Banks's father was an officer in the Admiralty and his mother was a professional ice skater. Banks studied English, philosophy, and psychology at the University of Stirling.

After attending the University of Stirling, Banks moved to London and lived in the south of England until 1988 when he returned to Scotland, living in Edinburgh and then Fife.

Banks met his wife Annie in London, before the release of his first book. They married in Hawaii in 1992. It was announced in early 2007 that, after 15 years together, they had separated. Annie died in 2009, two months after their divorce had become final. Banks currently lives in North Queensferry, a town on the north side of the Firth of Forth, with the published author and founder of the Dead by Dawn film festival Adèle Hartley. The two have been together since 2006, a few months after Banks and his wife formally separated.

In February 2007, Banks sold his extensive car collection, including a 3.2 litre Porsche Boxster, a Porsche 911 Turbo, a 3.8 litre Jaguar Mark II, a 5 litre BMW M5 and a daily use diesel Land Rover Defender whose power he had boosted by about 50%. Banks traded all of the vehicles for a Lexus RX 400h hybrid - since replaced by a diesel Toyota Yaris - and vowed in the future to fly only in emergencies.

While interested in technology, he is reluctant to use the Internet or email, though he likes some PC computer games, including Civilization which provided minor inspiration to his stories.

A strong awareness of left-wing history shows in his writings. The argument that an economy of abundance renders anarchy and adhocracy viable (or even inevitable) attracts many as an interesting potential experiment, were it ever to become testable. He was a signatory to the Declaration of Calton Hill, which calls for Scottish independence.

In late 2004, Banks was a member of a group of British politicians and media figures who campaigned to have Prime Minister Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In protest he cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street. In an interview in Socialist Review he claimed he did this after he "abandoned the idea of crashing my Land Rover through the gates of Fife dockyard, after spotting the guys armed with machine guns." He relates his concerns about the invasion of Iraq in his book Raw Spirit, and the principal protagonist (Alban McGill) in the novel The Steep Approach to Garbadale confronts another character with arguments in a similar vein.

Banks is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society (see Quotations) and a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland.

Interviewed on Mark Lawson's BBC Four series, first broadcast in the UK on 14 November 2006, Banks explained why his novels are published under two different names. His parents wished to name him Iain Menzies Banks but his father made a mistake when registering the birth and he was officially registered as Iain Banks. Despite this he continued to use his middle name, and it may be considered official by adoption. It was as Iain M. Banks that he submitted The Wasp Factory for publication, however his editor asked if he would mind dropping the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy". The editor also raised concerns about possible confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a minor romantic novelist in P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels. Following his three mainstream novels, his publishers agreed to publish his first SF novel, Consider Phlebas. To distinguish between the mainstream and SF novels, Banks suggested the return of the 'M'.

Mainstream Fiction as Iain Banks

• The Wasp Factory (1984)
• Walking on Glass (1985)
• The Bridge (1986)
• Espedair Street (1987) — adapted for BBC radio in 1998 (directed by Dave Batchelor).
• Canal Dreams (1989)
• The Crow Road (1992) — adapted for BBC TV in 1996 (directed by Gavin Millar).
• Complicity (1993) — filmed in 2000 (directed by Gavin Millar), retitled Retribution for its US DVD/video release.
• Whit (1995)
• A Song of Stone (1997)
• The Business (1999)
• Dead Air (2002)
• The Steep Approach to Garbadale (2007)
• Transition (2009) - published in the US as Iain M. Banks

Science Fiction as Iain M. Banks

Novels

The Culture novels

• Consider Phlebas (1987)
• The Player of Games (1988)
• Use of Weapons (1990)
• Excession (1996)
• Inversions (1998)
• Look to Windward (2000)
• Matter (2008)
• Surface Detail (2010)

Other novels

• Against a Dark Background (1993)
• Feersum Endjinn (1994)
• The Algebraist (2004)

Short fiction collections

• The State of the Art (1991)

The fiction includes three short works set in the Culture universe. It also includes works of fiction more characteristic of Banks' writing published as Iain M. Banks.

Non-fiction

• Raw Spirit (2003) (a travelogue of Scotland and its whisky distilleries)

Introductions

Banks has written a number of introductions for works by other writers including:

• Viriconium (1988) by M. John Harrison, the Unwin edition, ISBN 0-04-440245-7.
• The Adventures of Luther Arkwright: Book 3, Götterdämmerung (1989) by Bryan Talbot from Proutt Publishing, ISBN 0-907865-03-8.
• The Orbit Science Fiction Yearbook Three (1990) edited by David S. Garnett, ISBN 0-07-088833-7.
• The Human Front (2001) by Ken MacLeod, the PS Publishing edition, ISBN 1-902880-30-7 (hbk) and ISBN 1-902880-31-5 (pbk).

Contributions

Banks has contributed to a number of publications, including:

• New Writing Scotland (1983) ISBN 0-9502629-4-3. A poem of Banks's called 041. The title comes from the old subscriber trunk dialling code for Glasgow.
• The Edinburgh Pub Guide (1989) edited by James Bethell, Polygon Press, ISBN 0-7486-6053-4. A review of The Green Tree.
• The Culture #4 (2001) contained the words from the photo story Forbidden Love that Banks wrote for Viz, but which they would not publish without a cut that he would not agree to. It was written (and photographed) at the 1989 Eastercon.
• Critical Wave #26 (1992). After the death of Isaac Asimov, the fanzine contained appreciations of him by many SF authors including Banks.
• New Scientist #1865, pp38—9 (1993) has an article by Banks called Escape from the Laws of Physics about the science (or lack of it) in science fiction. Banks has also had a number of letters published in the magazine, for example, one on creationism in November 2005 .
• The Observer (7 February 1999). A review of the Tower Restaurant on the top floor at the Museum of Scotland in the Life magazine section.
• A Sense of Belonging to Scotland (2002), edited by Andy Hall, The Mercat Press, ISBN 1-84183-036-4. Banks contributed a few paragraphs to this book about the "favourite places of Scottish celebrities". His chosen place was the Forth Bridge.
• The Guardian (2 November 2002). A review of the M. John Harrison novel Light headlined Into the 10th Dimension.
• Novacon 36 Programme Book (2006). A fictional remembrance of Ken MacLeod (the guest of honour for the convention).

He was a semi-regular music reviewer for Marc Riley's Rocket Science radio show on BBC 6 Music. He was the subject of a South Bank Show television programme broadcast on 16 November 1997, subtitled The Strange Worlds of Iain Banks, which concentrated on his mainstream work. The Curse Of Iain Banks, a play written by Maxton Walker, was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1999, with Banks contributing as a voice on tape. He has appeared on the BBC's political discussion television programme Question Time.

At the beginning of 2006 Banks captained a team of writers to victory in a special series of University Challenge on BBC2, beating a team of actors 185-105 (1 January 2006), and then the 'news' team 190-45 in the final (2 January 2006). He also won an edition of Celebrity Mastermind, taking "Malt whisky & the distilleries of Scotland" as his specialist subject on BBC1 on 2 January 2006.

• "I write because I love it, I enjoy it, I've spent most of my life trying to do it better, and I can make a living from it: beats a day job."
• "The Universe says simply, but with every possible complication, 'Existence' and it neither pressures us nor draws us out, except as we allow. It all boils down to nothing, and where we have the means and will to fix our reference within that flux, then there we are. Let me be part of that outrageous chaos and I am."
• "In all the human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and in every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots." (Use of Weapons)
• (CNN: Would you like to live in the Culture?)
• : IMB: "Good grief yes, heck, yeah, oh it's my secular heaven Yes, I would, absolutely I haven't done a study and taken lots of replies across a cross-section of humanity to find out what would be their personal utopia. It's mine, I thought of it, and I'm going home with it — absolutely, it's great."

Interviews

• Interview on drug glands, moon landings and the future of humanity. With CNN at Lincoln Book Festival 2008. With video.
• Two curmudgeons for the price of one, Interview at The Australian Feb 2008
• Interview at Wells Literature Festival 2006
• Spike Magazine Interview
• Interview
• BBC Five Live interview on whisky, the creative process and The Steep Approach to Garbadale
• Iain Banks - Why I write (Guardian Unlimited interview)
• Trinity College Dublin Alternate Magazine Interview (1997)
• Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone interviews Iain Banks , one of his favourite authors.

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