magnason (bass). They lined up behind the stage but were gradually hidden as it rose during the performance. There is also electronic music (programmed and edited by Frost and Paul Corley) including a seriously uncomfortable blast of white noise right at the start of the show which lasts for around thirty seconds but feels longer. In Bregenz earplugs were made available to the audience.

The set was designed by Mirella Weingarten. Frost said that he gave her two rules. Firstly it was to be “one thing” and secondly it was to be “oblivious to the actors and enforce change on them”. It does this by being hydraulically tipped so that by the end it is vertical rather than horizontal, and by just after halfway the actors are obliged (for insurance purposes) to clip themselves to the stage otherwise like the wood chippings that they were buried under at the start they would fall off. The stage is semi-transparent and at times was lit from below and for part of the show Jördis was underneath it.

Recording

The sound designer for the show, Daniel Rejmer, also described himself as its recording engineer as well. His blog

13

reported that whilst in London for the performances at the Royal Opera House there had also been a recording session at Abbey Road in studio #2. That studio is famous for being where that popular beat combo, The Beatles, recorded much of their work. Ben Frost tweeted on 9 October 2013 that it was great to get into a taxi and state Abbey Road Studios as the destination.

There is currently no news as to when, or even if, the recording will see a commercial release, although Lieselot De Wilde’s public diary mentions further recording sessions to happen in April

14.

Future Performances

The show is expected to be included in both the Holland Festival in Amsterdam and the

13

http://danielrejmer.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/all-our-lives-are-symbols/ 14

http://www.lieselotdewilde.net/agenda

Cork Midsummer Festival in Ireland. The Holland Festival is scheduled to run between 1 - 29 June and will formerly announce its full programme in March

15, although Lieselot’s

agenda says 22 and 23 June. Midsummer is June 21 and the 2013 festival in Cork began on this date and ran until June 30. Their dates and programme are also not finalised yet

16.

Website

The production website is at: http://thewaspfactory.is/ where there are music clips and the English/German dual language programme is available as a PDF.

A Personal View

I travelled to Bregenz to see the premiere, and took the opportunity see both performances either side of The Magic Flute which was being performed on the Seebühne. I also saw the Saturday night of the run at the Linbury Studio in the Royal Opera House in London. It also happened that Ben Frost spoke before or after each of these shows.

In Austria surtitles (in German) were provided, but in London there were none. The decision not to have English ones was taken by Ben Frost who in his talk after the Saturday performance admitted he regretted it. A number of reviewers and social media commentators missed the final reveal at the end despite the fact that the word sister is repeated a number of times. One of the issues here is that the finale conflates the arrival of Eric (and the burning sheep) with the discovery of Frank’s true identity. There is a great deal to take at this stage in the story both aurally and visually with different performers effectively in different scenes from the book.

The way the three female performers work for me is by regarding the production as Frances re-telling the (to her) well-worn story of her youth to someone else. I am pretty sure this is not what the composer/director intended but that is how it works for me. It took me three viewings to come to that conclusion. It is not an easy piece, but then again neither was the book.

15

http://www.hollandfestival.nl/en/program/2014/ 16

http://www.corkmidsummer.com/

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #8

Mark Ecob Interview

This interview was conducted with the new Iain Banks cover artist in February 2013 (before Iain’s illness was announced), but did not make it into the last issue of the fanzine.

Did you know you would do the backlist when you did the Stonemouth paperback cover?

Yes, I was asked to design Stonemouth but with the backlist in mind. I focused on the new paperback, but looked at The Crow Road, Complicity and The Steep Approach to Garbadale at the same time, to show that my ideas could work across fourteen titles.

I was lucky enough to repackage Alexander McCall Smith's books for Little, Brown in 2011/12, under the watchful eye of Duncan Spilling, Creative Director, so we already had a good working relationship for a backlist project.

The first three were out in February, and the covers are on booksellers' websites. There is a style/pattern with the name the same size and location, was that sort of thing in the design brief?

The brief was verbal and beautifully simple - that the covers should reflect the social drama and emotional content in Iain's writing. I was given the first few books, and left to come up with something to replace the original look designed by Keenan, a very hard act to follow.

The freedom I was allowed was fantastic, I had the chance to read and enjoy the books before starting, and the approach developed as we went. Briefs in cover design can sometimes be prescriptive, but with a project like this it's best to let the Designers do their thing. I knew instinctively that the author name and titling had to be stylish but strong, and generally when you're creating a series look the type position stays basically the same.

Will you be doing the cover for the new Banks book, The Quarry, to be published in October? Is there a difference when designing for hardback and paperbacks with the sizes?

Yes, I'm really pleased that the paperback look's been successful enough to transfer to Iain's hardbacks. I'm working on The Quarry and last few backlist titles right now.

There's almost always a difference in size between hardback and paperback editions. A hardback is traditionally more suited to a writer's core readership, a coveted object to own and keep, a paperback is intended for the mass-market. In this case I'll be looking to build a design that is a cousin to the paperback look, still strong in its identity but that stands alone in its design and physical

How far in advance of publication do you usually work?

I can work up to year in advance of publication (sometimes it can be weeks or days!), we started working on Iain's books in May 2012.

Did you read all the books? Had you read any of them before?

Absolutely, I always try to read the books I design for. Any little detail or theme can be useful visually. Sometimes though, books aren't finished when you're asked to do a cover which can be a challenge.

This design has depended entirely on reading and re-reading the books to find the right scene or combination of themes in one image to get the right look. My copies are now pretty dog-eared and worn thanks to hours going over and over the text!

I was sci-fi geek as a teenager so I'd read a few 'Iain M' books, but never his mainstream fiction. I like the crossover between the two - The Bridge is a real favourite.

How have these covers actually been produced? Are they augmented/altered photographs?

Every cover has been produced digitally, the budget involved photographing a man's feet on the edge of a Scottish bridge over a stormy sea would be huge, and politely asking a snake to slither through a letterbox in just the right way would be rather difficult. It's nice to be asked that question though, they must look convincing!

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #9

Iain Banks Archive

Parallel Worlds is the name given to an exhibition of foreign editions of Iain Banks’ novels from his personal collection put on at The University of Stirling between 24 January and 4 April 2014 and is in the Archives & Special Collections area of the University Library. The “Crow Road” sculpture is also included.

The announcement mentioned that “working with the Iain Banks estate to collect and preserve an archive of his working papers and make this material available to researchers with an interest in this specialism.”

17 It also

said that Iain had published material in the creative writing journal Cairn that was launched in Spring 1973 when he was a student there.

The Banksoniain will send a correspondent to report on the exhibition and archive in #21.

Graham Park’s Walk

A group of fourteen fans undertook Graham Park’s walk from Iain’s second published novel, Walking on Glass, on Saturday June 29 2013. This was less than three weeks after Iain’s death and was the day after the thirtieth anniversary of when the walk is dated in the book.

Starting from the corner of Southampton Row and Theobald’s Road outside Central St Martin’s after getting to Half Moon Crescent we tracked over to Regent’s Canal which is where the final section of the book ends. The route intersects with a number of locations / events from Iain’s own life as he lived and worked in the area in the early 1980s. A few extra locations were tacked onto the end of the walk which ended up in the Hope & Anchor pub on Upper Street just round the corner from where Iain wrote the first draft of The Wasp Factory.

This year the actual anniversary is on a Saturday, so there are plans to do it again. See calendar and the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/462900703839787/

17

http://www.stir.ac.uk/events/calendarofevents/exhibitioniainbanks/

Banks Symposium

A one-day symposium called, The State of the Culture took place at Brunel University on 11 September 2013.

Organised by Joe Norman, a Ph.D. student currently writing a thesis on Iain M. Banks, and colleagues at the university, the event had been conceived before Iain’s illness but ended up being a tribute day.

The keynote address from Iain’s friend and fellow science fiction author, Ken MacLeod. Ken talked about his friend Iain, having known him from the age of 16, and how the two of them developed as science fiction writers, particularly through reading New Worlds magazine. This was followed by your editor talking about the development of The Culture in Iain's pre-Wasp Factory writing, and an extract about The Culture from an interview done for a radio programme that didn't happen.

There were nine academic papers in three slots. The first session included papers on: architecture, specifically Constant Niewenhuy; music, mainly Look To Windward and The Hydrogen Sonata; and games playing, through comparison with John Fowles' The Magus. The second had papers that compared Inversions with The Left Hand of Darkness; Banks's use of fairy-tale tropes and another concerned with his Gothic qualities. The final session saw Excession analysed through comparison with George Orwell’s Inside the Whale, and another the looking at post-mortality (mainly sublimation) in The Culture universe. Banks's two cannibalistic scenes, one from Consider Phlebas and one from The State of the Art were compared and contrasted in the final paper of the day.

A fuller write up should be in the next edition of Foundation: the International Review of Science Fiction. This will be issue #116 and is a special Banks edition, and is expected in February 2014. ISSN: 0306-4964.

The organisers of the event intend to publish the academic papers in book form at some point, but there is no concrete news on this yet.

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #10

Books about Banks

A Biography

Before Christmas a book was listed for publication called Iain Banks: The Biography. A publication date of 2 June 2014 is advertised, the author is Craig Cabell, and the publisher John Blake Publishing Ltd. The short blurb said, “For over three decades Iain Banks carved niches in the literary and science fiction genres second to none. Craig Cabell's book looks at all of Banks's major works and pays tribute to his great friend.”

The author has written a number of books. He was the official biographer of James Herbert, publishing his book about him in 2003 which was re-issued in a Kindle edition after Mr Herbert died in 2013. Before that he had written books about Frederick Forsyth and the Kray twins, and afterwards on an increasingly diverse set of topics, the author Dennis Wheatley, various military subjects and then turned to more popular culture subjects with books about Inspector Rebus, and one on Doctor Who for John Blake Publishing. These have been followed up by books on Terry Pratchett, Blackbeard, and for their 50

th

anniversary years another on Doctor Who, and one of the death of President Kennedy.

ISBN: 978-1-78219-902-1

Gothic Dimensions

One of the speakers at the Banks Symposium, Moira Martingale, published a book about Banks just before the event. It is called Gothic Dimensions, with the subtitle, Iain Banks - Timelord. The blurb describes it as “the first full-length comprehensive analysis of Banks's oeuvre”. Moira has a Ph.D. in Gothic Studies, awarded by the University of Bristol in 2007 it had the title Iain Banks: The Renovation of the Gothic. Her new book has that focus stating, “the Gothic is inherent to all Banks's fiction”, and is the result of “three months editing, re-writing and updating”

18 turning her

doctoral thesis into something more accessible.

ISBN: 978-1-49041-402-7

18

http://www.moiramartingale.com/287628796

(5099) Iainbanks

This is a main-belt minor planet which was officially named Iainbanks on 23 June 2013, two weeks after the author’s death.

The naming process had been put in motion by Dr José Luis Galache with the help of Dr Gareth Williams of the Committee for Small Body Nomenclature, soon after Banks’s illness was announced. It had previously been known as 1985 DY1, and also 1999 CM10. The citation read: “(29760) Iainbanks = 1999 CM10 Discovered 1999 Feb. 15 at Kleˇt. Iain M. Banks (1954–2013) was a Scottish writer best known for the Culture series of science fiction novels; he also wrote fiction as Iain Banks. An evangelical atheist and lover of whisky, he scorned social media and enjoyed writing music. He was an extra in Monty Python & The Holy Grail.”

19

Not mentioned is the discoverer who was Henri Debehogne the Belgian astronomer who died in 2007 and has his own asteroid named after him. José’s blog

20 explained that

the name needed to be a single pronounceable word which was why he submitted it without the M, and also has a diagram showing its orbit between Mars and Jupiter.

Roz Kaveney wrote a poem about the naming of the asteroid

21:

Stone through and through, it turns around the sun every four years or so. It never had a name before, and, named, it still goes round the same unaltered. But our gazing has begun.

We do not pray. He would not want us to. He'd mock perhaps, simmer in quiet rage. His views set down quite clearly on each page. To mourn him, we should read. It's what we do

to keep him in our minds. It's piety. Authors still live, while read. We hear their voice. This asteroid gives us a further choice we speak his name aloud, watching the sky.

A better toast than whisky drunk in bars. 'Take him and cut him out in little stars...'

19

http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/ECS/MPCArchive/2013/MPC_20130623.pdf 20

http://minorplanetcenter.net/blog/sci-fi-author-iain-m-banks-gets-asteroid-named-after-him/ 21

http://rozk.livejournal.com/477649.html

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #11

Banks’s Backlist

A new UK edition of Feersum Endjinn is listed for publication in June. It is joining the Gollancz Science Fiction Masterworks. These editions have introductions, but there is no word yet of who will be writing this one. ISBN: 978-1-473-20251-1. The UK paperback of The Quarry is listed with a 27 March 2014 publication date. ISBN: 978-0-349-13859-6.

Die Wasserstoffsonate, a German edition of The Hydrogen Sonata is due for publication by Heyne Verlag this year. Translated by Andreas Brandhorst, it has a cover which is a localisation of the UK one. ISBN: 978-3-453-31546-4. Publication date: 14 July 2014.

Before that there is something with a brand new cover is a Jubiläumsedition (anniversary edition) of Bedenke Phlebas (Consider Phlebas). ISBN: 978-3-453-31591-4. Publication date: 14 April 2014. Translated by Rosemarie Hundertmarck the German website of imprint owners Random House proclaims it to be “Aus dem Amerikanischen”

22. It is not a major

anniversary for Bedenke Phlebas (or Consider Phlebas) but the fiftieth anniversary of Heyne-Verlag publishing science fiction. There seem to be six special editions, all with similar covers, and Banks finds himself in the company of; Le Guin, Halderman, Gibson, Glukhovsky and Mamczak.

Patrick Dusoulier has translated La sonate hydrogène (The Hydrogen Sonata) into French for Robert Laffont's “Elsewhere & Tomorrow” series. ISBN: 978-2-221-13708-6. The edition with a cover by Manchu was published in October 2013, and the artist blogged that August

23 about the difficulty he

had with the author's abstract description of this particular location and the light coming from the star being off-screen below what Manchu chose to depict.

The French paperback editions of Transition, ISBN: 978-2253169727, and Les Enfers 22

http://www.randomhouse.de/Taschenbuch/Bedenke-Phlebas-Roman-Science-Fiction-Jubilaeums-Edition/Iain-Banks/e457121.rhd 23

http://manchu-sf.blogspot.com/2013/08/la-sonate-hydrogene.html

virtuels (Surface Detail) ISBN: 978-2-253-16977-2, were published in autumn 2013 with similar covers to existing US or UK editions.

L' Oeil d'Or published an edition of Efroyabl ange1 (Feersum Endjinn) translated by Anne-Sylvie Homassel there are twelve engravings by Frédéric Coché that were exhibited in a Parisian gallery (Galerie La Ferronnerie) just off the Boulevard Voltaire. ISBN: 978-2-913661-55-4.

The Swedes have a third edition of Getingfabriken (The Wasp Factory). ISBN: 978-91-7499-130-7 is due out in March. This is just two years after the second edition (which was also made available as an eBook, although, this seems to be the first paperback. The cover is by Edouard Martinet.

A Hungarian edition of Félemmetes géjpezet, (Feersum Endjinn) was published by Agave Könyve in April 2013, and like most of the country’s editions was translated by Gálla Nóra. ISBN: 978-61-5527-213-4.

Audio Book News

23 January 2014 saw a slew of downloadable

unabridged audio releases from Hachette Digital. Peter Kenny, Banks’s regular reader, has been busy and seven of the titles feature him: A Song of Stone (978-1-405-53109-2), Walking On Glass (978-1-405-53110-8), Espedair Street (978-1-405-53111-5), Dead Air (978-1-405-53112-2), The Bridge (978-1-405-53115-3), The State of the Art (978-1-405-51223-7 and Look to Windward (978-1-405-51245-9).

These took up a couple of months of Peter’s time from the end of June 2013. Peter has recorded The Quarry at the end of April, and this is available as a download (978-1-405-52521-3), but also via physical media from ISIS Audio

24. Peter has now narrated 23 of

Iain’s works. There are different readers for the female protagonist based stories also released in January: Helen McAlpine for Whit (978-1-405-53108-5), Harriet Kershaw for The Business (978-1-405-53113-9) and Lisa Coleman for Canal Dreams (978-1-405-53114-6).

24

https://www.isis-publishing.co.uk/osb/itemdetails.cfm/ID/7457

The Banksoniain Issue #20 Page #12

Banks Obscura

From Saturn to Glasgow

Iain contributed a 65-word, appreciation of a poem by for a publication called From Saturn to Glasgow Fifty Favourite Poems by Edwin Morgan. This was launched at an event at the Glasgow Book Festival, known as Aye Write, on 28

th February 2008. The title reflected

Morgan’s 1973 collection, From Glasgow to Saturn. ISBN: 978-1-85754-983-6

The poem that Iain wrote about is called The Ring of Brodgar, which first appeared in a 1984 collection, Sonnets from Scotland. The actual ring is a Neolithic henge and stone circle in Orkney of a diameter a little over 100 metres, which is believed to have been erected sometime between 2500 and 2000 BC. Iain commented on the “knuckly geographical historical realism” and Morgan’s “science fictional appreciation” that exemplified “what I love of Eddie’s poetry”.

Banksoniain Calendar 2014

24 January - 4 April Parallel Worlds – an exhibition of material from the Iain Banks Archive at University of Stirling Library,

Saturday, 15 March, 14:00 – 19:00 Huddersfield Literature Festival, includes ‘A Celebration of the Life & Works of Iain Banks’. Ken Macleod, Gary Lloyd and others will be talking about Iain, his life and work. http://www.thelbt.org/celebration-life-works-iain-banks

Thursday 27 March The Quarry, UK Paperback. ISBN: 978-0-349-13859-6

Saturday, 28 June Graham Park Day. Come and follow the walk from Walking on Glass and see where it intersects with Iain’s own life. Email: grahamparkday@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/events/462900703839787/

The Banksoniain is available as a PDF from http://efanzines.com/Banksoniain/ If you have any corrections, comments, contributions, or want a paper copy then email: banksoniain@gmail.com

Any calendar updates will appear in our publically available Google Calendar. See: http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=banksoniain%40gmail.com

Small Print: © 2014 The Banksoniain and its writers. (b)

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