Amazon has the cover art and synopsis of the upcoming novel The Quarry by Iain Banks, hittng bookstore shelves on June 20, 2013.

The author credit lacks the “science fictional “M.” because this isn’t science fiction, however, it is the author’s last novel and one whose themes are familiar.

Here’s the synopsis:
Read the rest of this entry

The sad news broke today that Iain M. Banks, author of the Culture space opera novels, has late stage gall bladder cancer. The prognosis is not good, and Ian thinks it’s “extremely unlikely I’ll live beyond a year”.

Ian goes on to state that he is withdrawing from public engagements and his latest novel, The Quarry, will be his last.

Our best wishes go out to Iain and his family.

For more info, see Ian’s personal statement

[via Fred Kiesche]

It’s been twenty five years since the release of the first Culture novel by Iain M. Banks. Today, over at the Kirkus Reviews Blog, I take a look at the series over the past two-and-a-half decades.

Hop on over to read this new Science Fiction Series Spotlight: The Culture by Iain M. Banks

[SF Signal extends Best Wishes to Joe Haldeman, who took an unexpected trip to the hospital. Get well, Joe!]

• Interviews and Profiles:
  • @New Statesman: Iain M. Banks (Transition). [via Bibliophile Stalker]
  • Suite101.com interviews Tamora Pierce.
  • @SciFi Scanner: Robert J. Sawyer.
• David Anthony Durham offers his Thoughts on Winning the John W Campbell Award.
• David B. Coe says With Worldbuilding, Every Detail Counts.
• Matt Jones On Cities, Future And Science Fiction. [via Big Dumb Object]
• Artist Robin Chyo’s tribute to games like God of War and Dante’s Inferno is really cool.
• EVENT: The first ever SFX Weekender — the “ultimate sci fi and fantasy event” being held in the UK on February 5th and 6th, 2010 — will feature guests, book readings, interviews & panels, workshops, the SFX Awards and screenings of forthcoming films and TV series, plus more.
• What If Star Wars Was Made By Environmentalists? [via Boing Boing]
• Lists:
  • Fandomania has begun listing The 100 Greatest Fictional Characters. Lots of names instantly recognizable to genre fans.
  • @Automopedia: 10 Epic SciFi Battle Scenes – In Space!
  • @Mental Floss: 10 Facts About Stephen King.

• With all the hoopla over The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF edited by Mike Ashley, did you ever wonder if it was good? Strange Horizons has Graham Sleight’s take.
• Interviews and Profiles:
  • @Bibliophile Stalker: Lauren Beukes (Moxyland).
  • @Innsmouth Free Press: Keith R.A. DeCandido. [via Bibliophile Stalker]
  • @The Nebula Awards website: Ysabeau S. Wilce.
  • @SciFi Scanner: 9 Director Shane Acker.
• Damien G. Walter launches the The ‘Zine Link-up Meme.
• Futurismic asks: Is patronage the answer for Profitable post-web publishing? [via Big Dumb Object]
• Author James Bradley has a wonderfully in-depth review of The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham: “Yet this disinterest is of a piece with the novel’s desire to unsettle not by transporting the reader to a world unknown to them, but by taking the world they know and exposing the assumptions at its core. Indeed despite the common criticism of Wyndham’s novels, that they are too polite, too bourgeois, too English (Brian Aldiss famously described them as ‘cosy catastrophes’) his visions of a ruined world do not suffer because of their muted ordinariness; rather they are unsettling precisely because of that ordinariness.” [via SciFi Scanner]
• Joseph Mallozzi reviews Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover.
• Joe Abercrombie likes District 9.
• Mark Charan Newton shows off the Benjamin Carre cover of his next book City of Ruin.
• EVENT: Forbidden Planet hosts a signing by Iain Banks (Transition) at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR, on Saturday 3rd October 1 – 2pm.
• Jim C. Hines lists 20 Neil Gaiman Facts.
• Today’s Moment of Geeky Zen: Jonathan Coulton serenades Wil Wheaton at PAX 2009.