Other Authors List
If you've enjoyed Iain's books, then you might want to try these other
authors' work out. All, in some way, share elements with Banks' work -
whether through a similar style, touching on similar ideas and themes -
pretty much anything. I've placed the original suggestors email
addresses as links - if you want more information on an author or book,
you can email them.
Paul Auster
[suggested by :
Mark Stevens]
I first discovered him shortly after I'd read my first Banks book, The Wasp Factory. It's hard to pin down the
similarities, but I think the catharsis is the same -- exploring a very
unpredicatable and sometimes deadly, twisted reality, in the safe hands
of one or two flawed characters. I'd recommend pretty much anything by
Auster, but try starting with Mister Vertigo, then New York
Trilogy followed by In the Country of Last Things.
Paul Auster has
also written the film Smoke. Paul Auster
on Real
Audio
Jorge Louis Borges [suggested by
: CiM]
Jorge Louis Borges was a South American writer of short stories. As he
says in the preface to Doctor Brodie's Report, "writing is
nothing more than a guided dream" and his fantastical, philosophical
stories are evidence of this. Many of his short stories are only a few
pages long yet they are masterful - often linking Greek mythology with a
feeling of being beyond space and time. And tales such as The Garden
of the Forking Paths and House of Asterion have incisive
sudden twists that are echoed in Banks novels such as The Wasp Factory and Use of Weapons. At times, the stories can
be intractable for the less classically minded but there is usually
something in each story for everyone. Check out Labyrinths and
his earlier works
Scott Bradfield [suggested by : Iain Gray]
I've read two of his which were both excellent although somewhat lacking
in the humour that sweetens the medicine of blackness that is apparent
in Banks. The History Of Luminous Motion is a dark and twisted
biography of a seven year old boy who's obsession with his Mother, and
her betrayal of that devotion to other men, that leads to an ever more
sickening series of events. The story is told from the point of view of
the boy and so his resoning and rationale are gone into at great length,
until it's almost as if he is the sane one and everyone else is
irrational. The one down side is that it is hard to imagine the boy as a
seven year old as he is too articulate and worldly wise for his age, but
this is not so intrusive as to destroy the sense of narrative. A deeply
disturbing read for all fans of The Wasp
Factory. A review
of What's wrong with America.
Christopher Brookmyre[suggested by : Martin]
Christopher Brookmyre is a youngish Scottish writer who's first novel Quite Ugly One Morning established hima s one of Britain's foremost thriller writers.
His mix of black comedy and heavily politicised post-Thatcherite prose make him
an easy bed fellow for Banks. His second novel, Country Of The Blind, takes
the comparison further and reads like Carl Hiaasen writing Complicity. For all Tory-hating Banks fans the ending is a treat.
Alisdair Gray [suggested by : Kevin O'Donnell]
Alasdair Grays book Lanark, is a clear fore-runner to The Bridge, a debt that Banks readily
acknowledges. Gray is a sort of Scottish Gabriel Garcia Marquez: his
books are fantastic in both senses of the word. Lanark features
Glasgow and a fantasy Glasgow in the form of Unthank. Subtitled A
Life in Four Books, Lanark intersperses the real and the
fantastic in a way that will be familiar to Banks readers. In typical
Gray fashion, the books that make up Lanark are not in
chronological order. Gray's books are also exceptionally well-designed.
Great care is taken over illustrations and typography. Lanark
even includes an index of 'plagarisms' - notes of all of the influences
on the book. One book (I can no longer remember if it was Lanark)
actually had an erratum slip inserted that said 'Erratum - this piece of
paper has been inseted by mistake'. If that appeals to you, you'll
probably like Gray's dry humour.
Russell Hoban [suggested by : Sarah Vowles]
Another author Banks readers might enjoy is Russell Hoban, especially
his books Riddley Walker and Kleinzeit. They're not like
Banks in terms of plot, but they have the same effect on me as Banks'
stuff does -- you end up laughing your head off at something you can't
really communicate to the people around you without reading them half
the book. Hoban basically writes about society and human interaction,
and Riddley Walker is written in a kind of futuristic english
that might be hard if english is not your first language. To me, Hoban
seems to be totally on the same wavelength as Banks.
More
information on Russell Hoban
Martin Millar [suggested by : Richard Kettlewell]
Dark urban fantasies, weird characters, bizarre plots - not quite like
anything Banks has done but I think more than a few Banks fans should
enjoy them...
More information on Martin
Millar
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
[suggested by : Ilya
Vinarsky]
The Strugatsky brothers (Arkady died 5 years ago, but Boris is still
alive). explored the theme of a more developed civilization interfering
with the history of a less developed one, long before Banks in books
such as Hard to be a God (1963) and A Beetle in an Anthill
(1979).
More information on the Strugatsky's
Hunter S. Thompson [suggested by
: CiM and Iain Gray]
Iain loves it and, reading it for yourself, it's easy to see where the
character of Cameron Colley in
Complicity comes from. The book is Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas and a funnier book is hard to imagine. Thompson invented the
'gonzo hack' - drug-obsessed journalism where the urge to "cover the
story" clashes against the almost unstoppable force of hedonism. Fear
and Loathing is a trip (in both senses of the word) across America
fuelled by drugs and hate and it's screamingly good - if you've laughed
at any Banks books, this is guaranteed to make you howl. But like Banks,
there are also moments of lucid insight. A very good book. He has
written many other books which equally deserve a mention. His diaries
are in a similar autobigraphical vein but with a firmer basis in reality
and are a keen insight into, as he puts it "the death of the American
Dream". Also his seminal work Hells Angels is a serious and sharp
look at Middle America and their paranoia which is as relevant today as
it was 20 odd years ago when it was written.
More information on Hunter
S. Thompson
Irvine Welsh [suggested by : CiM]
Also from Scotland, Irvine Welsh is one of the new breed of underground
authors come good. From his early material in Scottish underground zine
Rebel Inc. it's easy to see the course his stories take - drug
addiction, urban deprivation, and violence are key themes. And whilst
Iain Banks touches on them occasionally (
Complicity, The Wasp Factory) ,
it's Welsh who takes them down to a new level. Trainspotting is
the biggie and a film version is about to be released in the UK.
Following a group of heroin addicts through their various and violent
exploits, it's an amalgam of brutal, realistic short stories. Of
interest to Banks fans is the phonetic spelling of much of Welshs work
and of probably more interest, is Welshs book Marabou Stork
Nightmares which presents a very- Bridge like situation with a coma victim
reviewing his past - although needless to say, this victims past is a
great deal darker than the victims in The
Bridge. Welsh is a mindblowingly good author whose work has a
great deal in common with Banks, although where Iain might tend to avoid
the realistic grit, Welsh positively revels in it.
A review of Ecstacy with
links to additional online resources.
Jack Womack [suggested by : Emmet O'Brien]
One author I think many people who appreciate the darker side of Iain's
work might like is Jack Womack. He has written five novels,
Ambient, Terraplane, Heathern, Elvissey and
Random Acts of Senseless Violence, all set in a very blackly
satirical future between 1998 and 2033. They read best in the above
order, which is not the same as internal chronological order, but apart
from Elvissey really needing Terraplane to set up the
background, don't lose a great deal by being out of order. Random
Acts is very different from the others, told as the diary of an
adolescent girl. Womack has a sense of humour quite similar to Iain's
and his development of the language, particularly in the novels set
further in the future, and the sheer quality of his writing are
unmatched.
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