Another one from the Dreamwatch archives: My interview with author Iain Banks, one of Scotland's most significant and sensational sci-fi minds. My own discovery of The Wasp Factory, during my first year at university, was game-changing: an indication that locally created horror fiction could be addictive, intelligent and terrifying. If you have to read this, it is highly recommended: a true contemporary classic!

Banking some Culture

Iain M Banks Interviewed

Famous for his creation of the Culture (a facet of many of his sci-fi novels, beginning with 1987’s  Consider Phlebas) 

and for shocking even the most jaded of horror readers with 1984’s The Wasp Factory, Iain M. Banks remains one of the 

genre’s most cherished authors. Calum Waddell caught up with him at the Edinburgh International Book Festival for the 

following exclusive interview. 

First off, care to give us a definitive answer on what is happening with the much rumoured film version of The Wasp 

Factory? 

Well, it is still rumoured! As they say in Hollywood, “don’t hold your breath.” The whole long, ghastly and - as it turned 

out – very expensive saga of The Wasp Factory not getting made into a film is one I long since stopped caring about, 

largely through despair. Litigation can do that.

All the same, if it theoretically did take place, who would be your ideal person to star as youthful killer Frank Cauldhame 

and who would be your choice of director?

I have no idea who would make the best Frank. As for a director... well, I have always said I would love the Coen brothers 

to make a book of mine into a film so I think I will stick with that. But the likelihood of any of this happening is, well, did I 

mention that thing about not holding one’s breath?

Of course some of the initial reviews of The Wasp Factory were quite scathing – with some critics being somewhat 

offended by the book. How do did you react to this?

Oh I thought it was a hoot (laughs). I was a complete unknown and had hoped to get maybe a handful of short, careless 

reviews, perhaps just enough to make sure I’d get a second book published. It was entirely a case of “any publicity is good 

publicity” with The Wasp Factory. So being reviewed everywhere by everybody and finding them all disagreeing about it, 

and the controversy itself leaking out from the book reviews into the news sections of papers and magazines, was 

something I hadn’t even dreamed of.  And, frankly, I thought the more knickers-in-a-twist notices were just hilarious. I still 

take a slightly guilty delight in upsetting precisely the sort of people who started frothing at the mouth because The Wasp 

Factory featured cruelty to animals or a young protagonist who went about cheerfully murdering other children!

Does the Culture represent your own notion of an ideal utopia - i.e. a future where government is almost irrelevant?

Yup; it is my own secular heaven. It is where I want to go when I am still alive.  Never going to happen, of course, but a 

chap can dream...

And do you believe science fiction is a good place to explore personal politics?

Potentially it is the ideal genre, because you can control every variable in the story, including the history that leads to the 

set-up at the start, whereas, in reality, we are kind of stuck with the history we have; irregardless of the efforts of revisionists. 

As someone whose work commonly explores the great unknown, do you believe in life on other planets?

I think it would be a quite bizarre standpoint not to be open to the possibility of life on other planets. We live on one small 

planet in an unremarkable solar system within a galaxy filled with between two and four hundred billion other stars. 

Moreover - as our telescopes and techniques improve – we have just started to spot solar systems almost everywhere we 

look. Plus there are as many galaxies in the universe as there are stars in our galaxy. So, for a person, now, in our current 

state of ignorance, just to decide that there isn’t life anywhere else, in amongst all of that, would appear perverse to say the 

least.

Both The Wasp Factory and Complicity are set in unassuming areas of Scotland, perhaps indicating that the most 

shocking terror does not have to emerge from the most obvious of locations and scenarios. Can you comment on this?

Well, I guess terror can come from almost anywhere. You know - people have died tripping on the kitchen floor and falling 

onto a knife sticking up in the dishwasher! In fact, I heard - just the other day - of a guy who died after a camel sat on him! 

Believe it or not, he wasn’t discovered for six hours and they reckon he took four and a half of those to die. Can you 

imagine?  So a bit of imagination and you can conjure almost any emotion out of almost any setting – be it horror, humour or 

anything else… But, to be honest, I can’t take supernatural horror seriously at all and the rest I just don't get. I seem not to 

possess the circuitry that processes disgust or fear into a pleasurable experience (laughs).  

Do view your novel Complicity as a work of horror?

No, it is meant to be a thriller. I mean, there is some pretty horrific stuff in there, certainly, but the intention wasn’t to write a 

horror novel. But, in the end I don't really mind what terms get attached to the books. If people want to think of Complicity 

as a horror novel, that is fine by me.

Your 1994 book Feersum Endjinn indicates a suspicion, maybe even dislike, of technological advance. Is this a fair 

reading?

Nope, I didn’t mean that at all. In fact, I love technological advance; as a species, in a sense, we now are our technology. I 

would say it is what we do with it that is the problem.  I think it tells you a lot about us that the first question asked of any 

advance is “What are the military applications?”

Finally, an inevitable question: Can you name some of your favourite authors and books? 

In the last few years I have been very impressed with Alan Warner and David Mitchell. I also think that Alan Moore's Voice 

of the Fire is one of the great underrated novels of our time.