Best Selling Books by Iain Banks

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre. ''Banks is a phenomenon'' William Gibson Two and a half millennia ago in a remote corner of space, beside a trillion-year-old dying sun from a different universe, the artifact appeared. It was a perfect black-body sphere, and it did nothing. Then it disappeared. Now it is back. Diplomat Genar-Hofoen of Special Circumstances is sent to investigate but, sidetracked by an old flame and the spoiled-brat operative Ulver Seich, and faced with the systematic depravities of a race who call themselves the Affront, it''s anyone''s guess whether he''ll succeed . . . Praise for the Culture series: ''Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution'' Independent on Sunday ''Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future'' Guardian ''Jam-packed with extraordinary invention'' Scotsman ''Compulsive reading'' Sunday Telegraph The Culture series: Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata The State of the Art Other books by Iain M. Banks: Against a Dark Background Feersum Endjinn The Algebraist Also now available: The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks'' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.

A fascinating journey through Scotland''s famous distilleries with legendary author Iain Banks No true Scotsman can resist the allure of the nation''s whisky distilleries. In an absorbing voyage as interesting to non-drinkers as to true whisky connoisseurs, sci-fi and literary author Iain Banks explores the rich heritage of Scottish whisky, from the largest and most famous distilleries to the smallest, most obscure operations. Whisky is more than a drink: it''s a culture, a binder that joins together people, places and products far across Scotland''s rugged terrain. Switching from cars to ferries to bicycles, Banks crisscrosses his homeland, weaving an engrossing narrative from the strange people, fascinating traditions, and downright bizarre places he encounters on his journey down Scotland''s great golden road.

''Establishes beyond doubt that Iain Banks is a novelist of remarkable talents'' Daily Telegraph Graham Park is in love. But Sara Fitch is an enigma to him, a creature of almost perverse mystery. Steven Grout is paranoid - and with justice. He knows that They are out to get him. They are. Quiss, insecure in his fabulous if ramshackle castle, is forced to play interminable impossible games. The solution to the oldest of all paradoxical riddles will release him. But he must find an answer before he knows the question. Park, Grout, Quiss - no trio could be further apart. But their separate courses are set for collision. Praise for Iain Banks: ''The most imaginative novelist of his generation'' The Times ''His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers'' Ken MacLeod, Guardian ''His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent'' Neil Gaiman ''An exceptional wordsmith'' Scotsman

In Scotland, a self-appointed executioner dispenses justice to fit the crime. Thus the lenient judge who let a rapist go is punished by being raped, while a man who killed is killed in turn. By the author of The Wasp Factory.

The polarizing literary debut by Scottish author Ian Banks, The Wasp Factory is the bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath. Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least: Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I''d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That''s my score to date. Three. I haven''t killed anybody for years, and don''t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.

Set in a war-torn country not unlike Bosnia, this internationally bestselling novel concerns a band of soldiers who find refuge in a rural castle.

A beautiful, ambitious woman pursues the ultimate prize in a wickedly satirical novel about a highly secretive transglobal organization.

The man who wakes up in the extraordinary world of a bridge has amnesia, and his doctor doesn''t seem to want to cure him. Does it matter? Exploring the bridge occupies most of his days. But at night there are his dreams... Dreams in which desperate men drive sealed carriages across barren mountains to a bizarre rendezvous; an illiterate barbarian storms an enchanted tower under a stream of verbal abuse; and broken men walk forever over bridges without end, taunted by visions of a doomed sexuality. Lying in bed unconscious after an accident wouldn''t be much fun, you''d think. Oh yes? It depends who and what you''ve left behind. Which is the stranger reality, day or night? Frequently hilarious and consistently disturbing, THE BRIDGE is a novel of outrageous contrasts, constructed chaos and elegant absurdities. Why customers are loving The Bridge: "Banks'' Wasp Factory is frequently called ''One of the 20th century''s 100 greatest novels''. It pales in comparison to The Bridge!" - Amazon Reviewer, 5 stars "Mindblowing! This is the first Iain Banks novel I have read and needless to say I''ll be back for more." - Amazon Reviewer, 5 stars

Iain Banks'' daring new novel opens in a loft apartment in the East End, in a former factory due to be knocked down in a few days. Ken Nott is a devoutly contrarian vaguely left wing radio shock-jock living in London. After a wedding breakfast people start dropping fruits from a balcony on to a deserted carpark ten storeys below, then they start dropping other things; an old TV that doesn''t work, a blown loudspeaker, beanbags, other unwanted furniture...Then they get carried away and start dropping things that are still working, while wrecking the rest of the apartment. But mobile phones start ringing and they''re told to turn on a TV, because a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Centre...

''Banks once again demonstrates his extraordinary dark powers of imagination'' Sunday Times Hisako Onada, world-famous cellist, refuses to fly. And so she travels to Europe as a passenger on a tanker bound through the Panama Canal. But Panama is a country whose politics are as volatile as the local freedom fighters. When Hisako''s ship is captured, it is not long before the atmosphere is as flammable as an oxy-acetylene torch, and the tension as sharp as the spike on the cello... Praise for Iain Banks: ''The most imaginative novelist of his generation'' The Times ''His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers'' Ken MacLeod, Guardian ''His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent'' Neil Gaiman ''An exceptional wordsmith'' Scotsman

A desperate young man becomes entangled with a Scottish crime family in this “brilliant, irresistible” novel from the author of The Wasp Factory (The New York Times). Stewart Gilmour is back in Stonemouth, Scotland. An estuary town north of Aberdeen, Stonemouth has a beach that can be beautiful on a sunny day. But on a bleak day, Stonemouth seems to have nothing to offer but fog, cheap drugs, and gangsters—and a suspension bridge that promises a permanent way out. Stewart got out five years ago. He didn’t jump, he just ran—escaping the Murstons, a local family of mobsters. But now their patriarch has died, and in an uneasy truce, Stewart has returned home for the funeral. His long exile has also kept him away from Ellie Murston, and if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll avoid a reunion—and the topic of his old classmate Callum Murston’s untimely death. But once he’s back, Stewart steps squarely into the minefield of his past, and as he wrestles with feelings of guilt and loss, he makes some dark discoveries and his homecoming takes a lethal turn. A quick drop into the cold, gray Stoun is starting to look like an option worth considering. The basis for a BBC series, Stonemouth is a darkly witty, “beguiling” tale of warring clans, broken hearts, brotherhood, and the long, hard process of growing up—if you can stay alive long enough to try (The Guardian).

Daniel Weir used to be a famous - not to say infamous - rock star. Maybe still is. At thirty-one he has been both a brilliant failure and a dull success. He''s made a lot of mistakes that have paid off and a lot of smart moves he''ll regret forever (however long that turns out to be). Daniel Weir has gone from rags to riches and back, and managed to hold onto them both, though not much else. His friends all seem to be dead, fed up with him or just disgusted - and who can blame them? And now Daniel Weir is all alone. As he contemplates his life, Daniel realises he only has two problems: the past and the future. He knows how bad the past has been. But the future - well, the future is something else.

When Prentice McHoan returns to his home town of Gallanach he meets a former girlfriend of his missing uncle Rory, who provides him with a folder of Rory''s writings that inspires him to seek out the man who had disappeared eight years earlier.

In this work, 20 leading Scottish authorities and new researchers on the Iron Age provide a wide-ranging account of our present knowledge of the period.

''Fierce contemporaneity, an acrobat imagination, social comment, sardonic wit... the peculiar sub-culture of cult religion is a natural for Banks'' The Times A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing... Innocent in the ways of the world, an ingenue when it comes to pop and fashion, the Elect of God of a small but committed Stirlingshire religious cult, Isis Whit is no ordinary teenager. When her cousin Morag - Guest of Honour at the Luskentyrian''s four-yearly Festival of Love - disappears after renouncing her faith, Isis is marked out to venture among the Unsaved and bring the apostate back into the fold. But the road to Babylondon (as Sister Angela puts it) is a treacherous one, particularly when Isis discovers that Morag appears to have embraced the ways of the Unsaved with spectacular abandon... Praise for Iain Banks: ''The most imaginative novelist of his generation'' The Times ''His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers'' Ken MacLeod, Guardian ''His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent'' Neil Gaiman ''An exceptional wordsmith'' Scotsman

Iain Banks is celebrated as a novelist and science fiction writer. It is less well known that his first published work was the poem ''041'', in New Writing Scotland in 1983. Like the poems that appeared within his novels, this was selected from the many he had written between 1973 and 1981. Banks took his poetry seriously and worked on it assiduously, but showed it mostly to friends. He first thought of publishing his poetry late in 2012, though insisted it be a joint collection with his life-long friend Ken MacLeod. The two writers were working on this project when Banks learned of his terminal diagnosis, and continued thereafter. He made his final revisions just days before his death. Readers of Iain Banks'' novels will find in the poems a further affirmation of the humane, sceptical and clear-eyed sensibility that informed all his work, shot through as ever with a dry wit that continues to disturb and delight. Ken MacLeod edited and introduces this collection.