Drawing me back through night’s dark maze

February 14, 2015 6:29 AM

'041' by Iain Banks

Iain Banks's Unseen Poems Now in Print
‘Readers of Iain Banks’s prose will find in his poems much that is familiar’ - Ken MacLeod
Reviews in The Independent and Scotsman

posted by fearfulsymmetry (6 comments total)

He left too early. He was one of the good ones.
posted by dazed_one at 7:38 AM on February 14, 2015 [7 favorites]

One of the last things he said to me was that he was sorry he hadn’t had the time or energy to read all the messages of sympathy and goodwill posted to his website, or the time and energy to do more with the poems. I told him he really should not be worrying about that. Even then we didn’t know how late it was.

posted by these are science wands at 8:08 AM on February 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

I didn't think I could miss him more than I already do.
posted by Splunge at 9:53 AM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

Last year I went to a tribute to Iain at the Huddersfield Lit Festival, part of which featured Ken talking about his and Iain's poetry and reading some out. It was emotional.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:10 AM on February 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Splunge: "I didn't think I could miss him more than I already do."

His work is such a part of my adolescent and early twenties self-realisation that I still feel like a part of myself has died.
posted by these are science wands at 12:21 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

Elon Musk recently announced that the first SpaceX landing barge (aka autonomous spaceport drone ship or ASDS) would be named "Just Read the Instructions", and the second would be named "Of Course I Still Love You". Both are names of ships in Banks' Culture series.

Some of you may recall that first barge from its appearance in this breathtaking clip from last month. We're hoping to see similarly dramatic footage from last week's second attempt, any day now.
posted by intermod at 10:12 PM on February 14, 2015