My Social Calendar - Banksie

I have a manic week this week.
I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm booked up every night this week, which probably means I'll have a bucketload of tales to tell.
I know, it's exciting eh?

Last night I went to the Drill Hall in Lincoln to see an interview with Iain Banks.
It was only an hour long but interesting, good to see the author in the flesh I think, and have him sign my book.
Although Gary got a little bit of spittle in his book. Mr Banks apologised and I asked him how much his spittle was worth on eBay these days. He didn't seem to know, which was a little disappointing.

It's hard to believe that it's almost 25 years since The Wasp Factory was published, and apparently that was to be his last attempt at getting published before he headed back to Scotland with his sporran between his legs.
I loved The Wasp Factory, but as the quotes taken from reviews at the front of the book show, feelings about it were very divisive. Some loved, some hated.
He said last night that he had meant it to be absolutely hilarious, but it clearly has some very dark portions and an unexpected twist.

The back cover of my book has this:

'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 Esmeralda, 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.'

His is the only science fiction that I read, which as is well known, he writes as Iain M Banks. There is something about his voice that makes the science fiction feel accessible to me.
Last night he explained that he started with science fiction, but couldn't get it published and thus decided to write something more mainstream. Following the publication of The Wasp Factory and then following that with Walking On Glass and The Bridge he brought out Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel to be published.

I'm looking forward to discovering his newest - The Steep Approach to Garbadale - very soon, it's been added to the book slide collection in my bedroom.