Who are some of the authors that influenced your writing?
I have a list of influences. They’re not all literary, but: Brian Aldiss, Jane Austen, Samuel Beckett (Watt and Murphy in particular), Saul Bellow, Alfred Bester (especially Tiger, Tiger), Enid Blyton, Jorge Luis Borges, John Brunner (especially Stand On Zanzibar) and Arthur C. Clarke count among them. Also Hunter S. Thomson (Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas), Leo Tolstoy, Vernor Vinge (especially Grimm’s Story and A Fire upon the Deep) and Kurt Vonnegut.
Are these very different from those authors you grew up reading as a child?
Well, Enid Blyton - and unnumbered, unknown other writers of children's books - would come first, then (Captain) W.E. Johns, the guy who wrote the Biggles books. Then Alistair MacLean and then pretty much everybody else in chronological order.
Can you tell us a little about how you created The Culture, and do you find that the fundamentals still change as you write more Culture-based novels?
It was a reaction to a lot of mostly US SF I'd been reading when I was an adolescent and young adult. I'd decided the technology was too limiting and the politics was too reactionary. I determined to reclaim the moral high ground of Space Opera for the Left by arming a bunch of altruistic, liberal do-gooders with infinitely wise AIs, sarcastic drones and fabulous weaponry. At the time this approach appeared obvious. Later, in retrospect, I realised it - and probably I - was patently mad. Remarkably, however, with the degree of hindsight available now, it is arguable I partially succeeded, even though a counter-revolutionary current has definitely sprung up in the shape of modern Libertarian SF.
The fundamentals don't change, but it's fun developing the ideas behind the Culture and with Matter I was able to contextualise it properly, making clear its place in the Galactic community.
You included some pretty extensive appendices in the latest Culture novel, Matter. As a reader, I know that I appreciate that when dealing with the intricacies of such dense novels. How did your publisher feel about including them?
They were happy, though I did give them the choice. SF books these days are meant to be big, apparently - the bigger the better, almost - so anything that adds bulk is good. The real reason the appendices are there is to leave a lump of wadding between the end of the main story and the Epilogue. The transition was too abrupt without something to cushion the switch in tone.
Read more with Ian M. Banks HERE
Lynne Jamneck - Lynne Jamneck lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Short listed for the Sir Julius Vogel and Lambda Awards, she has published short fiction in ...
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