PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Iain Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, was published under the name Iain M. Banks in 1987 and began his celebrated ten-book Culture series. He is acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation.
Superb - well worth it for the hardcore fans. This is an incredibly well put-together collection of drawings, diagrams, notes and schematics from one of the all-time greats of Science Fiction and Space Opera. This book looks absolutely stunning and the quality is extraordinarily high. It was well worth the wait * Waterstones bookseller review * The recent publication of behind-the-curtain coffee table tome The Culture: The Drawings [collates] his earliest conceptual designs for what would become his signature sci-fi creation. Banks was apparently a habitual scribbler and doodler, conjuring crude but detailed geographical maps, architectural drafts, spaceship designs, weapons prototypes and the sketched-out foundations for an entire glyph-based language . . . His amateur draftsmanship has some of the character of cask spirit: raw and unrefined but heady and intoxicating * EUROGAMER * A beautiful book. If you enjoy The Culture, have been immersed in it and moved by it, I doubt you will be disappointed in the book * Reader review * Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future * GUARDIAN * Jam-packed with extraordinary invention * SCOTSMAN on The Culture series * Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY on The Culture series * Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth * NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION *
