Iain Banks

From Philosopedia

Iain Banks (16 February 1954 -

The only child of an officer in the Admiralty and a mother who once was a professional ice skater, Banks was born in Dunfermine, Fife, Scotland.

The future writer of fiction studied philosophy, English, and psychology at the University of Stirling, graduating in 1975.

In 1992 in Hawaii, he married Anne Banks, but in 2007 after 25 years together they separated.

His work is known not only for its humor but also for its critical views concerning organized religions. Asked in February 2008 by Cambridge Student Online about whether he sees anything positive in religion, he responded,

Not a great deal. I think the positive aspects religion sometimes gets the credit for actually originate in the people who believe in the religion rather than in the religion itself. And religion - God, whatever -seems to benefit from a sort of blindness in people, a kind of built-in prejudice; we call good luck a miracle and thank God for it, but don't blame our chosen deity for any bad luck. At best, this is muddled thinking. Certainly religion has inspired - rather than just paid for - some great art, but it is moot whether the artists concerned might have found inspiration elsewhere in the absence of religion. However, as an evangelical atheist, I concede that I may be biased.

He is also called Iain M. Banks - he uses his middle initial for his science fiction.

Banks currently lives in Scotland on the Firth of Forth.

(See his homepage)

Selected Works

The Wasp Factory (1984, first novel)

Walking on Glass (1985)

The Bridge (1986)

Consider Phleabas (1987)

Espedair Street (1987)

The Player of Games (1988)

Canal Dreams (1989)

The State of the Art (1989)

Use of Weapons (1990)

The Crow Road (1992)

Complicity (1993)

Feersum Endjinn (1994)

Whit (1995)

Excession (1996)

Inversions (1998)

A Song of Stone: A Novel (1997)

The Wasp Factory: A Novel (1998)

The Business: A Novel (1999)

Song of Stone (1999)

The Bridge (1999)

Look to Windward (2001)

Espedair Street (2001)

Walking on Glass (2001)

Dead Air (2002)

Complicity (2002)

Raw Spirit (2004)

The Algebraist (2006)

The State of the Art (2007)

Player of Games (2008)

Inversions (2007)

Uses of Weapons (2008)

The Crow Road (2008)

The Steep Approach to Garbadale (

Matter (2008)

Transition (2009)

Against a Dark Background (2009)