The Banksoniain #6 An Iain (M.) Banks Fanzine May 2005 Editorial Award News Issue #6, and we deviate from the UK The big news for this issue is that The publication history to write a book biography Algebraist has been nominated for the Best of The State of the Art and the rest of Banks Novel Hugo award. That is the informal short fiction. Editorial justification for this, if name for the World Science Fiction Society you need one, is based on those immortal awards that are given out at each year's words sung by new Dr Who assistant Billie Worldcon. The nominations are voted for by Piper, “Because I Want To”. members of that year's and the previous year's The only bit of The State of the Art turned Worldcons. This year the convention is in into something else is Piece which has been Glasgow and all the Best Novel nominees are covered in previous Banksoniains. So The British which pleased the crowd when the Unwritten Banks returns, with newly announcement was made at Eastercon. The researched information, to The Bridge. other nominees are, alphabetically: Iron Council by China Miéville; Iron Sunrise by We also have a couple of special features: Charles Stross; Jonathan Strange & Mr Investment Banks, uses articles from Book Norrell by Susanna Clarke and River of Gods and Magazine Collector to see whether those by Ian McDonald. See also page # 11. first editions gathering dust are also appreciating in value, and Trick of the Mind, Banks Live which examines, with pictures, Iain‟s recent th mind-boggling appearance on TV. 10:45am 20 July 2005 at Buxton Festival. Iain Banks will talk, read and answer Banks in Translation examines how the questions in the Opera House. Tickets are £9. Finns have taken to his work. Banks See http://www.buxtonfestival.co.uk/literary.htm Obscura is taken over by a more detailed look at the race for this year‟s Hugos and Publication News brief history of other awards Iain has picked up over the years. The UK paperback of The Algebraist is due for publication in July, as is the first French Not “THE” Iain Banks fails to appear. I edition of the title from Bragelonne. The seem to have run out of Internet savvy Iain Russian, Finnish, Italian and Germany rights Bankses to email questions to about their have also been sold. namesake, but have no fear this column will return. The US publication, from Night Shade Books, is due in September. No news on the cover or Scary stuff happens. Searching for Banks artist yet, but there are plans for a limited related references on the University of edition as well. Liverpool library system, which includes the impressive Science Fiction Foundation Banks’s Next Book collection, I discovered that they now have a Time Warner have included an “Untitled Iain listing for The Banksoniain with the paper Banks” in their latest rights list as planned for edition of issue #3 residing in their archives. publication by Little Brown in September Anyway, thanks this issue to, Gary Lloyd, 2006. and, of course, Iain M. Banks. The Banksoniain Issue #6, Page #1 Media Scanner Scotland's literary culture”. Ambassador- staying-at-home, that would be. The Birmingham Post (16/02/05) as noted in I don't know what Iain Banks has ever done to their birthday listing for that day still believe upset Allan Brown, but the newspaper hack that Iain won the Booker Prize in 1998 (see likes to make disparaging remarks about the Banksoniain #2). successful and internationally famous novelist Ansible #212 reported that Iain was every once in a while. In his „Restless native‟ mentioned in the Round Britain Quiz on BBC column in the Sunday Times (06/02/05) after Radio 4 (28/02/05). relating a story of how Jim Kerr threatened to defenestrate him from the sixth floor of a The sale of the rights to The Algebraist to a London hotel, he revealed that the Saltire US publisher (see page #1) saw an interesting Society had asked him to submit nominations and lengthy interview in the online magazine for its 2005 literary awards. He used this as The Salon. See: an opportunity to attack AL Kennedy, Morna www.salon.com/books/int/2005/02/17/banks Sutherland, Christopher Brookmyre and Iain The publisher had primed the interviewer Banks in the form of some fake mini reviews. with some information which included the One of which read: “My Fortnight in Hell, by fact that Iain would not be doing a signing Iain Banks: A deeply disturbing meditation on tour owing to his lack of passport. This was urban alienation and paranoia by the master of picked back up by some UK newspapers, and technologically inspired nightmares. When in The Scotsman (18/02/05) Simon Pia Garth Metaphor is told that his headed his column as „Have book, will not malfunctioning Apple Mac will take two travel‟ and recycled some Banks quotes about weeks to repair, his world falls apart. The the passport destruction. Mike Mceachran, novel follows Garth's faltering attempts to however, in the Daily Record (19/02/05) leave the house occasionally, speak to other didn‟t bother to check dates or do anything people, read newspapers and go without more than the minimum of research for his looking up nude photographs of minor article, and claimed that “Scots author Iain television celebrities on the internet. The Banks has been forced to cancel an overseas scene where the hero must purchase a book of book tour - after he cut up his passport”. As stamps is brutal and unflinching.” This is the rights were not sold until after the very similar to his 2002 fake review of The passport had been destroyed no tour could Beekeeper, some originality in his drivel possibly have been arranged or therefore would be appreciated. cancelled. Mr Mceachran also alleged that Susan Mansfield in The Scotsman (26/02/05) “fans of the author in the United States have reviewed the Banks/MacLeod joint slammed Banks for being anti-American” but appearance at the Glasgow Writer's Festival. did not supply any evidence of such attitudes. She commented that the pair “functioned as a With Bush's re-election last year and Blair's double act, Banks the comic to MacLeod's re-election recently it looks like Banks fans straight man”. MacLeod, she said, argued abroad will have to wait for the author‟s near that Sci-fi “is a literature of change. It is a neighbour Gordon Brown to take over before literature which examines and analyses future they can expect any overseas personal possibilities, not only in technology but in appearances. economics, politics and the structures of It was announced by the University of society”, whilst Iain had proclaimed that: “It Glasgow (23/02/05) that Iain Banks was has the capability to be the most important among fifteen “distinguished figures from the literature on the planet.” worlds of literature, art, business, science, and The List published a guide to The 100 Best sports are to be honoured” with degrees in Scottish Books of All Time written by July. This DLitt, the abbreviation of the Latin Professor Willy Maley, of Glasgow Doctor Litterarum, will be Banks‟s fourth University, in conjunction with the Scottish doctorate, and in the citation he was described Book Trust, and sponsored by Orange. This as “acclaimed author and ambassador for The Banksoniain Issue #6, Page #2 aroused some controversy with the definition In an interview in The Scotsman (25/04/05) of Scottish, which according to The Iain Rankin postulated “there's me and Iain Scotsman (04/03/05) included books like Banks and Val McDermid all coming from Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, because central Fife at the one time. We think we may she was living in Scotland at the time she possibly be the result of some cruel medical wrote it. They should have no complaint experiment, like the X-Files.” Hmmm. about the Scottish credentials of Iain Banks A book review by Michael Dibdin in the and his debut novel The Wasp Factory which Guardian (14/05/05) made reference to Snow also made the list, note that a limit of one is Silent by Benjamin Prado being “not nearly book per author was imposed by the compiler as wacky as Iain Banks' Walking on Glass” in order to “to show as many sides to but sharing with that and Martin Amis‟s Scotland as possible, and to showcase the London Fields “the core conceit of an average forms and genres in which Scotland excels”. bloke who is first set up and then coldcocked Doug Johnstone wrote the three hundred word by a tantalising tease for reasons that he could entry about The Wasp Factory and not possibly hope to understand”. competently describes the novel. Not sure if Iain will like this, but the Sunday In conjunction with the booklet‟s publication, Telegraph’s Melissa Kite reported (15/05/05) a vote is being conducted to find the Best in her profile of David Davis “bookies' Scottish Book of All Time with the winner favourite to be the next Tory leader” that the being announced at the Edinburgh Book bookshelves in the study of his Yorkshire Festival on August 27th. The Daily Mail farmhouse “are heaving with books on (04/03/05) commented that the fact that this technology. Beneath them there are texts on was being done by text message and Internet mythology, anthropology and psychology.