Yesterday I read the news that Iain Banks wasn’t doing too badly all considered. This lunchtime I heard via Twitter that Iain had died. Fuck Cancer.
I first discovered Banks’ writing via the internet, a recommendation in a long forgotten place lead me to a copy of The Use of Weapons and a whole universe of dubious ethics and arrogant, playful super intelligences. Now the last word in that universe has been written, while there are still tales to tell.
Not only have we lost two of the best authors to have come from Scotland, on a more selfish note, we’ve lost a whole universe (or two, or three) and any number of fucked-up domestic tales.
Fuck Cancer.