The State of the Art

Iain Banks

Night Shade Books, Apr 11, 2007 - Fiction - 188 pages

The first ever collection of Iain Banks' short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, The State of the Art. This is a striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The other stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale. All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks' staggering talent.

What people are saying

Review: The State of the Art (Culture #4)

User Review  - Darren - Goodreads

This anthology of Culture and non-Culture stories is illustrated. So, right out of the gate, it's not going to be a one-star book. Impossible. +1 hitting the ground. Illustrated with german ...

Review: The State of the Art (Culture #4)

User Review  - Kayin - Goodreads

Shouldn't this be considered Book 3 of the Culture series? I just read somewhere that the titular novella, is a prequel to Use of Weapons, which I'll be reading next. Oh well, Goodreads is filled with ...

About the author

Iain M. Banks has been acclaimed as the most imaginative British novelist of his generation. Born in Scotland in 1954, Banks pursued a variety of careers before turning to writing. The child of a naval officer and a former professional ice skater, he studied English at Stirling University while working as a construction worker and gardener, among other jobs. After taking a degree, he hitchhiked throughout Europe and Morocco before spending a year as a testing technician for British Steel. Over the late 1970's and early '80s, Banks visited the United States, worked for IBM in Scotland and moved to London to stay with friends while writing his first novel. Banks's first novel The Wasp Factory (1984), concerns a sixteen-year-old serial killer. Praised for its imagination, dialogue and black humor, it was selected in a British poll as one of the top 100 novels of the century. Banks followed it with Walking on Glass (1985), which examines three obsessed people who meet in a menagerie of conspiracy and torture. The Bridge (1986) is about a man, unconscious after an accident, who travels through a complex dream world and ultimately must choose whether to return to reality. Banks' other novels include Complicity (1995), which explores the themes of murder and revenge in the context of a thriller; and A Song of Stone (1997), about a pair of aristocrats in the aftermath of a European war. Among his science fiction novels are Against a Dark Background (1993), Feersum Endjinn (1994) and Excession (1996). Inversions (1998), Look to Windward (2000), Matter (2008) and Surface Detail 2010.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The State of the Art
• Author: Iain Banks
• Publisher: Night Shade Books, 2007
• ISBN: 1597800740, 9781597800747
• Length: 188 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Horror; Fiction / Science Fiction / Collections & Anthologies; Fiction / Science Fiction / Space Opera; Fiction / Short Stories (single author)