Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
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Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied
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Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
Very sad indeed. If ever there was a reminder to Carpe Diem, this sort of thing is it.
Cheers,
Drew.
Cheers,
Drew.
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Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
Very sad indeed, even though we all knew it was coming. A huge loss.
Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
Apparently he was 87,000 works into his last work regarding the impact of someone being diagnosed with Cancer when he got his own diagnosis, 10,000 words from the end. Apparently they rushed the first print run so that he could see what it looked like before he went.
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Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
He now has an asteroid! Very cool.
Commander Smivs, the friendliest Gourd this side of Riedquat.
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Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
<applauds>
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
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Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
A really interesting appreciation of Iain Banks's SF works (and with a great title illustration!):
http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/4182 ... s-universe
http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/4182 ... s-universe
Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
*sigh*
It is an interesting article, no doubt about it, but....
I'm not religious -at all- , but it always pains me to see how someone notable who recently died... All of a sudden becomes easy pickings for people who want to put words in their mouth.
Or worse, posthumously enlist someone into a cause. Even make them a poster-child.
The article might be right in one, several places, or even 200% correct but will we ever know, now Banks cannot humorously refute or acknowledge any of its points?
L'enfer, c'est les autres, indeed.
It is an interesting article, no doubt about it, but....
I'm not religious -at all- , but it always pains me to see how someone notable who recently died... All of a sudden becomes easy pickings for people who want to put words in their mouth.
Or worse, posthumously enlist someone into a cause. Even make them a poster-child.
The article might be right in one, several places, or even 200% correct but will we ever know, now Banks cannot humorously refute or acknowledge any of its points?
L'enfer, c'est les autres, indeed.
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Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
I don't think Francis Spufford (who wrote the article: also the author of The Backroom Boys, which I believe has a chapter on Bell & Braben and Elite; Red Plenty, the only book of his I've read, which is an amazingly interesting and indeed exciting novelistic history of 1950s and 60s Soviet economics; and Unapologetic, a defence of Christianity against Dawkins, Hitchens et al - Spufford is himself a Christian) is putting words or opinions into Banks's mouth. Iain Banks was pretty forthright about his views on religion, in his fiction and out of it too. The piece is more a summary, an analysis of how these views informed, in part, his science fiction, particularly the Culture novels. I don't know if Spufford knew Banks personally, but he is obviously a huge fan of his science fiction.
Iain Banks was an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland. There's a short interview from BBC Radio where he speaks about his views on religion here, for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dnCTApJ4Bc
("Basically bananas", is the executive summary ... )
Iain Banks was an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland. There's a short interview from BBC Radio where he speaks about his views on religion here, for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dnCTApJ4Bc
("Basically bananas", is the executive summary ... )
Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
I stand -thoroughly- corrected!
The only non- SF novel I read was about that girl in a sect, (Whit) which rather clearly seemed to show what he thought about religion so I should've known better...
The only non- SF novel I read was about that girl in a sect, (Whit) which rather clearly seemed to show what he thought about religion so I should've known better...
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Re: Frederik Pohl has died
Alas - Frederik Pohl has also departed. One of the greats of the 'golden age'!
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
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Re: Iain M Banks has terminal cancer - not long to live
This is what I most hate about getting older.. all one's favourite authors disappear..
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied