Iain Banks has died

The literary world has lost a heavyweight author: Iain Banks, or Iain M Banks if you like sci-fi, has succumbed to cancer. He hoped to live till the end of the year, but alas...

I've always been a fan for two reason: he supported the mighty Greenock Morton Football Club, and he actually attended the same school as me. I was a pupil at Gourock High School seven years after he left, and although he achieved great fame as an author I'm not sure he was ever given any recognition by the school. I remember that the Head Teacher had several framed photographs on his office wall of lads who had become professional footballers, but I was curious as to why no one else deserved his respect. The school produced a lot of clever, high achievers - so maybe he, and some others got their photo on the wall after I left?

If you've never read his work I'd suggest you start right now.
a great contemporary Scottish writer