Iain Banks

What are the odds of two of Britain’s finest voices in modern speculative fiction being born on the same day?** There must have been sometihng in the water . . . Today is the birthday or two writers very close to Gateway’s heart: the one who is, sadly, no longer with us is with us, […]

On this day in 1954, Iain Menzies Banks was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. Do we need to explain who Iain M. Banks is? No, we do not. For many years he was Britain’s bestselling SF writer, a literary novelist of distinction, named by The Times as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945 […]

As teased not long ago, we’re delighted to welcome Britain’s bestselling SF author of the last two decades to the SF Masterworks list!  On 14th April we published a hardback edition of the BSFA Award-winning Feersum Endjinn – with a new introduction by Banks’s close friend and fellow SF writer Ken MacLeod. Count Sessine is […]

Two years ago today, we lost one of our best. On 9th June, 2013, Iain Menzies Banks, one of the very few writers to successfully sustain a career in both SF and ‘literary’ fiction (and to do so without recourse to a pseudonym – because really . . .), was taken from the world far […]

As noted last week, the Gateway’s list of authors has expanded as we added classic SF & Fantasy from our sister Hachette companies, Headline, Hodder & Stoughton and Orbit. It’s very exciting to be able welcome such a large number of wonderful authors all at once, and we thought we’d roll out the metaphorical red […]

Iain Banks the literary novelist and Iain M. Banks the science-fiction writer are too well known to need introduction, but Iain Banks the poet has hitherto been almost undetected. A single poem, ‘041’, published in a poetry magazine; two poems (‘“Slight Mechanical Destruction”’ and ‘Zakalwe’s Song’) book-ending Use of Weapons; some lines from ‘Feu de […]

On this day in 1954, Iain Menzies Banks was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. Do we need to explain who Iain M. Banks is? No, we do not. For many years he was Britain’s bestselling SF writer, a literary novelist of distinction, named by The Times as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945 […]

It was sad, of course, that the Guest of Honour slot for Iain Banks at the World SF Convention was in memoriam for this wonderful man and writer. He’s a huge loss to us and the wider literary community but left behind an extraordinary legacy of books. With the Con over we thought it would […]

The day has finally arrived: Worldcon is in town! LonCon3, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention commences today at the ExCel Centre in London’s docklands and runs until Monday 18th. In addition to a plethora (that’s an imperial plethora, by the way, from when the term actually meant something; none of your puny metric plethora) […]

Our much loved and admired author, Iain Banks would have celebrated his 60th birthday today, Sunday 16th February. To mark the date, Little, Brown is delighted to announce that in February 2015, we will publish a collection of Iain and Ken Macleod’s poems, edited by Ken. Simon Pegg, a long-standing fan of Iain’s work, said […]

The world lost one of its greats over the weekend. Iain Banks, one of our finest novelists, whisky expert, raconteur and one of the nicest men you could ever hope to meet, lost his battle with cancer on Sunday, 9th June.  Tributes have already been paid and, no doubt, more will be forthcoming; these are […]

The ship didn’t even have a name. This, believe it or not, is the first line in the first science fiction novel that Iain M. Banks published, Consider Phlebas.  It’s too soon for retrospectives – the wound is too fresh – but I suspect Iain would have appreciated the irony of beginning an SF career […]