Page 3 of 4 Interview with Iain M. Banks
(1997-06-01)Do you see a big theme covering all your novels-science fiction and mainstream? There's obviously something to do with identity going on in there-people who have secret identities, unknown names, and so on-but I don't think I want to know what it all means. Did you have a nickname when you were younger? Yes. I was Carrot-top and Ginger-nut, from when I had garishly orange hair (it went ginger, then auburn, then brown, and now it's got grey bits); later I became Beaver (not a sexual reference; something to do with my predilection of dam-building), El Bonko (again, nothing to do with bonking, sadly; it comes from bonkers, though I can't imagine why) and- the one that's lasted most strongly into the present day-Banksie (imaginative or what?). In Excession, the Culture faces what is described as an Outside Context Problem-something beyond its current level of understanding. Where do you think mankind's next Outside Context Problem is going to come from? Well, it could just be a comet-strike, or the Internet becomes sentient or something, or it could be an alien contact or more civilisationally-bruising nature than the Culture would contrive for us (if not actually something like Mars Attacks) but if an OCP does turn up it's almost certain tobe none of the above and a complete surprise. What do you think of the new government and the end of 18 years of Tory rule? Let's just say I've done a lot of grinnning since the early morning of May 2nd. Or you could just say HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Do you have a daily routine when you're writing a novel? In theory I work an eight hour day for five days a week to complete fifteen thousand words.Then I can meet with my pals-who mostly have normal jobs-and have fun. In practice I often wake up at 4 am thinking about the book and-knowing from long experience there's no hope of getting back to sleep - I get up and write until about eight, then I go back to bed (with what my wife assures me are very cold feet indeed) sleep for a bit then get up and write some more. Sometimes, I work in the evening,too. And - while I work during October - December to minimise this sort of thing - if it's a nice day I'm very good at giving myself the day off and going for a drive. So, a bit chaotic, really. Still, I usually do manage the fifteen thousand words and - somehow - each year there's always a completed first draft winging its way to my editor with the post-Christmas mail while I collapse in the corner with a stiff drink and get ready for some furious Hogmany fun. What are your favourite albums/books? They're great, that's what they are. But here's a list of literary (or literary-ish) favourites and influences in alphabetical order:Brian Aldiss, Jane Austen, Samuel Beckett, Saul Bellow, Alfred Bester, Jorge Luis Borges, John Brunner, Noam Chomsky, Arthur.C.Clarke, Leonard Cohen, Ivor Cutler, Samuel Delaney,T.S.Eliot, Gunter Grass, Robert Graves, Alisdair Gray, Graham Greene, Ursula LeGuin, M.John.Harrison, Joseph Heller, Frank Herbert, Michael Herr, Aldous Huxley, Clive James, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Lucretius, Alistair Maclean, Ken MacLeod, Candida McWilliam, The Marx Brothers, Herman Melville, Sid Meier, Spike Milligan, Alan Moore, New Worlds magazine between 1971 and 1975, its quarterly paperback incarnation, Jeff Noon, Mervyn Peake, various Plays for Todays on BBC TV during the sixties (the only one I can remember was called The Last Train Through The Harecastle Tunnel), Marcel Proust, the Monty Python team, Kim Stanley Robinson, William Shakespeare, Dan Simmons, John Sladek, Vivian Stanshall, Magda Sweetland, Hunter.S.Thompson, Leo Tolstoy, Vernor Vinge, Kurt Vonnegut, Alan Warner, Ian Watson, Bill Waterson, Evelyn Waugh, Irvine Welsh and Gene Wolfe to name but rather a lot (some of the individuals named for single works).
Copyright© 2002 Orbit. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. The interview has been provided by Orbit and is printed with their permission. | 
