When The Quarry was published shortly after his death in June last year, we might have been forgiven for thinking that was the last work of Iain Banks we’d get to see. However, his publishers have announced that a collection of his poetry will be released next February to coincide with his birthday. The book will also feature work from Iain’s friend and fellow sci-fi author, Ken MacLeod.

Poetry has featured in Iain’s work before (in Use of Weapons, for example) but we’ve never seen any in great quantity from him before. He said in one of his final interviews that he had about 50 poems he was proud of that he’d like to see the light of day so Iain would have approved of this publication.

Shortly before his death, Iain also said he’d finished his notes for another Culture novel with the vague idea that someone else might write it. Just this writer’s opinion, but as much as we’d love to hear some more from The Culture, you can’t help but feel that only Iain could do it justice. Not sure if it’ll ever happen but we kind of hope it doesn’t. But news of a book of Iain’s poetry is welcome and something we can all look forward to. After all, we suspect he was pretty good at it…

“The bomb lives only as it is falling” – Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons

More info from The Guardian. 

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