Iain Banks (1954-2013) came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, was published under the name Iain M. Banks in 1987 and began his celebrated ten-book Culture series. He is acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation.
Superb - well worth it for the hardcore fans. This is an incredibly
well put-together collection of drawings, diagrams, notes and
schematics from one of the all-time greats of Science Fiction and
Space Opera. This book looks absolutely stunning and the quality is
extraordinarily high. It was well worth the wait
*Waterstones bookseller review*
The recent publication of behind-the-curtain coffee table tome The
Culture: The Drawings [collates] his earliest conceptual designs
for what would become his signature sci-fi creation. Banks was
apparently a habitual scribbler and doodler, conjuring crude but
detailed geographical maps, architectural drafts, spaceship
designs, weapons prototypes and the sketched-out foundations for an
entire glyph-based language . . . His amateur draftsmanship has
some of the character of cask spirit: raw and unrefined but heady
and intoxicating
*EUROGAMER*
A beautiful book. If you enjoy The Culture, have been immersed in
it and moved by it, I doubt you will be disappointed in the
book
*Reader review*
Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of
the future
*GUARDIAN*
Jam-packed with extraordinary invention
*SCOTSMAN on The Culture series*
Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its
execution
*INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY on The Culture series*
Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such
extraordinary breadth
*NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION*
The first glimmerings of the Culture emerged from young Banksie's
schoolboy doodlings. The Culture: The Drawings pulls together his
art work for the first time, and it's clear he was a very good
draughtsman. Maps of alien archipelagos. Sketches of spaceships and
guns and castles and tanks. Although the contents are arranged by
broad themes (Locales, Ships, Transport, Weaponry and the rest),
there has been (wisely, I think) no attempt to explain the material
further. What is that Second World War-era battle tank doing on the
ramparts of Thra-dra-Ostlehep? Who knows? This isn't an archive of
ideas so much as the melting pot from which ideas came
*THE TIMES*
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