Iain M. Banks
(February 16, 1954 -- June 9, 2013)
Iain Menzies Banks was born in Fife, Scotland and was educated at The University of Sterling (BA, 1975), and later received honorary doctorates from several universities, including the University of Stirling. Banks worked as a nondestructive testing technician, Glasgow, 1977; as an expediter-analyzer, Greenock, Scotland; and as a solicitor's clerk, London, 1980-1984, before becoming a full-time writer in the mid-1980s.
He wrote as Iain Banks for his non-SF works aimed at a more general audience. Only about half of his writing is SF, but even his mainstream work often had SF elements. His first SF publication was "A Gift from the Culture" in Interzone (Summer, 1987); his first SF novel was Consider Phlebas (1987); and his first SF collection was The State of the Art (1991).
He was one of the Guests of Honor at Loncon 3, the 2014 Worldcon.
His honors/awards include a European SF Award (Best Author), 1993; BSFA (Novel) for Feersum Endjinn, 1995, for Excession, 1997; Best International Novel Italia Award for Inversions, 2004; and many other awards and award nominations. In 1993 he was named one of the Best of Young British Writers. The asteroid (5099) Iainbanks was named after him shortly after his death.
His "Culture" series of novels helped establish Banks as one of the most popular SF authors in Britain. His last novel, The Quarry, was published in 2013.
He was interviewed in the March, 1990, issue (#6) of Science Fiction Eye, and a fanzine dedicated to Banks and his work, The Culture, was published from 1997 until 2000, for a total run of 12 issues.
Iain Banks's Complicity: A Reader's Guide, by Cairns Craig, was published in 2003.
Banks was close friends with SF author Ken MacLeod.
An obituary by Jon D. Swartz appeared in The National Fantasy Fan for December, 2013 (Vol. 72, No.6).
Awards, Honors and GoHships:
- 1987 -- Novacon 17
- 1990 -- Eastcon, WisCon 14
- 1991 -- Finncon 1991
- 1992 -- Scone, Freucon XII
- 1994 -- Picocon 12
- 1995 -- Novacon 25
- 2007 -- MeCon 10
- 2009 -- Satellite 2
- 2010 -- Novacon 40, Odyssey 2010
- 2013 -- Karl Edward Wagner Award
- 2014 -- Loncon 3
- 2017 -- FOGcon 7
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