Iain Banks dies of cancer aged 59

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22835047

by andyjohnson0 • 13 years ago

350 133 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

Thasc• 13 years ago

I am so glad he had the chance to see how much he and his work are appreciated, and by so many people. RIP.

Tloewald• 13 years ago

I'm really getting sick of my favorite people dying of cancer. I hope he had some fun.

tomjen33• 13 years ago

I just hate cancer, and I can't believe we don't have the cure yet, but I guess there just isn't enough money in it.

reaperhulk• 13 years ago

Just in case you're not being facetious...Cancer is a label that groups a huge variety of diseases that involve "unregulated cell growth" (thanks Wikipedia!). Curing "cancer" is extremely difficult because it isn't one thing.

stevoski• 13 years ago

A third of people in rich countries die from cancer. There's plenty of money in it. It is just that unregulated cell growth is an extremely difficult problem to solve.

Vivtek• 13 years ago

"The cure for cancer" is about an ill-defined goal as "the right way to earn money" - it's a very complex topic and we're making a shitload of progress on it every year.

Which doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

kolinko3• 13 years ago

There is a lot of money invested in this, it's just that it's terribly hard, and - as others said - there is no simple cure.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?n=1162

ams6110• 13 years ago

Or maybe it's just one of those things in the real world that doesn't have any easy answers.

soitgoes• 13 years ago

They're doing very well with testicular cancer treatment. About 90% are cured regardless of stage. Treatment of other cancers hasn't progressed as well unfortunately.

incision2• 13 years ago

Agreed.

For some incredibly interesting reading on the history of battle against cancer I highly recommend The Empreror of All Maladies [0].

0: http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperor-All-Maladies-Biography/dp/...

sjclemmy2• 13 years ago

I've loved most of his books since I first read The Wasp Factory in 1987. A sad loss. I hope someone does a faithful and sympathetic movie version of one of his culture novels. RIP

bragh2• 13 years ago

No such thing as a movie, but there's a short fan film called Something Real: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET8IFxPo61w If I remember correctly, Banks wasn't opposed to someone making a MMORPG based on Culture, I don't know how he felt about films. Maybe it's better Hollywood didn't touch it, the feel of Culture could probably be pulled off only in anime form.

sjclemmy2• 13 years ago

I've heard rumours of rights being purchased etc, however not to Consider Phlebas. I think given the nature of cgi these days, it wouldn't be that hard to pull off a big budget version of Excession. Which, as I've just noticed was written in 1996. Is it really that old?

bragh2• 13 years ago

I hope our galaxy's version of the Culture are good guys and backed him up, so he can have a very enjoyable and long life. RIP.

rasur• 13 years ago

I recall reading an article by him (about a month or so ago), shortly before reading an article about a new possible cancer cure (sadly still untested on humans). A sad loss for the literary world (amongst others). I hope he got the opportunity to make "an honest widow" (as he joked) of his girlfriend before he left.

Safe travels Iain, you'll be missed by many.

cstross• 13 years ago

He did indeed marry Adelle back in April.

corin_• 13 years ago

For anyone unfamiliar, that's Adele Hartley, not Adele the singer.

nsns3• 13 years ago

Here's a strong recommendation to anyone who hasn't read yet The Bridge by Banks, to go and read that wonderful novel. Not to mention his classic and highly imaginative Sci-fi novels: The Player of Games, Feersum Endjinn, Use of Weapons, Excession...

MikeCapone• 13 years ago

On the non-science fiction side, The Wasp Factory is also great, as is Crow Road and Complicity (if you want something closer to a crime thriller).

Fuzzwah• 13 years ago

I am a huge Banks fan, but I really didn't enjoy The Wasp Factory.

misnome• 13 years ago

I also found "The Business" a very good book, that should be good for people starting to read him.

adw2• 13 years ago

The Crow Road is my favourite book. It might speak more to Scots – I don't know – but it's wonderful.

RachelF• 13 years ago

IMHO his non-scifi, is good.

The Wasp Factory is pure genius.

incision2• 13 years ago

Absolutely.

I'd recommend reading the Culture series (3 of the above mentioned books are part of it) in order if possible [0], they all have something to offer.

By the way, I'd recommend against reading any reviews for his books prior, they're easily spoiled.

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series

crapshoot1016• 13 years ago

Yes. I'd also recommend Inversions only after you've read some of the others - and start with Consider Phelbas (which for non-readers, is told from the perspective of a non-Culture citizen).

skarmklart2• 13 years ago

Got a recommendation of a novel of his that is available in audiobook format? :)

engtech• 13 years ago

I think almost all of his books are available as audiobooks.

http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_ab_1_1_3?searchAuthor=I...

I'd start off with Use of Weapons or the Player of Games

sixQuarks4• 13 years ago

Why do great people like Iain Banks, Steve Jobs, Carl Sagan all die relatively young, while evil sons of bitches like Dick Cheney live to a ripe old age despite having 100 heart attacks?

flatline• 13 years ago

Confirmation bias

chris_wot• 13 years ago

Obviously confirmation bias is a very long term illness.

kolinko3• 13 years ago

There are a plenty of examples that say otherwise.

Also, the older someone is the higher chance you'll get to hate him. "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain."

michaelochurch3• 13 years ago

Most people I know become better as they age, even if the change is slight (i.e. wholly bad people rarely turn to good people just because they get older).

Certainly, I'm a much better person than I was ten years ago. That might just be reversion to the mean, because I was somewhat of an asshole.

LowKarmaAccount• 13 years ago

I don't think than Iain Banks, Steve Jobs, and Carl Sagan made contributions as important as:

Galois — 20; Markov — 25; Abel — 26; Ramsey — 26; Ramanujan — 32; Riemann — 39; Turing — 41; Von Neumann — 53, etc.

But Erdős, Cantor, Newton, Archimedes, and Gödel (though he starved himself to death) lived past 70. So not all great mathematicians die young.

signa11• 13 years ago

dont forget gauss.

brey• 13 years ago

Vladimir Markov, who died at 25, probably isn't the brother most people would associate with the name.

not to diminish Vladimir's contribution to mathematics at such a young age - but Andrey Markov, of the chains and processes, lived until 66.

sixQuarks4• 13 years ago

You guys don't seem to get sarcasm. Obviously, I realize my statement is not literal (hence, the 100 heart attacks). I'm surprised someone didn't point out that Cheney has only had 3 heart attacks.

saraid2165• 13 years ago

I don't think you understand what sarcasm is. Here's a hint: it's not an appropriate reaction to death.

ars5• 13 years ago

Is he so great? His books are great I hear, but he's antisemetic: He supports BDS.

I haven't decided if I want to read his books anyway. Divorce the artist from the art.

(And please don't tell me that BDS is not antisemetic because that's nonsense - just look at who the founders were.)

mercurial4• 13 years ago

I didn't know Banks personally, unfortunately, but I challenge you to find a single anti-semitic statement he made. As for BDS, I wasn't familiar with it until 5 minutes ago, but it seems to be a group calling for a non-violent boycott of Israel. I have a hard imagining how you can paint everybody who supports them as antisemitic.

If you want a shortcut into his politics, I suggest you read Dead Air.

glogla2• 13 years ago

Not every critique of Israel is antisemitism, the same way that critique of Mugabe doesn't make you racist.

Pretending that it is so is one of the traditional "arguments" of US far right, and I don't think it has place any in reasonable discussion.

EDIT: just in case you're wondering why the downvote.

guard-of-terra• 13 years ago

Did he ever do anything bad to Israel? Did Israel ever do anything good to him?

As you know from history, if both answers are "no", then he's not antisemitic, he just happen to have an opinion.

casiotone• 13 years ago

Lovely bit of hasbara but you're not convincing anyone. Anti-zionism is not anti-semitism.

misiti37802• 13 years ago

While still alive, Dick Cheney has to be sort of living in his own little personalized hell - imagine everywhere you go 99% of the people in the room think you are an evil piece of shit.

gjm11• 13 years ago

I expect he mostly goes to places where 99% of the people in the room don't think that.

shabble3• 13 years ago

It was only yesterday I came across his most recent update[1] and was hoping the best for him. Truly a sad day for all who knew him, or enjoyed his works.

In the spirit of Douglas Adams' Towel Day[2], I propose the institution of 'Anti-Gravitas Day', date to be determined.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/21/iain-banks-updat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towel_Day

saraid2165• 13 years ago

date to be determined

I've never read Banks and don't know anything about him or his worlds aside from the reputation, but failing to find a better day, I'd suggest picking the release date of one of his books.

drakeandrews• 13 years ago

How about January 2nd? It's the day on which the GCU Arbitrary left Earth orbit in The State of the Art.

shabble3• 13 years ago

I was just flicking through Excession trying to find some appropriate event, but yes, I think that would do nicely.

As a bonus, it's also a Scottish bank holiday[1]

[1] http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/bank-holidays/

andyjohnson0• 13 years ago

I'm feeling really sad about this. His culture novels in particular had a big effect on me. Right now it seems like the world just got a little bit less interesting and less fun.

bpizzi• 13 years ago

Having defined the most beautiful imaginary world where there's no more sickness and unwanted death, and dying of cancer before 60. What a cruel world where're living in.

I'll go and reopen Excession for one more time - just for you, dear Iain.

f4stjack• 13 years ago

This is a sad day... the world, hell the universe, had become a greyer place... Rest in peace Mr. Banks. Your books saved me from depression&suicide.

swayvil• 13 years ago

a man of taste. damn good writer too.

defen• 13 years ago

Damn. I literally just finished reading Use of Weapons two days ago. I had no idea he was ill :-(

dschiptsov• 13 years ago

He managed to create better Kafkian Castle than Kafka himself in his second novel "Walking on Glass". He left a lot of pages to enjoy.

elliott34• 13 years ago

From his wikipedia:

"Following graduation Banks chose a succession of jobs that left him free to write in the evenings. These posts supported his writing throughout his twenties and allowed him to take long breaks between contracts, during which time he travelled through Europe, Scandinavia and North America. He was an expediter analyser for IBM, a technician (for British Steel) and a costing clerk for a Chancery Lane, London law firm during this period of his life.[4]"

Kind of inspiring. Most of my generation (I am 23) want instant gratification and won't eat shit like a guy like Banks would in order to support what he really liked to do.

hartror• 13 years ago

My sister is a writer[1] in her mid twenties and she is doing similar things to Banks.

[1] http://www.randomhouse.com.au/authors/rhiannon-hart.aspx

Uncompetative• 13 years ago

Nice plug you've snuck in there. I'll make a point to avoid her books. I might of actually read them otherwise.

stormbrew• 13 years ago

Aside from the fact that none of those jobs sound like 'eating shit' to me, you might take notice that most of his generation didn't either.

Uchikoma• 13 years ago

Such a sad day.

crapshoot1016• 13 years ago

What a shame. One of the most brilliant authors of his generation - I'd urge everyone here to read Use of Weapons, which is storytelling done right.

Nursie• 13 years ago

Possibly two of the most brilliant :)

RIP writer man...

crapshoot1016• 13 years ago

A very good point. In that vein, let me recommend Whit from the non-scfi side; the most sympathetic book about a 19 year old cult member that you can imagine (especially from an avowed atheist like Banks)

egypturnash2• 13 years ago

/me cracks a bottle of whiskey across the bow of the ROU The Infuriating Fragility Of Life In A Pre-Contact Civilisation

arethuza3• 13 years ago

I had rather hoped that Iain was from the Culture - sending a Contact operative down to drink whisky and write about Drug-using Commies in Space would be just the kind of sneaky but nice thing they would do.

egypturnash2• 13 years ago

In the middle of the night, Iain turned over and whispered to the transceiver hidden in his wedding ring. "It's over, people. I just can't take any more of this terrible planet." After a brief argument, there was a soft pop as the Steaming Piles Of Freshly-Laid Gravitas Displaced the Culture agent, leaving a cooling meat puppet in his place.

nsns3• 13 years ago

A list of Culture spaceships: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Cultu...

arethuza3• 13 years ago

I propose that if Scotland does get independence that we adopt Culture ship names for our future (tiny) navy.

I rather like the idea of a fishery protection vessel called the "Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall".

shabble3• 13 years ago

I rather like the idea of a fishery protection vessel called the "Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall".

I'd go with the Me, I'm counting.

grey-area• 13 years ago

What a wonderful idea - less intimidating than the UK's use of SkyNet for UK satellite systems, but unfortunately far less likely to happen.

In the meantime we can always use ship names for online avatars ;)

saraid2165• 13 years ago

So Much for Subtlety.

ZeroGravitas• 13 years ago

I'd vote for a political party called The Culture, with policies to match, in an independent Scotland.

TomAnthony• 13 years ago

Since hearing he was ill on Hacker News, back in April, I decided I should finally get back to reading. I followed the recommendations here and read The Player of Games, then moved on to Consider Phlebas which I finished this morning. Afterwards, I went over to his website to see how he was doing.

The two books I read were fantastic and it is bittersweet to have discovered them in such a way. However, I'm thankful to him for getting me back to reading. My thoughts are with his family and friends.

cjdavis• 13 years ago

I spent six weeks in London for a college exchange class the summer of 1990 and discovered Banks and the Culture; I believe it was Consider Phlebas. One of the best parts of that summer. I remember the delays in releases of books once back in the US was agonizing.

Fuck cancer.

jacquesm• 13 years ago

So quick :(

I hoped he would have a bit more time to enjoy his newly wedded state.

Thanks for all the wonderful stories.

emehrkay2• 13 years ago

Very far off tangent: I do not know who the author is, but in reading the first paragraph I thought that "The Crow Road and Complicity" was a single book because of the exclusion of the Oxford Comma and titles do not capitalize words like "and." I would assume that the BBC used the Oxford Comma (according to this article, they do not), does the author?

Angostura2• 13 years ago

The Oxford comma isn't taught in the UK, at least when I was a lad. There was a strict rule - you don't use commas before the word 'and'.

emehrkay2• 13 years ago

Interesting, and thanks for the reply. I did see in the Wikipedia article that there is a divid on its usage in British practice.

The downvotes on my original comment is interesting. I'm certain that a writer would like talk of his craft after his demise, just like programmers would like to see comments about if he used ternary operators, why/why not.

vonskippy• 13 years ago

Maybe a little more science for science's sake, and less science that starts with "how many patients and how much money will it make us" and we'd have a much better chance at beating cancer.

We're allowing gene sequence patents FFS.

Which is why I left academic science in the 90's and became an engineer - my brain is still stimulated but my blood pressure is way (WAY) lower.

porsupah• 13 years ago

Iain Banks, for me, was the individual responsible for introducing me to seriously good Scotch. ^_^

It was East(er)con '90, at the Adelphi Hotel - a rather wonderful example of architecture, designed by someone with a passion for steps, to the point that you couldn't walk more than 20' without at least a single step along the way - after a long, good day of con proceedings. We were gathered around in the lobby, around 3am, a circle of some dozen attendees, and he begins passing his whisky flask around. I forget what it was, specifically, but I believe something at least a dozen years old, maybe even a 21.

It was a revelation. ^_^

There was no barrier - no Famous Person, just a bunch of people who all enjoyed sci-fi, chatting into the early hours.

He made the world a richer place to inhabit.

barking• 13 years ago

In Liverpool(often passed it, never in it but heard some stories)?

adrianhoward• 13 years ago

Sad, if not unexpected, news.

My only other comment would be to encourage folk to go read his books. All of 'em - not just the "M". Too many geekish folk only pick up his Culture books - and they're missing out on some really great reads.

eli_gottlieb• 13 years ago

Welp, I'm now contractually obligated to go read his books.

Yeah, like I needed an excuse to read more scifi /s.

Iain Banks dies of cancer aged 59

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