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Your Favourite Iain Banks/Iain M Banks Novel


SteveCrisis

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I'm currently reading The Algebraist by Iain M Banks.

Enjoyable as it is baffling I wonder what other Banks fans reckon his best works are under both his writing names.

As Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory goes without saying but out of all of them Whit stands out as my particular favourite.

As Iain M Banks, Against A Dark Background stood out a mile until I read Excession; undoubtedly the best Culture novel since Use Of Weapons.

So what's yours?

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Espedair Street - Slightly bias as the character Danny is loosely based on Fish - 6ft5 Scotsman started out his carreer wearing make-up to disguise his insecurities, played in a big prog rock band etc - I asked Iain about this at a signing years ago and he commented that him and Fish were friends and Fish would play Danny if the film was made - i'd guess he's too old now.

The Crow Road - a brilliant book, good tv series too

Whit

The Business

I never understood the fascination with the Wasp Factory except its shock tactics tbh, easily the weakest Banks book imo.

Banks is a great author though, never liked the M stuff though.

Cheers

Stuart

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"The Bridge" was my favourite followed by "Complicity" then "Walking on Glass"

I've only read one Culture novel and that was "The Player of Games."

The Player Of Games is a good Culture novel, but I must admit I haven't read it for years.

Favourite scene for me is when the main character's opponent makes his gamble with emasculation as the forfeit. When the gambit is lost he's taken away from the games arena and gelded. OUCH!

I suffered sympathy pains at the time of reading and just having typed this has brought them on again...

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'Use of Weapons' by a long chalk, probably because the use of the dual timeframe actually succeeded, resulting in a tense yet satisfying conclusion. A great writer if often unable to end his narratives cohesively (cf 'The Business' what sort of fucking ending is that, If I'd bought it I would have been enraged). Quite liked the 'Algebraist', but would prefer another Culture work.

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I think that I've managed to read all of the sci-fi stuff now with the exception of Look To Windward, and it's usually consistently better than the normal fiction he writes. I haven't read all of the Iain Banks stuff, but there are some shockingly poor books in there. Dead Air is amongst the worst books I have ever read, and The Business was really disappointing. I'm not looking forward to the new one. Having said that, Banks has written some of my favourite books.

As far as sci fi goes... The Algebraist, Excession, and Against A Dark Background.

Regular Fiction... The Wasp Factory, Walking On Glass, The Crow Road, and The Bridge.

All fantastic books. I really love the structure of his novels as well. Three or four storylines that seem to have nothing to do with each other, that eventually come together in the end.

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