Iain M Banks

It was my brother who introduced me to Iain Banks. I think the first book I read was the signed* copy of 'Espedair Street' that my brother gave me. Or maybe he gave me 'The Wasp Factory'. It doesn't matter.

Subsequent to that, I bought everything Banks wrote, both as Iain Banks and the science fiction he wrote as Iain M Banks. To this day, he remains the only author whose every work I own, although admittedly Harper Lee was in that club for a long time. 

When he died, I was genuinely gutted that we had been robbed of all the untold Culture stories, the Culture being the setting for most of his science fiction writing, 

Yesterday, my brother told me about this book of sketches by Banks, which he made as he formulated his ideas about the Culture. Today it was delivered by Amazon. 

If you haven't read his books, I would recommend starting with 'The Player Of Games' (Iain M Banks) or 'The Crow Road' (Iain Banks). The BBC made a brilliant adaptation of the latter which I enthusiastically recommend to you. 

*"To Fenner. Say hi to Halo from me". I was in a band called Halo Jones at the time, I'd have been very surprised if Banks wasn't familiar with the comic strip.