Iain M. Banks died more than 11 years ago, but remains a titan of modern science fiction. He wrote “literary” works under the name Iain Banks, but added the “M” for his 14 sci-fi offerings, which are known for an audacious, ground-breaking take on the space opera that transformed the genre.
If you have never read any of these books but love “hard” sci-fi, is it worth diving in now?
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: Banks’s sci-fi, at its best, is staggeringly inventive, beautifully written, dramatic and often very funny. His stories are packed with ideas, warships with minds very much of their own, alien races, charismatic drones and intergalactic politics.
That said, time is a stern judge. I have read celebrated “classics” of sci-fi and found them startlingly misogynistic, homophobic and racist – even for their time. There is nothing so serious to worry about here, but Banks’s novels haven’t aged perfectly. I reread five for this column, and even as a dyed-in-the-wool fan, I couldn’t avoid the fact that, for books set in a future where men and women are meant to be equal, they don’t always read that way.
I would love to hear the author’s justification and examples. And then I’ll repeatedly slap them in the head with Player of Games, where one of the characters changes genders every couple of decades and it’s unclear whether anyone remembers what they started out as because it’s utterly irrelevant to everyone.
Also, seriously yeah, WTF? Several of The Culture’s major operatives - their James Bonds, their spies, counter-spies, and black ops - are women, and to my recollection the only agent that used sex as a manipulation tool was a man.
Of all the terms you could try to insult Banks with, “mysogynist” utterly misses the mark.