A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/a-personal-statment-iain-banks.page

by AndrewDucker • 13 years ago

442 337 13 years ago

littlebrown.co.uk

csmattryder• 13 years ago

Appears the site is down (deleted?)

The BBC have a news article on this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22015175

zerovox2• 13 years ago

His publishers have the full statement: http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/a-personal-statment-iain-banks....

j_jochem• 13 years ago

Damn, this sounds like a Klatskin tumor, a "rare" cancer. My father hat that kind of tumor as well. He died within 8 weeks of first developing jaundice.

Let's stop trying to make people click on cheery-colored buttons and do something about this fucking disease instead.

robin_reala• 13 years ago

Google Cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3...

anu_gupta2• 13 years ago

By a large margin my favourite author. The Wasp Factory was the first novel of his I read and it was great, but Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games utterly blew my mind.

satori993• 13 years ago

Agreed. I became a fan of his after reading just a few chapters of The Player of Games, and have since read almost everything he has ever published. He is an author of extraordinary skill.

xradionut4• 13 years ago

The Player of Games is one of the few sci-fi books I recommend to readers interested in the genre.

arethuza8• 13 years ago

I read Consider Phlebas in one go during a day off between finishing my final year project at Uni and starting revising for my finals - would have been May '88.

Left a bit of an impression on me....

edem• 13 years ago

404.

phreeza• 13 years ago

My favorite science fiction author, got sucked in by Matter, then quickly proceeded to read all Culture books. Use of Weapons is my favorite, has the perfect mix between the dark character and the utopian Culture space opera.

stevejalim• 13 years ago

Yep, Use of Weapons is my favourite too. Transition really stuck with me, as well.

Nursie4• 13 years ago

Shit.

Amazing author. I want to live in the Culture. And I want to read new books by him forever, this is not allowed.

ed_blackburn• 13 years ago

Gutted, incredible author. Am going to miss my Culture novels dripping through every few years. :-(

madaxe• 13 years ago

Damn. It's always the good guys :(

3amOpsGuy• 13 years ago

I never read any of the "M" banks books but i read a few of his regular ones when i was a teenager.

I remember thinking at the time, the wasp factory was a book i'd not forget, yet i can only vaguely recall the plot and some events! Espedair Street on the other hand i can recall pretty much everything. It's funny what you remember.

drucken• 13 years ago

I was like you at the same age, and I wondered what the fuss was about.

Then I read his first Culture novel... I never looked back! They are my favorite sci-fi series ever and I have read a TON of sci-fi and fantasy in my life now (mostly sci-fi when younger).

arethuza8• 13 years ago

Of all of his books I too have a soft spot for Espedair Street - Glasgow, Weird, and that utterly wonderful opening.

tjic4• 13 years ago

Indeed; I've re-read it several times. A great book.

swombat6• 13 years ago

I am very upset about that... In my opinion he's the best living science fiction author... but not for long, I guess... :-(

I've read most of his books (all of his SF books). The Culture is an amazing universe, but the rest of his works are also outstanding.

xradionut4• 13 years ago

I rank him in my top tier of writers along with John Barnes.

tjic4• 13 years ago

Excellent call-out on Barnes; he's one of the most under-rated authors out there.

If you haven't read his stuff, pick it up.

DomBlack• 13 years ago

I only just started reading the Culture, after the first book I was already hooked. He is a great writer.

engtech11• 13 years ago

Here's Banks explaining the Culture, which is a great background that isn't even in the books.

http://nuwen.net/culture.html

limmeau• 13 years ago

What do you recommend as a first book to read?

(edit: never mind, sibling thread has it covered: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5485695 )

engtech11• 13 years ago

Read this page first as an amazing introduction to the Culture:

http://nuwen.net/culture.html

richardjordan3• 13 years ago

Consensus seems to be Player of Games but I have to say my first one was Use of Weapons, which I picked up from a book store in London on a whim, one weekday lunchtime in the late 90s. It's a fantastic starting point.

swombat6• 13 years ago

If you LOVE science fiction already, I'd go straight for the jugular and start with Excession. It's hardcore, it's full of awesome technology, it will blow your mind and forever seduce you into the world of the Culture.

If you're just a normal science fiction fan, start with Use of Weapons. It's complex and sci-fi-ish enough, but not as hardcore as Excession. The plot is amazing. To me it is one of the most memorable books of science fiction that I've read. It really made me question some basic beliefs about ... well, you'll see.

If you're a normal person, who wants a slightly softer intro into the Culture universe, or someone who's not particularly into science fiction, Player of Games is a great starting point because it is less about the tech and more about the ideas and the people, but nevertheless a great book.

Ultimately, the only one I wouldn't start with is Consider Phlebas, which is good, but imho nowhere near as good as the rest. To me, Consider Phlebas was about the same level as, say, the Reality Dysfunction by PFH - great space opera, fast paced, gripping, but not exceptional in any way. Every subsequent book (with very few exceptions) is not just great, but also unique and different from all the other science fiction books out there.

Intermernet• 13 years ago

I won't tell you which one I recommend reading first, but I would recommend reading 4 or 5 before hitting "Against a dark background".

That book is really hard on the emotions. I have a feeling it may have been a bit of an experiment for Iain as it reads a bit differently from the rest (I think I've read every book he has out currently, including "Raw Spirit"... Brilliant book)

Oh, and the top comment in the sibling thread you linked to is a very good recommendation.

satori993• 13 years ago

This may of interest to anyone who is unfamiliar with his SciFi writing:

http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

Originally posted to rec.arts.sf.written on 10 Aug 1994.

zerovox2• 13 years ago

His site seems to be down. His statement can be found on his publishers website: http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/a-personal-statment-iain-banks....

podperson• 13 years ago

Iain [M] Banks is the writer whose books I most look forward to reading.

Fuck cancer.

DanBC4• 13 years ago

A UK charity is taking this approach to fund raising.

Compare these two adverts -

"Not Alone", MacMillan Cancer Support (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLpS97XA5VA)

"Cancer, We're Coming For You", Race for Life (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWJEmMDQXoA)

Yes, fuck cancer.

lutze• 13 years ago

I'm not sure if you understand what MacMillan is about, but you're comparing apples and oranges here.

"Fuck Cancer" is all well and good... but MacMillan's work isn't about finding a cure, it's about easing suffering. They provide support and care to patients and their families, "Not Alone" sums them up pretty perfectly.

DanBC4• 13 years ago

This is sad news. He's an awesome author, and many people will miss his great writing. 'Wasp Factory' was an amazing book.

He mentions his sore back. That's important! Most lower back pain is nothing serious, but rarely it's a sign of significant illness. He also mentions that he initially thought the pain was related to his work on a book. That's relevant for an industry where people tend to spend many hour sitting at a desk typing code. We talk about better ergonomics -nicer chairs, standing desks- but sometimes the wider health is missed.

nicholassmith3• 13 years ago

He's a titan of British literature, I've loved his work for a number of years. What a legacy to leave behind.

dcminter• 13 years ago

As an English Brit I'd love to claim him for our own but, to be honest, I think "Scottish literature" is the only appropriate description.

This is awful news. I've not been a big fan of his later SF works. But Feersum Endjinn and Espedair St are tremendous and who knows, maybe the later works will grown on me. I hope he lives to see his latest book on the shelves.

(Edit: Not that I'm claiming he's not a Titan)

nicholassmith3• 13 years ago

I'll agree with that actually, he's in favour of an independent Scotland as his dream of a socialist Britain is unlikely (from a Guardian article he wrote a while back).

rookieljw• 13 years ago

404

stefantalpalaru• 13 years ago

Terrible news. If you're not familiar with Iain's work you owe it to yourself to drop everything and start reading the Culture series[1] right now.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series

john_i• 13 years ago

I absolutely love the Culture series. Although it doesn't delve into the Culture universe proper, Use of Weapons is one of the best books I've read. Would highly recommend checking out this book. The two narrative flows and the conclusion at the end, wow, just wow.

Definitely very sad news.

crapshoot1013• 13 years ago

Use of Weapons is maybe the best (or at least top 5) sci-fi novel I've ever read. Amazing stuff - and a turn that genuinely changes the whole story.

arc_of_descent• 13 years ago

I just ordered the first three books. Will start off with Player of Games. Sad news indeed.

engtech11• 13 years ago

read this before starting to books. It's a great intro to the Culture:

http://nuwen.net/culture.html

adrianhoward6• 13 years ago

Terrible news. If you're not familiar with Iain's work you owe it to yourself to drop everything and start reading the Culture series[1] right now.

In fact go give all of his books a try (hey - we're allowed to read non-SF here too aren't we ;-)

arethuza8• 13 years ago

Iain's non-SF work is wonderful, and often so very Scottish. In particular, I love the opening to Espedair Street:

"Two days ago I decided to kill myself. I would walk and hitch and sail away from this dark city to the bright spaces of the wet west coast, and there throw myself into the tall, glittering seas beyond Iona (with its cargo of mouldering kings) to let the gulls and seals and tides have their way with my remains, and in my dying moments look forward to an encounter with Staffa’s six-sided columns and Fingal’s cave; or I might head south to Corryvrecken, to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my waterlogged deaf ears to its mile-wide voice ringing over the wave-race; or be borne north, to where the white sands sing and coral hides, pink-fingered and hard-soft, beneath the ocean swell, and the rampart cliffs climb thousand-foot above the seething acres of milky foam, rainbow-buttressed.

Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is . . . just to try and explain."

kitsune_• 13 years ago

My uncle died from a brain tumor two weeks ago. This week my aunt will have one of her lungs removed because of lung cancer. Last year my friend's wife had to have both of her breasts removed. And now one of my favorite authors will probably die to this shit. What a vile disease.

geuis2• 13 years ago

He shouldn't just accept this. There has to be something to be tried. With his notoriety, the option to try some experimental new treatment should at least be considered.

notimetorelax• 13 years ago

I've seen my grand mother die from gallbladder cancer. Weeks leading to her death she was miserable, she didn't have a minute of rest. Since then I understand why some people choose to end it early instead of prolonging the suffering...

hp50g5• 13 years ago

Spot on. There's no heroics in hanging it out.

Sorry for your loss.

radio4fan• 13 years ago

Nonsense.

He knows it's terminal (it's spread all over the place), and if he chooses to live the rest of his life on his own terms and not enduring the significant side effects of chemo, then it's his choice and good luck to him.

My grandmother refused chemo (cancer in bowel, liver, lymph nodes) and I think she made the right choice.

stevoski• 13 years ago

He doesn't have a chance of lasting more than a few months, most of which will be painful and with rapidly decreasing functioning. With the type and severity of his cancer, an experimental new treatment will simply ensure that his last days are more painful than they need be.

Sulfolobus• 13 years ago

This reminds me of an interesting article I read about Doctors being more likely to refuse cancer treatment - on the knowledge of trading quality of life for a shorter period rather than hanging on for longer.

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/08/06/how-doctors-die...

hp50g5• 13 years ago

Sometimes it just isn't worth fighting. it'll just ensure suffering. Make every minute of your life count and you can live with this outcome.

Cancer sucks worse if you put everything in your life off.

vidarh• 13 years ago

The BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22015175) states that he may undergo chemo once his jaundice clears up, so it doesn't seem like he's planning to just go entirely quietly, but the reality is that he has to make a tradeoff between possibly making his last months or year (or hopefully a bit more, if we're lucky) total agony to extend it by what is unlikely to be more than months, or try to be comfortable for as long as possible.

Cancer treatments is still ridiculously primitive, unfortunately, largely boiling down to doing lots of damage while trying to keep the patient alive longer than the cancer.

venomsnake• 13 years ago

Most physicians that I have talked about all agree that quality of life is more important than the quantity in this types of cases. Every treatment of late stage cancer is very invasive and rarely successful. If he wants to spend a month as healthy as possible with his widow to be instead of two vomiting and feeling miserable that is his choice and the correct one in my opinion.

There are few things that prolong life, most of them prolong the suffering and increase the emotional drain on the loved ones.

I wish him to make the most of what he has left.

Gatsky2• 13 years ago

Sorry, but there is a lot of assumption and ignorance in reply to your comment.

1. Modern supportive care means that chemotherapy does not involve constant vomiting, pain and torment. Some patients work and look after their family in between having chemotherapy. For example, in a large study on the efficacy of chemotherapy in biliary tract cancers including gallbladder cancer the rates of severe vomiting were only 5% (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0908721). And when it does happen, it doesn't go on for 'months'.

2. If you shrink the cancer people feel better ie treatment can improve quality of life, that's why we do it.

3. Some cancers are indolent. This means that people can live for a long time with them, whether they have treatment or not. See Stephen Jay Gould's essay for example (http://www.cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html)

4. Participating in clinical trials is a standard part of cancer management. You don't have to be famous to receive experimental therapies if you want them.

Having said all that, chemotherapy IS primitive and doesn't work as well as it should, and hopefully we won't still be using the same stuff we are now in 50 years. But it can help people, and trying it is not crazy or hopeless, and an extra couple of months might mean a lot to a particular individual.

brazzy3• 13 years ago

It depends completely on which chemotherapy you get, which cancer you have, and sheer dumb luck. Both "chemotherapy" and "cancer" are blanket terms covering a multitude of radically different things.

Best case: your cancer is contained to a single organ and susceptible to antibody therapy. Practically no side effects, and you'll most likely be healed.

Worst case: your cancer has spread to multiple organs, requires the use of cytotoxics and your body reacts badly to those. You're better off setting yourself on fire - at least then you'll have to endure at most a few days of excrutiating pain before you die. No, that is not an exaggeration.

Source: my girlfriend who works as a nurse in a cancer ward specializing in chemotherapy.

Most importantly: make that decision yourself while you can! Don't leave it to the doctors (who only learn ways to keep patients alive at all costs, not ways to decide whether it's better to let them die) or your relatives (who'll tell the doctors to do everything humanly possible to assuage their feelings of helplessness and guilt).

avar• 13 years ago

I reccomend you read the "How Doctors Die" article and comments posted here a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5104430

Going through chemo isn't free of suffering. And in cases like Iain's it's often a question of having a "normal" 6 months of life or a miserable 8 months via chemotherapy.

geuis2• 13 years ago

Wow this got a lot more responses than I expected. I say this for two reasons:

My dad died in 1990 when I was 10 from cancer. He fought until the end. I spent 2 years from the time I was 8 till March 1990 watching this man do what he could to survive. I've sworn that if I ever develop cancer, I too will do whatever I can to survive. The point is that if there's a remote chance of me beating it, I can deal with temporary suffering for long-term survival.

The second reason is more that Ian Banks is one of my favorite authors. My imagination has been shaped by the worlds and stories he's created ever since I was a boy. I was introduced to his Consider Phlebas while my dad was sick and have read nearly all of his work since then. For me, this is all closely tied together emotionally.

Either way, I can respect his choices. They won't be my choices, but I can understand why.

abrookewood• 13 years ago

I wish to god this news had arrived 2 days ago on April 1st :(

Ian (M) Banks is amazing and will be sorely missed.

I can't believe there won't be any more Culture novels.

jvzr3• 13 years ago

FWIW, I've ordered the first three novels of the Culture series. I didn't know of Iain Banks until today and his terrible news.

I just wish he'll live the most playful last months of his life with his soon-to-be wife. We cannot wish for anything less.

venus2• 13 years ago

Oh to be reading them again for the first time. I envy you.

This is a lamentable loss indeed. It really grieves me that my shelf of Culture novels will likely never grow again.

Fuck this fucking disease. It really makes me angry. The lives cut short, all those possibilities lost. We need to fix this bug and soon.

VLM2• 13 years ago

Does anyone know his financial situation, too many authors (two examples, RAW and PKD) seem to end up dying while having to eat dogfood if that, and unable to pay the rent and other bills. Not that its fun to die if you're rich, just that he shouldn't have to eat dogfood in addition to the stress of the disease. If he's in bad financial shape I could easily buy a couple more of his novels in kindle form (not that I need to buy them in yet another form, but if he needs some cash, well now's the time...)

jvzr3• 13 years ago

I don't know of his situation either, but instead of buying a copy for yourself, it'd be even wiser to gift a copy to good friends or simply spread the word of his great work here and elsewhere.

shirro• 13 years ago

He lives in a country with socialised health care. What that effectively means for someone with an aggressive/incurable disease is that instead of leaving your family bankrupted by heroic but statistically futile treatments you get high quality palliative care courtesy of the state. Amongst developed countries I think sick people resorting to dogfood is extremely rare.

mikeash4• 13 years ago

Last I heard he is quite well off. He's a relatively obscure/niche author in the US, but enjoys broad popularity in the UK.

reasonattlm3• 13 years ago

Another person that might be cryopreserved [1], but probably won't be, much like the 150,000 who passed in the last day or so [2]. Many sorts of terminal case can actually lead to better quality cryopreservation under present legal restrictions [3], in comparison to the drawn out and uncertain end of aging, precisely because they are more rapid and certain in time.

(Or might be plastinated [4] in the alternate history thread in which people actually got up and started to do something about death in the late 1930s [5], when the chemical industry started to be up to the task of building a mass plastination concern).

If you've made no preparations but still have $200,000 or so sitting around, then the certainty of oblivion is still your choice, even at the last minute. (Most people who are cryopreserved fund it through life insurance taken out decades earlier). No judgement on that choice is offered, as the right to vanish is a good right, just judgement on the fact that while other options do exist, they might be far more available for everyone and better thought of were the world just a little bit different.

[1] http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2002/11/cryonics.php

[2] http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2002/12/death-is-an-outra...

[3] http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/to-die-in-order-t...

[4] http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2009/04/plastinate-everyo...

[5] http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/05/when-did-we-becom...

Jach4• 13 years ago

If the world was just a little bit different, this would be upvoted instead of downvoted. It'd be nice if someone could convince Iain to be cryopreserved, and give him that small but non-zero chance of being revived and one day seeing a civilization better than his Culture.

swombat6• 13 years ago

I would donate money to a "Cryo-freeze Iain Banks" fund - though I'm sure he has more than enough funds himself.

polyfractal5• 13 years ago

Hmm...except that cryopreservation is still, as of this point, a complete crock of shit. Trying to find a necromancer would be more productive.

As an ex-biologist, I can assure you that horrible cellular damage is being committed to these "preserved" people. I used to flash-freeze all sorts of cells, ranging from bacteria (e. coli) to animal (IMCD3 and MDCK kidney) to human (Human Embryonic Kidney, Primary cortical and hippocampal neurons).

These protocols are pretty simple. Pellet and re-suspend a small vial of cells to dilute out the media, replace with a special preservation media then dunk the entire 5mL vial in a big pot of liquid nitrogen for a few minutes. Then it goes into the deep freezer (-80C).

Sadly, even though this is a tiny aliquot that is frozen almost instantly, cell death on thawing and resuspension is immense. Like, it's a good day if 50% of the cells live. It usually doesn't matter, since these cell lines are immortalized and they just start growing again, but it illustrates the point. Despite the most ideal circumstances, cells hate to be frozen.

Now, imagine you are trying to flash freeze an entire body. They do this by perfusing preservation media through your blood, relying on your body's circulatory system to get the media in all the right places. This takes time. Perfusing a small mouse with formaldehyde takes at least 5-10 minutes. A human body? Practically ages I would guess.

All the while, cells are dieing left and right because they are no longer getting a steady supply of oxygen (and instead a bath of relatively cytotoxic preservation media). When the body is finally perfused fully and dunked into liquid nitrogen...flash freezing isn't immediate. The outer layers freeze much faster than the inner layers.

Ok, so just freeze the brain? Same problem as before, just on a slightly smaller scale.

Ignoring all the cell death that has been happening for the last hour, how about thawing? Well, let's pretend its a "good day" and 50% of your cells live. That might be ok for your skin, liver, or spleen - they are going to be unhappy but still alive. But 50% of your neurons dieing? Hmm. Also take into account that neurons don't regenerate. You just killed half your brain. Even super optimistic numbers, 70%-80% survival rate, still leave a lot of your brain as goo.

This is all just biology. I'm not even touching the morals and ethics of companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do (since you are dead).

FeepingCreature3• 13 years ago

I'm assuming that as an author of fairly hard sci-fi Banks would not mind overmuch if he was resurrected as a "mere" upload. The point of cryo is once the initial damage is done, no additional information loss to entropy occurs, so you can afford waiting for far-distance supertech to see if your neural behavior is at all reconstructable.

gizmo• 13 years ago

The cell damage inflicted by the cryo process is readily acknowledged by its proponents. They argue that the neurological damage is not so large that the original brain can't be reconstructed either by scanning it while still frozen or by repairing it with nano-bots. Much like data from a wiped hard drive can still be recovered by digital forensics.

As for the problem of outer layers freezing faster than inner layers, I think this is mostly addressed by filling the brain with anti-freeze first.

Now, I'm rather skeptical of the whole process myself, but the crynoics guys understand biology 101.

nawitus11• 13 years ago

>Hmm...except that cryopreservation is still, as of this point, a complete crock of shit. Trying to find a necromancer would be more productive.

No, that's not very rational. Cryopreservation may have low chances of success, but it's like a billion billion billion times better than just dying (which has zero chance of success). Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation is very probable, but it's a lot better than nothing.

>Now, imagine you are trying to flash freeze an entire body.

I don't think your critique is very relevant, when almost all cryopreservation is only done to the brain, not the whole body.

>Ignoring all the cell death that has been happening for the last hour, how about thawing?

Thawing is not relevant to be discussed at this point, because the bodies will not be thawed using current technology. If the cryopreserved brain has enough information to be reconstructed, it will be done at some point using advanced nanotechnology. Nobody will be thawing brains using 21st century technology.

> I'm not even touching the morals and ethics of companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do (since you are dead).

Yes, there are risks. Nobody is claiming that cryopreservation has a very high chance of success. It's a lot better than nothing, though. By the way, thse cryocompanies or organizations tend to be owned and supervised by relatives of the cryopreserved people. These managers also want to get cryopreserved themselves, and want to reconstruct their own relatives. In addition, there's great scientific value of bringing 100 year old people back alive.

By the way, scientists don't refer to the cryopreversation as freezing, they call it vitrification.

reasonattlm3• 13 years ago

You don't seem to be all that up to date on present practice and theory in cryonics. Take some time to read up on the publications, such as by groups like 21st Century Medicine:

http://www.21cmpublications.com/

Or for a simpler starting point, the FAQs for scientists at Alcor:

http://alcor.org/sciencefaq.htm

You might also look at ongoing results from the Brain Preservation Technology Prize:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/an-update-from-co...

Evidence-Based Cryonics has a lot of as-unbiased-as-you're-going-to-get stuff on the perfusion and ischemia issues associated with vitrification of tissue, as well as explorations of other commonly voiced objections. Just wade through the archives:

http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/

Also, since we seem to be arguing from authority here, you might look at this, noting that a number of the signatories are quite well known biologists:

http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-...

lsparrish12• 13 years ago

> (since you are dead).

IMHO this is the cryo equivalent of an ethnic slur. Cryophobia, if you will. It meets the "you can't change this thing about yourself so we outsiders are going to make fun of you for it, nyah nyah" pattern while being devoid of useful information content. Cryonics proponents do not readily concede the point that patients are technically dead, based on the evidence available.

The legal status (which is a fully independent use of the term "dead" and can be readily conceded with absolutely zero consequence to the technical argument) is something else, but if you are implying that cryonics companies would therefore be within their legal rights to dump their patients, that could just as easily be seen as a problem with the law (i.e. it fails to adequately protect cryonics patients). So it's not clear to me why you would think this is an innate ethical shortcoming of the choice to practice cryonics in the first place.

> companies that are under no obligation to actually do what you paid them to do

It certainly would contradict the purpose, and likely the bylaws, of a cryonics organization to fail to keep patients safe, for at least the period of time that is realistic given the limits of initial funding and uncontrollable factors world economic stability. (100 years is definitely more reasonable than a million.) Assuming the funds set aside experience real growth above the rate of inflation, the risk could actually decline over time because the financial safety net would be larger.

One possible approach if you think the time is going to be long before the needed technology is available, would be to allocate funding towards measures designed to stabilize the economy, avoid war, and/or prevent natural disasters. The other approach would be to try and create disaster-proof cryobunkers (but there's physical limits, as always).

padseeker• 13 years ago

Everyone that lives that we know of dies eventually. While I would prefer to live as long as possible I think it's important to recognize that. And trying to pitch a 200K solution to a problem that isn't really a problem but rather the nature of life strikes me as inappropriate. If you are that hellbent on this 'solution' send the email directly to the author, but your response smells like a sales pitch which makes me ill. I would downvote you if I could.

stiff• 13 years ago

Whole galaxies die, what to say about us poor humans, please do not offend basic physics with this "other option" thing, if there is a single certain thing in the whole universe it is the certainty of change and, as a consequence, death. We might extend lifespan greatly, it is a different thing altogether, it is worth discussing, it might even be a good thing, I don't know, but clinging to a dream of immortality will in my opinion sooner or later lead to a mental breakdown for most people who choose to pursue this path, latest when confronted with serious disease or dying.

hp50g5• 13 years ago

This is the most truthful and insightful comment on this thread. Thank you.

Nursie4• 13 years ago

As someone that doesn't, ever, want to die... the thought that there is no such thing as forever gives me some comfort.

Everything is temporal, we're merely surfing the entropy gradient for a while.

lsparrish12• 13 years ago

If you think the pursuit of immortality causes mental breakdowns, can you substantiate this with evidence from psychology journals? If not, this strikes me as unreliable folk wisdom.

There is a lot of possible change that does not involve death. I used to buy your argument, but upon reflection I've decided that it does not automatically follow from simple considerations. We need to be a lot smarter to know the answer for sure. Just as negative temperatures are possible, death-free eternities may also be possible.

Lifespan increase is certainly a stronger possibility than immortality, and is therefore a stronger motive to pursue cryonics. So why is so much space wasted talking about it every time someone suggests cryonics? The thousand year or so extension we could reasonably expect with a good aging cure and decent public safety is pretty significant regardless of eternal considerations.

nova• 13 years ago

I feel you.

The deathism of this thread, on a site read by technically-oriented people, where problably many agree with the computational theory of mind really makes me lose hope in the human kind.

It's not thinking that cryonics is not worth it. That's a reasonable position. I'm undecided myself. It's that response, that fighting death is somehow unethical or naive. That Death is Good, Part of the Cosmos, Don't You Dare, whatever.

Man, talk about Stockholm syndrome. Well, fuck it:

>>> DEATH IS BAD. <<<<

Yes it is. We die because we don't know how to avoid it, not because is good, natural, right or proper. Our bodies are machines that we don't know how to repair. That's all. We may invent lies to make ourselves feel better and maybe that's a natural strategy to cope with the HORROR that is death, but we are still fooling ourselves, and most likely keeping the problem from being solved.

Cushman2• 13 years ago

Let's talk about the computational theory of mind. Is it bad to turn off a computer? I have a process running that will continue to do productive work forever. Is it bad to suspend it? If I resume it later, is that not bad? If I intend to resume it later, but forget, is that bad again?

There are some things that happened to my physical body that I cannot now, nor never will remember. Is that bad? There are memories I have that my physical body never really experienced. Is it bad that that person never existed? If I forget those, will that be bad?

Suffering is bad. Death is the ultimate destiny of all which was once alive. It is tempting for a brain state looking ahead to its demise to say that one or ten or one hundred years is too few, and if we had one thousand, or one million, or one million million, that would be enough. But I know no reason that should be true.

I look forward and see a descendant of humanity surviving to witness, in itself, the heat death of the universe. As every resource has been expended to maintain its consciousness, while the last holes fill in with entropy, it remembers everything that has ever happened, and it is looking forward with its dying thoughts to an infinity times an infinity as many lifetimes of nothingness which will follow, and I do not want it to weep that it will cease to be. I want it to stride boldly into oblivion, knowing that it has done its best, and with some glimmer of hope and pride for what, in some yet unconceived corner of possibility space, might be.

And I want that peace for every consciousness and form of consciousness, however transient, that experiences itself from now until then, be they animal, vegetable, or mineral.

Of course we should fight aging, with every resource we can muster, because aging is suffering. But we should not hate death, because that too is suffering.

To bring it back around... Iain M. Banks will die, very soon. Many people here are extremely distraught about this, and I am one of them. He has a choice to make, whether to make some attempt to extend his life at some expense to his remaining quality of life. It sounds as if he will choose not to. Many will, in grief, hate him for that choice. They are grieving, and it is natural, but that idea abstracted is selfish and it is evil. Iain Banks will die, and he will be fine. It is we who grieve who deserve peace, and I and others feel that peace is contained in this truth:

Death is okay.

It is not great. We do not love it. We can and will work to destroy it. But we will not succeed, and that is -- that must be -- okay.

afterburner2• 13 years ago

The reason people are uncomfortable with talk of paying for immortality is that it can lead to obscene scenerios potentially thousands of times worse than the 1% debates we are having now. You think accumulation of power is bad when people pass money on to their children, think about how much worse it is if they simply live forever and accumulate it indefinitely. And now imagine what happens if only the top ecehlon gets to live forever, and the less wealthy or simply poor just die.

Immortality is not something our society can simply add to its current socio-economic make-up. Some fundamental changes would have to be made in order for the situation to be at all morally satisfactory and not utterly revolting and depressing. And no doubt any attempted change would take at least 50 years for the wild oscillations to even out.

philwelch5• 13 years ago

I love people like you, who claim so fervently to be rational but still hold onto this childish, egotistical hope for immortality.

To put it bluntly, any machine becomes harder to repair over time, and some machines become so out of date as to become worthless except as curiosities anyway. People are no different. What would we ever do with 100 million nineteenth century people? The 23rd century should have as little use for us.

Galaxies die and so do we.

modernerd• 13 years ago

http://friends.banksophilia.com for a personal statement and guestbook.

viraptor• 13 years ago

It was a great surprise for me to see him at the book signing event a couple of months ago in Bristol. Not a deep and mysterious person I imagined him to be after reading the books - just a great, happy guy who shared some thoughts about his imagination. He could really make the whole room laugh.

zbyszek• 13 years ago

I met him on a couple of occasions many years ago and he really is great company. And he got a round in.

venus2• 13 years ago

This is horrible news. We are all poorer today, all of us. Banks is an inspiration to all who read him - of what could be, what can be, what is to be.

Cancer has claimed a terrible toll in my life. Three in my immediate family and counting, the countdown very fast for one of them. And now it seems to have turned its unwelcome gaze to my intellectual treasures. I hate this disease, I despise it so much it's hard to express.

I'd say it's my hatred of cancer that drives me to want to achieve riches, via a startup, so I can pour money into its vanquishing. It was hatred that made me agree to be a member of "the 300", as useless as that has turned out to be. And it's the knowledge and memory of those lifeless bodies on hospital sheets, cold before their time, that forces me onwards, reminds me that that capricious finger of death could swivel my way at any time.

Banks, you are a titan. You inspired me, you inspired others. You'll never be forgotten, and god willing maybe you'll inspire a few to take revenge on your blind, callous killer.

hyperbovine2• 13 years ago

More money is not what is needed here--we already pour tons of money into cancer research. What's needed are new ideas. If you really want to fight cancer, skip the startup and go to graduate school. Computational and mathematical approaches to understanding and fighting cancer are still in their infancy. There is a lot of scope for smart, motivated people to do good.

engtech11• 13 years ago

No, more money is needed. 41% of deaths are due to cancer. It really is one of the biggest problems we have as a species and we should spend more effort on it rather than the things we do spend effort on.

But I wholeheartedly agree that rather than trying to be a billg and earn money to fund philanthropy, the world needs more researchers.

michaelochurch4• 13 years ago

There are a zillion[0] talented young programmers who have figured out that the VC-istan game is rigged (I like to believe that I helped with that) and who would readily work on machine learning for cancer research at a market salary.

[0] Zillion probably means "tens of thousands", but that's a lot. A good programmer costs $125k to hire and is worth $1-2M to the economy. Thousands of programmers = major muscle. Tap that piece of A! (A meaning "awesomeness potential".)

$100-150k, machine learning, saving lives? Shit, you'll be turning people away.

If it's government-funded it doesn't have to be in a high-COL area where 100-150k, while respectable, isn't raise-a-family money. But you could do this out in a place like Minneapolis where people can raise a family on that and (bear with me, here) therefore actually find programmers with more than 10 years (!) of technical experience who want to stay on real work (!!) instead of becoming useless executives (like VC-istan's VeePees of BizDevolution) because they can actually raise kids on what they make (!!!).

It's about the people. But the nature of the real world is that it takes money to hire people. So, indirectly, it is about the money. We should spend less money on pointless, illegal wars and more on the disease that's actually (if we don't fucking do something) going to kill a large portion of the people reading this.

_delirium• 13 years ago

Lack of money is precisely why you should not go to graduate school, because graduate students (and post-docs, and adjunct faculty) in these areas already massively outstrip available funding. The claim that more people should go into the field would be more credible if there were good jobs available for those who already did.

Part of the reason for the lack of good jobs is that there is actually not much money put into cancer research, relative to Valley-type companies. Google's declared 2012 R&D budget was $6.7 billion. The National Cancer Institute's entire budget in 2012, which is parceled out among all eligible institutions in the country, was $5.1 billion. It's no surprise that, as a direct result, it's easier to find good jobs in the Valley than in cancer research: Google alone can offer more funding to aspiring researchers than the entire national cancer strategy can.

defen• 13 years ago

What is "the 300"? The only thing I can think of is the movie/comic book but I don't see how that ties in to cancer research.

gommm• 13 years ago

The 300 is this http://www.mfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=mj_donations_t... It's a fund raising scheme by the Methuselah Foundation where everyone pledges to give at least $100/month for the next 25 years.

Not sure why the OP says it turned out to be useless (haven't followed much the Methuselah Foundation lately)

creamyhorror• 13 years ago

I completely empathise. I have a personal hatred of cancer as well.

First Terry Pratchett and now Iain Banks. Satoshi Kon, taken by pancreatic cancer. Who's left? Why are all my favourite artists dying from this horrible family of diseases?

Fuck cancer, and damn our perverse incentives. All you hackers and entrepreneurs, please make all the money you can and do something to advance the combined well-being of the world and people like yourself. All that saved-up money can hardly do anything when a serious cancer strikes hard and we find out too late. Please do something to support the research that could save so many of your family and friends.

All the pleasures of the world cannot cancel out the loss and desolation of an early death. Our time is short; let's not let it be cut shorter.

dbenhur• 13 years ago

Terry has Alzheimer's, not cancer. Arguably more tragic as it's slow and lingering, destroying your mind long before your body goes.

reasonattlm3• 13 years ago

The 300 was far from useless - it was in fact the vehicle that enabled the Methuselah Foundation to do any of what it did: gain enough social proof and funding to invest in Organovo, boost SENS research far enough to gain funding from Peter Thiel and others, ultimately enabling it to spin off into the SENS Research Foundation, work behind the scenes to make the research community much more accepting of aging research, build a network of sympathetic researchers willing to speak out publicly about human longevity as a goal for science, help the Supercentenarian Research Foundation get started, and of late work on the New Organ initiative.

None of that would have been possible without the 300, and more importantly without people like you and I believing in the goal.

On cancer: there are new ideas and promising signs if you know where to look. I'm not a fan of WILT, but I haven't see anyone mount a good claim that it won't work as advertised, which is to say no cancer, ever:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/10/accumulating-the-...

An effective cancer treatment is all about finding a commonality to cut through the enormous variation in cancer biochemistry, so I watch for signs of that with some interest. The latest possible cancer commonality is CD47, for example:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2013/03/more-on-cd47-as-a...

There's also the suggestion that maybe we could extract the global cellular mechanism that makes naked mole rats cancer-free, or the different global cellular mechanism that makes blind mole rats cancer-free, and safely introduce one of them into human biology. That's much more speculative, not least for the concern that what works for 20-30 years in a mole rat might not be good for 100 in a human - there are plenty of examples of things working well in rodents but not being all that applicable to people.

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/revisiting-naked-...

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/11/the-mechanism-of-...

But even without this, I think that targeted cell destruction therapies (via nanoparticles, or trained immune cells, or viruses, etc) will evolve into a robust cancer cure for near all cancers caught early enough within the next couple of decades:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2006/10/cancer-cells-are-...

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2007/01/to-what-degree-is...

philwelch5• 13 years ago

Do you write any comments other than to promote your blog?

goostavos• 13 years ago

For shame..

rdl6• 13 years ago

Re: 300.

I wish medical research were set up in a way to support hobbyists and part time involvement. There are lots of people in the high-profit, low-value-to-society parts of biotech and medicine (day jobs as pharma reps, sometimes MDs, people running clinical trials for yet another evergreening of an old drug, or a super-viagra, or whatever), who have skills, and have their personal financial situation set up, who could probably be effective part-time contributors to basic research. In software, that'd be a guy working in some enterprise somewhere developing a new programming language or library on the side. I don't think there really is anything like that for biotech, yet.

Wintamute• 13 years ago

There isn't nearly enough wantonly optimistic sci-fi about. Banks does it so well. This is sad. His vision of the Culture reminds us what we're all struggling for.

nemof• 13 years ago

Seems like the site is down, for privacy or some other reason. Here's a statement from Banks:

http://www.orbitbooks.net/2013/04/03/a-personal-statement-fr...

arethuza8• 13 years ago

According to Ian Rankin: "Typical of Iain to propose marriage to his partner Adele with the words 'Will you do me the honour of becoming my widow?"

Makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time, like so much of his work.

jschulenklopper• 13 years ago

Not only from Ian Rankin, as it was also in the original statement: "I've asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow."

That last past is almost a six word story, but sadly reality instead of fiction.

stffndtz• 13 years ago

404 :/

chris_wot2• 13 years ago

This seems to have been pulled, because I'm getting a page not found...

chris_wot2• 13 years ago

Ah! It's back. No need to downvote me on this, I wasn't on the attack. Try hitting "reply" to say that's not the case. I merely wanted to see what was happening!

roy_s• 13 years ago

Is anyone else also getting a 404...

jeffheard• 13 years ago

Two of my favorite authors now... Three if you count that some people consider K.J. Parker to be a pseudonym of Iain (M) Banks.

My two favorites of his I think will always be Use of Weapons and Look to Windward. Coincidentally, I just started re-reading Excession last night.

Suitov• 13 years ago

KJ? A pseudonym of Iain? I reckon she'd be highly amused at that...

"For example, I don't much enjoy reading Iain M. Banks, simply because his world-view and mine don't coincide much; but I’ve learned an enormous amount from his masterful use of structure and language." -- KJ Parker (http://www.orbitbooks.net/interview/k-j-parker/)

IvyMike2• 13 years ago

I think it's unlikely, too.

But Iain Banks criticizing and then praising his own work under a pseudonym is something he would think was very funny.

locopati2• 13 years ago

This news puts his last two novels, Surface Detail and Hydrogen Sonata, in an interesting light, the former being about virtual hells and the latter being about a species transcending[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sublimed

aardvark179• 13 years ago

Those aren't his last two books, those would be Stonemouth and the Hydrogen Sonata.

I'm not sure what meaning you can draw from that unless you know of a sexual indiscretion that Iain committed at a wedding. :-)

locopati2• 13 years ago

I should have been more specific in the original comment...'his last two Culture books'.

melling2• 13 years ago

Very sad, of course. He's only 59. I've gotta admit that I'm also a bit angry. The war on cancer is 40 years old and we are still so far away from solving the problem(s).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Cancer

The first commercial microprocessor was released in the same year:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004

Solutions? Ideas? The list in my mind is starting to get painfully long:

Randy Pausch (47), Steve Jobs (56), Ian M Banks ...

gargoiler• 13 years ago

We'll likely all die from overcrowding problems in the end anyway... Solve all the diseases you want, but we'll all die at some point.

SkyMarshal• 13 years ago

That assumes we'll never colonize other planes/satellites/space stations and expand beyond earth.

SoftwareMaven4• 13 years ago

For yourself, the best things you can do today is massively reduce your sugar (and high-fructose corn syrup, which is nearly identical) intake[1] and increase excercise[2]. Reducing sugar will cause you to increase other macro and micro nutrients that are healthier (which may help) and most likely cause you to loose weight if you need to (which will help).

Unfortunately, until public policy on diet (which is set by the people responsible for selling more corn and sugar) changes, it's not going to get better.

1. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130201100149.ht...

2. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/prevention/phys...

penny1001• 13 years ago

Why don't you link to peer-reviewed studies that definitively prove that corn and sugar cause cancer. It's quite disturbing and outrageous that you're using Iain's cancer to scare the public for political gain.

drzaiusapelord3• 13 years ago

Jobs, more than likely, would have survived if he didn't try "alternative" cancer therapies. Banks did everything by the book and his outcome is poor, but at least he tried properly.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/10/20/steve-jobs-refused-early-canc...

melling2• 13 years ago

Jobs delayed his treatment by 6 months several years before he died. Call me crazy but in a better world, that shouldn't have mattered.

Hannan• 13 years ago

The 5-year survival for the earliest stage (I) neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer treated with surgery is 61%. The latest stage (IV) is 15%. Stage II puts you at about 50%.

That just doesn't seem like he "more than likely" would have survived to me, but looks more like a coin flip. And that was with the "good" pancreatic cancer.

adrianhoward6• 13 years ago

It was actually not quite as bad as it was represented in the press. The cancer was diagnosed in 2003. He avoided surgery for nine months and had surgery in 2004 - when it was still stage 1. That surgery was apparently successful. The cancer had certainly not metastasised in any detectable way at that point.

From stuff his family has said, and from what his biographer said about his interviews with Jobs, the primary driver for the delay was an almost phobic fear of surgery rather than "alternative medicine will cure me". This is surprisingly common from conversations I've had with some cancer treatment folk. I knew a family member who unfortunately had similar feelings :-/

The kind of cancer Jobs had was a rare and slow growing pancreatic cancer. Normally if you get diagnosed with pancreatic cancer you are in surgery later that bleeding day if at all possible. For pNET tumors longer delays of weeks or even months aren't unknown (not recommended either mind - but not insanely stupid).

(as a separate point - I love how all the reporting around Job's cancer was that it was a "rare cancer" presented in the the "ohhh rare and scary sense"... if you have to get pancreatic cancer a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor like Jobs's is the one you want to get).

The alternative medicine didn't make it worse in of itself.

The delay in surgery may have made it worse - but it's not certain. The five year survival rate for that cancer, when treated by surgery, is still only 61% at stage 1 (see http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/PancreaticCancer/DetailedGuide/...). Steve lasted nearly nine years.

Was the 9 month delay in surgery a sensible thing? Almost certainly not. But the real story was a long way from the "Killed by alternative medicine" line that hit the press. Even if Jobs had had surgery the day he was diagnosed, it would most likely have ended the same way.

lifeisstillgood• 13 years ago

This is sad news, and there is really nothing to add to his own words.

I just want to highlight two things, firstly his support for the NHS, which despite every newspaper and politician gunning for it still usually manages to deliver top quality care.

Secondly, can we leave off the cryogenic stuff ? The guy is dying, and pretending it will just be a pause is insulting all round. This was a touching and accepting note written by a skilled hand - and he is not blathering on about the next life. Please leave it be

arethuza8• 13 years ago

On the subject of Scottish authors and the UK welfare state - my opinion of JK Rowling went up quite a bit when I learned of her attitude towards paying taxes (and I'm sure Iain would approve):

http://timidheathen.tumblr.com/post/7043004518/jk-rowling-on...

alxndr2• 13 years ago

She talked about that on Colbert a little while back.

tjic4• 13 years ago

> I just want to highlight two things, firstly his support for the NHS

Which is meaningless; an anecdotal impression is not data.

> Secondly, can we leave off the cryogenic stuff ? The guy is dying, and pretending it will just be a pause is insulting all round.

Some people think that cryogenics is a better chance of resurrection than burying a body in dirt. The case isn't settled, but it's not a stupid or crazy belief. Even if the chance is only 0.1%, it's worth talking about. The chance of my house burning down is only 0.1% or so, and I still buy fire insurance.

(And, no, I'm not a big believer in cryogenics; I merely want to argue that discussion about it is reasonable.)

Cushman2• 13 years ago

> Some people think that cryogenics is a better chance of resurrection than burying a body in dirt.

And some people think burying a body in dirt is the best chance of resurrection. These beliefs do not seem, at this point in time, differentially stupid or crazy.

It is quite all right to hold such beliefs, but bringing them up every time someone dies as if-only-they-had is rather insensitive.

lsparrish12• 13 years ago

Personally, I'm glad to see cryonics being given more attention and discussion. It is a subject not well understood, even among biologists. If you think people undergoing it today are wasting their money (arguable, though I don't concede to it being obvious), there is still something of value to be gained by discussing the specific obstacles it faces, particularly in a technically inclined entrepreneurial crowd like HN. Many of us are younger, and will benefit from technological development that is only in the beginning stages at this point.

ritonlajoie• 13 years ago

I'm actually just starting reading a book from him. The first I'm reading from him. That's sad.

LatvjuAvs• 13 years ago

People still struggling to accept life.

Man grow out of this world, created awesome books, then he changed to something else. World as it is, is because he is.

sort3d• 13 years ago

What can we as a community do for him?

Mc_Big_G• 13 years ago

Is there really no preventative tests we can take periodically to discover these things before they get out of control? I have the feeling that future generations are going to ask WTF we were thinking.

bzudo• 13 years ago

I agree. I go to the dentist twice a year to check for cavities.

I can only guess the costs for the tests are too expensive. Still couldn't insurance cover the tests?

engtech11• 13 years ago

The only great change I can think of is getting cheaper MRIs.

The problem with MRIs is that there are so many false positives, but maybe regular scanning would help reduce that noise?

It is thought that most people fight cancer 5-6 times in their life before anything is ever detected.

adrianhoward6• 13 years ago

I can only guess the costs for the tests are too expensive. Still couldn't insurance cover the tests?

The short answer is that the tests don't exist. Cancer is still a hard problem that's a mess of environment and genetic factors. The tests that do exist (e.g. the PSA test for prostrate cancer) often have limited utility.

If you want to fix that help do basic research, or fund basic research. It's not a conspiracy. It's just a really, really hard problem.

makomk• 13 years ago

There really aren't. Developing screening tests that are actually useful is hard, because unless you can achieve an absurdly low false positive rate you inevitably find that most of your positives are false ones. In fact, the NHS tends to be a lot more cautious about funding universal screening programs than the US is because most of the time they're a net negative.

engtech11• 13 years ago

I'm very sorry to hear this.

The first Banks book I read was in a palliative care room while my mom was dying of cancer.

apcherry• 13 years ago

Sad news indeed.

In keeping with his macabre sense of humour I hope he has a suitable Culture Ship names for the coffin. Dwindling Gravitas (VFP)?

soapdog• 13 years ago

I have all his SF novels. I think he is the most original and refreshing author I've seen in the past decade. I always looked forward for those thrilling weeks after he released a new book. It was one of the best parts of a year for me. Mr Banks inspired me to dream about the future and what wonderful culture we could become. Even though I never met him, I will really miss him for I cherished his writings and opinions. One thing I won't do is forget him because his work is the kind that ressurects genres and is timeless.

richardjordan3• 13 years ago

Let's raise a toast to the launching of the GCU Fuck Cancer.

arethuza8• 13 years ago

And its sister ship the ROU Fuck Cancer Quickly

IvyMike2• 13 years ago

My introduction to Banks was Robert Keogh's Culture Shock website, originally hosted at my university. There's still stuff there I haven't seen anywhere else.

http://www.enthea.org/phlebas/

Note that this site seems to have last been updated in the mid 90's, so later novels are not included.

jostmey• 13 years ago

Death from Cancer is a tragedy. If you are a computer hacker you have only two options to help. (1) Donate money to help cover medical expenses, which would surely bankrupt all but the very wealthiest in society. (2) Work within the framework of proven scientific results to help push science forward. As a computer guru, perhaps the best way to do this is to help develop programming packages such as R, Octave, and Julia. Otherwise, pick up biology books/manuscripts and just start reading for the next several years.

jacquesm4• 13 years ago

That is very bad news in a large number of ways. What a pity!

CoffeeDregs2• 13 years ago

Very sad news indeed. Just introduced the works of Iain M. Banks to a friend, so something happy does come from sad news.

Also, if you're a fan of the Culture universe and want a smile, have a gander at a list of Culture ship names @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Cultu...

  "Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The"
  "Hand Me The Gun And Ask Me Again"
  "Lapsed Pacifist"
  "Subtle Shift In Emphasis"

I read science fiction to wonder at new ideas, concepts and their effects. But the Culture sounds like an incredible place to live. It's incredible that Banks could invent, create and hold the entirety of the Culture in his head.

nooneelse3• 13 years ago

We live in a pretty cynical time. One part of that is in our stories. We often take the quick path to "interesting" ideas by tearing apart good things. Utopia can't be, write about a dystopia instead. It is easier that way. This rut is comfortable.

It gets the author out of the hard task of building something that fits together well, and out of having to dream up something that works and that they would genuinely like to live in. Thinking up terrible things and things that fall apart can be much easier than thinking up what would make us lastingly happy. It also lets the listeners/readers/viewers of the story not think about their world in relation to some better world. That can be depressing; looking into a warm, comfy restaurant can just highlight how cold, poor, and hungry you are. Comparing our lives to those poor schmucks in some "utopia" with an terrible dark side isn't so bad; it doesn't impugn us for not having made something truly good to live in a reality.

But I'm so glad that Banks didn't go that route. Sci-fi needs to be able to get out of that rut. And it isn't that he doesn't know dark topics or how to write them; he can wrench a reader's guts along with the best of 'em. Yet he did the harder thing of looking for a consistent, shining-happy civilization to dream of living in. Gene Roddenberry got no small fame for a popular but rather more shoddy try at that many decades back. Banks did it with top notch sci-fi and writing skill. And I'd love to live in his utopia too.

But the books themselves, not the Culture, also include plenty of gut wrenching. Not as some easy dark side to the Culture itself. But at the edges of it, where the friction happens from its interaction with less nice places to live.

chicagobob• 13 years ago

I love the names of the Culture ships! sigh this is sad news.

mikestew• 13 years ago

> Just introduced the works of Iain M. Banks to a friend, so something happy does come from sad news.

And I've just purchased Player of Games, maybe not based on your personal recommendation, but certainly on the collective recommendation since this news broke. Kind of a sad way to get introduced to an author, but OTOH I think it would be somewhat nice that even my impending death would lead to new readers of my work.

I do feel like I'm the last geek/techy/nerd/HN/SlashDot reader on the planet to have heard of him, though.

CoffeeDregs2• 13 years ago

Good to hear. I also just purchased Player of Games... for the 3rd time... I think I'm going to read through the Culture novels again... for the 2nd or 3rd time.

crapshoot1013• 13 years ago

That blows. Banks is my favorite sci-fi author on the planet - Use of Weapons blows my mind everytime I read it.

rdl6• 13 years ago

This is really sad news. One of my favorite authors, and seems like a great guy. Fuck cancer -- we really need to fix this, fast :(

I feel selfish for being sad that his last book is an Iain Banks book vs. Iain M. Banks (culture). :(

guy2221• 13 years ago

This is tragic and heart-breaking.

Please be strong and live every minute to the fullest.

But I do have one constructive comment perhaps someone can get to this author.

>The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for 'several months' and it’s extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year. So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last.

>As a result, I've withdrawn from all planned public engagements and I've asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow (sorry - but we find ghoulish humour helps). By the time this goes out we'll be married and on a short honeymoon.

As great as it will feel - I think this is a disgusting thing to do to a woman and this author should reconsider.

[EDIT: Let me rephrase this to: I think they both should reconsider. I think this is something that Adele will regret, regardless of whether she knows this now, for the reasons I cite below. I say this with some experience.]

What are the two possibilities? That this short marriage and honeymoon will be sad and awkard - or that it will be blissful and happy?

Both of those are terrible, horrible for her to live with for the rest of her life. [Edit: again, something she might not realize now.]

Giving someone a few months of happiness before widowing them is something I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Even the middle possibility (if the short marriage and honeymoon is neither blissful nor very sad and awkward, but just is) would then simply give someone Widow status.

I think this author should call this particular plan off.

There are a lot of great ways to enjoy life and do the most you can. Please make the best of them all.

egypturnash• 13 years ago

I'm a woman. And I say, if Adele wants to end her time with Iain this way, let her. Wikipedia says they've been "together since 2006". In her position, I'd rather remember six years with a wild last year or so of doing all those crazy things that got put off than six years with a last year of just sitting there watching the man I love die.

Also it is quite possible that Adele would pretty much consider herself a widow for a good while whether or not she married Iain.

I mean, really. I don't think this is a thing being "done to her". I don't know anything about her, but if she's <em>anything</em> like the kinds of women Iain writes about, she's perfectly capable of making her own decisions, and is quite aware of what she's gotten herself into. And is, as you urge in your second sentence, trying to be strong and live life to the fullest.

rsofaer• 13 years ago

One of Richard Feynman's books speaks to his wedding to Arline Greenbaum. They married partly because they thought she was dying much faster than she actually was. Pain isn't necessarily regret. I think you're wrong about this.

wpietri3• 13 years ago

Protip: Don't tell adults what to do with their lives. Especially when it relates to love or death.

If you have some actual relevant experience that you would like someone to be aware of, go ahead and share it. Share your own thoughts and feelings about your personal experience as well.

And then STFU. Let them draw their own conclusions. People dying of cancer / watching their loved ones die of cancer really, really, really don't need your moralizing about their choices. They have a giant heap of shit to deal with, and they don't need you flinging a couple of turds on top.

epicureanideal• 13 years ago

ALCOR. Sign up. At least it's a chance.

http://www.alcor.org/

Also, I would research if anything ever happened with this:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/03/one-drug-to-sh...

A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

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