He seems like a writer I’d be into. I’m especially interested in the Culture books. Where should I start? I’d like to read them in order. What’s he like?
I’m posting and running but I’ll be back in a few hours to check replies.
They’re not in any special order. Personally I would recommend this one:
Consider Phlebas
The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions
Look to Windward
Matter
Try not to be put off by the crappy covers his books have had up till not in the US. It’s extremely good space opera action with morally ambiguous anarcho-communists and their hyper-intelligent AIs, what’s not to like?
Feersum Enjinn, while not a Culture novel per se, is also pretty damn good.
Against a dark background is good too, but my ‘least favourite’
Haven’t read The algebraist yet so I won’t comment on it.
In the UK his novels are published as Iain Banks - the sci-fi as Iain M Banks - sorry if you knew this but I came in thinking we were talking his novels.
Not a sci-fi reader but have read a couple of his - he’s a very talented writer.
MiM
The Algebraist is a tremendously cool book. Not sure it’s part of the Culture series neccessarily, but very good regardless. The very idea of a civilization that lives in gas giants, and how humans interact with them was really well done. Highly recommended.
Agreeing with Made in Macau here. Iain Banks has the helpful habit of publishing the space opera stuff as Iain M. Banks, and the other novels as Iain Banks.
I skip the Iain M. Banks books sciffy stuff, but I loved “The Wasp Factory” (inventive ways to kill small children, sad tales of eating dogs … ) and “Whit” (a fun take on fake religion and with strange Scottish/Indian fusion food) ). “The Crow Road” was also good, although I tend to read things just for the story rather than bothering to try to work out who killed whom.
Eek, I cannot now recall the title of the one full of inventive ways to do vengeful killings, but I’m sure I can come back with that later. Of course, a quick walk to the bookshelf is fraught with the danger of getting distracted. The book also involves a journalist who likes drugs and computer games … grrr, I had better go and find it. (I’m now guessing it was “Complicity” but can’t be sure and it might feel too silly to Google when it should be around somewhere.)
The most recent one I read was “The Steep Approach to Garbadale”, which was good, but a bit “Crow Road” ish, I thought.
Complicity
Thanks. 
And now I must just work out whether it is hiding or whether I foolishly lent it out.
I’m not necessarily squeamish but I felt uncomforatble with the regular fiction books. I would read the schi fi in order, that is how I tend to reread them. I would also recommend sporting the extra cash for used Orbit editions because, as mentioned, the American covers are indeed shameful.
He is also an expert on single malt scotch whiskey and burned his passport to protest the UK’s involvement in dubya’s war.
I’d say Banks is one of the, if not the, best SF writers ever. He earns high marks for actually thinking about and writing about what a multi-solar system society that is immensely more powerful and wealthy than ours might actually be like. Most such societies you see are just current or past Earth societies pasted over all that wealth and power. (Think Star Wars for an example of a feudal society, think Star Trek for an example of an America-type trade federation). Banks asked some hard questions, gave them serious thought, and came up with original and thought-provoking answers. This is what gives the Culture series its immense appeal – it’s not just a cheap gloss but a deep, well-reasoned mythos.
Vernor Vinge is capable of the same caliber of writing as well. Not many others.
And of course Banks is a topnotch prose stylist, which doesn’t hurt either.
Thanks guys. I saw that Player of Games and Consider Phlebas have been reissued, which is what made me start this thread. I’ll pick them up tomorrow, and start them as soon as I finish the SF I’m reading now. I’m glad to hear from GSV CoD that they’re the first two books. Also the reissues have pretty cool covers. I’m interested in his noir stuff too.
Personally I found the sci-fi stuff to be a good read but the endings generally left me feeling confused and/or unsatisfied. I love his literary fiction. The first I read was Walking on Glass and I think I’ve read everything else.
Concerning an evaluation of Banks, if you can’t trust a General Systems Vehicle, who can you trust?
Another rave in favor of his space operas; he’s far and away my favorite author, in any genre, of recent years. I would practically lay down my life for my set of UK editions. The man sets up amazingly complicated, internally consistent fictional civilizations with wildly different physical features and philosophies, contemplates all sorts of plausible ways in which they might interact, and still manages to slip in beautifully-realized action setpieces that move the plot forward. The prose gets a bit dense at times, but I manage to put up with that.
I haven’t read any of his non-SF novels though, because, well, I’m frankly a bit afraid of just how dark they may be. For that matter, there is some seriously twisted writing in both Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons, but they remain my two personal favorites of his SF output. After that, probably Feersum Endjinn, despite the wacky, difficult-to-follow grammar of one of the main characters, The Player of Games, and Against a Dark Background. *Look to Windward * was pretty good, Excession seemed like a bit of an afterthought, although I kind of enjoyed the conceit of a nascent civilization of intelligent spaceships, and Inversions really didn’t do a whole lot for me. There you have it.
Heh, I wouldn’t trust a GSV as far as I could Displace it.
I haven’t read any Banks yet, although I’ve been meaning to. George R.R. Martin has the same talent - check out Sandkings, Dying of the Light or most especially Tuf Voyaging. All set in more or less the same well-thought-out, distant future, human-dominated starfaring culture.
Really not dark, actually, otherwise I would not read them. Yes, people do tend to get killed off, but the books are always just interesting, good reads, and amusing. They are not the sort of dark thing that would give one nightmares, honestly.
Small tangent, in my paperback edition of “The Wasp Factory”, (oh, all right, a bit dark, perhaps don’t start with that one), it amuses and charms me that a whole lots of reviews are quoted at the beginning. Nothing unusual in that, but this is not only the complimentary reviews, but also all the very “bad” ones. I though that a nice touch, somehow. 
And now a PLAN! I am aware that a habit of avoiding any sci-fi sort of writing is probably a bad and lazy one, so respecting all of your opinions, I now think I really should give the Iain M. Banks books a try. My prejudice is probably left over from childhood and books that seemed just to be “oh, a spaceship. It is a very clever machine and it goes very far. And there are robots and monsters”. Yawn @ that. But it’s high time to outgrow that, and I might as well attempt IMB books, since they will be well-written and thoughtful.
See what a good influence you all are?
My two Euro cents - start with Player of Games. Sure, Consider Phlebas is the first in the series chronologically but POG gives you a much better insight into what the Culture is and the universe it sits in. I would also say that the Algebraist is the best non-Culture sci-fi book he’s written. Feersum Endjinn is good but I think Algebraist tops it.
For his non sci-fi books I’ve only read two, Walking on Glass and the Steep Approach to Garbadale. The former was good but very VERY weird, the latter was very good and one I’d heartily recommend.
I picked up Phlebas and POG today. The new issues, courtesy of Orbit books, are nice trade paperbacks with pretty good cover design. I’m curious about the crappy covers GSV mentioned. I’ll start them when I finish the SF I’m reading now: The Space Opera Renaissance, which turns out to have a Banks story in it, “A Gift from the Culture.” I’ll take Illuminatiprimus’ advice and start with POG.
I hope to check out his non-SF books at some point. I don’t mind dark fiction if it’s done well and has a point beyond dark for dark’s sake.
I don’t think his non-sf is dark for dark’s sake. Try The Crow Road. It’s wonderful - it does however start with “It was the day my Grandmother exploded”! I’m very fond of Espedair Street too, albeit it is about a musician contemplating his suicide.