Oh Noes! Iain Banks has cancer :(

[Sundae]

Took out The Player of Games from the library yesterday.
If I still have it, it's buried under under a couple of storage boxes of other books. Easier to pull it off the special display in his memory.

I've yet to reread it. I mix up the early Culture novels.
I know I read Damage by Jospehine Hart just because it was the name of a game in one of Banks's novels. And I loved the idea of the Players On the Eve of Destruction. Struck me as a combination of Douglas Adams and Stephen King. Dark and sleazy and besmirched with black humour.
Saying that, he transcended both of them.

I can never think of Scotland without thinking of Banks (and now Brianna of course)
In fact we went to a holiday cottage within spitting distance of Lochgilphead just because I associated it with him. We had the best chips and the surliest service there I've ever had in all my world travel.

I started to write about what I value most in a novel. But it ended up like the Spanish Inquisition/ what did the Romans do for us sketches.
I want STORY. Moved by intelligent but realistic dialogue. And being a word-pervert I want description and phrases which paint enormous canvases in very few words. Phrases I want to remember, landscapes in words.

I like a reasonably simple narrative without a huge cast of characters, but densely plotted so I can appreciate the twists and turns. Fewer red herrings than seeds of suspicion sown.

Oh and humour.
And perhaps a different perspective on the world.

I can't believe I actually read at all, let alone enjoy it
I do have a stack of books to review in the Books thread. Some I really want to do justice to. But I think I will reread The Player of Games again first.
This is the first of his books I've had from the library. Every other one I paid for. Given his short life I am glad I paid even pennies into the account of such a talent.

RIP.