With or without the M? All Iain Banks fans welcome here.

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McGoohan Feb 2023 8:17am, 22 Feb 2023 52,483 posts	0 McGoohan Probably not if they're already on this thread
LindsD Feb 2023 8:28am, 22 Feb 2023 60,155 posts	0 LindsD True
McGoohan Jul 2024 10:07am, 8 Jul 2024 54,231 posts	0 McGoohan The Wasp Factory is 40 years old! Article here in the Guardian with some celebrity Banks fans. theguardian.com
Ocelot Spleens Jul 2024 10:12am, 8 Jul 2024 39,151 posts	0 Ocelot Spleens That was good.
McGoohan Jul 2024 10:15am, 8 Jul 2024 54,232 posts	0 McGoohan Some intriguing celebrity recommendations in the article - Sam Neill had optioned Canal Dreams as a movie adaptation - and I can see how that might work - but Banks himself was highly critical of the book.
mr d Jul 2024 12:59pm, 8 Jul 2024 6,678 posts	0 mr d Remember there was a stage play of the wasp factory, think in 1995 which I didn’t go and see.
Badger Jul 2024 1:04pm, 8 Jul 2024 17,254 posts	0 Badger I still haven't read Canal Dreams, heard a lot of negative comments about it.
McGoohan Jul 2024 1:24pm, 8 Jul 2024 54,233 posts	0 McGoohan One of the oddest problems with Canal Dreams for me was how it was marketed. His publishers were very keen to draw a distinct line between literary Iain Banks and space opera Iain M Banks. The non-M books were packaged and sold as very much high-falutin' literature. Canal Dreams is basically a thriller about a ship on a cruise through the Panama Canal being attacked by terrorists. However, the blurb on the book completely gives the end away. It's the approach of "this is a work of ART! The plot is irrelevant!" popular in the 80s and beyond. Taken as a Die-Hard style action-thriller it's not all that bad. It very much isn't what the packaging tries to sell it as.
Diogenes Jul 2024 1:28pm, 8 Jul 2024 86,829 posts	0 Diogenes That’s interesting. I’ve obviously never read the blurb as I assumed it was some kind of fantasy urban canal. Perhaps I was conflating it with The Bridge.
Diogenes Jul 2024 1:31pm, 8 Jul 2024 86,830 posts	0 Diogenes Or maybe not, looking at the plot summary for that one