The Wasp Factory: Ian Banks

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The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year. His latest book was a science fiction (SF) novel in the Culture series, called The Hydrogen Sonata, published in 2012. FRANK CAULDHAME from The Wasp Factory (who joins the list near the top). Frank is a 16 year old boy living with his "not all there" father in a very secluded (thank God) Island near Scotland. Frank is a smart, imaginative, resourceful, EXTREMELY DISTURBED sociopath. Frank’s entire life is about rituals and ceremonies (hence the title which is explained during the story). Frank spends his days trapping and killing animals on the island and placing there heads on “Sacrifice Poles” set up along the perimeter of his family’s property. While these rituals are bizarre and gruesome, they are not arbitrary and Frank has a detailed, rigid belief system behind his actions which is both fascinating and very unsettling. In 2013, the Australian producer and composer Ben Frost directed an opera adaptation of the Iain Banks novel, in which all characters are represented by three female singers. [7] Release details [ edit ] His second novel Walking on Glass followed in 1985, then The Bridge in 1986, and in 1987 Espedair Street, which was later broadcast as a series on BBC Radio 4. [13] His first published science fiction book, Consider Phlebas, emerged in 1987 and as the first of several in the acclaimed Culture series. Banks cited Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Brian Aldiss, M. John Harrison and Dan Simmons as influences. [16] The Crow Road, published in 1992, was adapted as a BBC television series. [17] Banks continued to write both science fiction and mainstream. His final novel The Quarry appeared in June 2013, the month of his death.

I lay on my bed listening to John Peel on the radio and the noise of the wind round the house and the surf on the beach. Beneath my bed my home-brew gave off a yeasty smell. Banks, Iain (2 June 2010). "Letters: Small step towards a boycott of Israel". The Guardian . Retrieved 3 April 2013. I was never registered. I have no birth certificate, no National Insurance number, nothing to say I'm alive or have ever existed. I don’t know how to put this in any kind of delicate fashion. You might take a sip of your coffee or tea that you hopefully have at your elbow because you might feel a sudden dryness of the mouth.The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". The Times. 5 January 2008 . Retrieved 10 February 2010. Mark Macaskill and Robert Booth (25 February 2007). "Bye-bye Porsches, says green convert Iain Banks". Times. London. Archived from the original on 27 February 2007. Banks appeared on the BBC television programme Question Time, a show that features political discussion. In 2006 he captained a team of writers to victory in a special series of BBC Two's University Challenge. Banks also won a 2006 edition of BBC One's Celebrity Mastermind; the author selected "Malt whisky and the distilleries of Scotland" as his specialist subject. [26] [31]

Banks's The State of the Art, adapted for radio by Paul Cornell, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009 with Nadia Molinari producing and directing. [27] [28] In 1998 Espedair Street was dramatised as a serial for Radio 4, presented by Paul Gambaccini in the style of a Radio 1 documentary. ASLS Honorary Fellowships". Association for Scottish Literary Studies. Archived from the original on 13 January 2013 . Retrieved 5 November 2013. What's in an M (or) What a difference an M makes". Archived from the original on 28 September 2007.

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The asteroid 5099 Iainbanks was named after him shortly after his death. [61] On 23 January 2015, SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk named two of the firm's autonomous spaceport drone ships Just Read The Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You, after ships in Banks's novel The Player of Games. [62] Another, A Shortfall of Gravitas, began construction in 2018. This refers to the ship Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall, first mentioned in Look to Windward. [63] Unfortunately, Iain Banks died too young at age 59, but his books will be read for generations and maybe this one will be read even longer than that. The Publisher Says: Frank--no ordinary sixteen-year-old--lives with his father outside a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; & his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return--an event that explodes the mysteries of the past & changes Frank utterly. Complicity (1993). London: Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 0-316-90688-3. Filmed in 2000 (directed by Gavin Millar); retitled Retribution for its US DVD/video release.

I think my father used to work in a university for a few years after he graduated, and he might have invented something; he occasionally hints that he gets some sort of royalty from a patent or something, but I suspect the old hippy survives on whatever family wealth the Cauldhames still have secreted away. a b c d e f g h Stuart Jeffries (25 May 2007). "A man of culture". The Guardian . Retrieved 6 April 2013. Stonemouth (2012). London: Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 978-1-4087-0250-5. Adapted for BBC TV for broadcast in 2015 (directed by Charles Martin.) [82] a traumatic early childhood accident that left Frank with an unmentionable disability of his sexual organsThe Wasp Factory is the first novel by Scottish writer Iain Banks, published in 1984. Before the publication of The Wasp Factory, Banks had written several science fiction novels that had not been accepted for publication. Banks decided to try a more mainstream novel in the hopes that it would be more readily accepted, and wrote about a psychopathic teenager living on a remote Scottish island. According to Banks, this allowed him to treat the story as something resembling science fiction – the island could be envisaged as a planet, and Frank, the protagonist, almost as an alien. [1] Following the success of The Wasp Factory, Banks began to write full-time. Over the course of a week Eric calls Frank from locations across Scotland, coming closer and closer. He eventually arrives on the island to Frank’s excitement and dismay—he is happy to see his older brother, but he is also afraid of being on the receiving end of the destruction and violence he knows his brother is capable of. Banks published work under two names. His parents had meant to name him "Iain Menzies Banks", but his father mistakenly registered him as "Iain Banks". Banks still used the middle name and submitted The Wasp Factory for publication as "Iain M. Banks". Banks's editor inquired about the possibility of omitting the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy" and the potential existed for confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a romantic novelist in the Jeeves novels by P. G. Wodehouse; Banks agreed to the omission. After three mainstream novels, Banks's publishers agreed to publish his first science fiction (SF) novel Consider Phlebas. To create a distinction between the mainstream and the SF, Banks suggested returning the 'M' to his name, which was then used in all of his science fiction works. [9] [18] Banks book signing at the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005