Good Bye Iain Banks.

I'm crying at my keyboard. I just found out Iain Banks died.

I wanted to write my own private obituary for a much loved author and personal hero.

I've probably said elsewhere that I met him twice - I always found it funny meeting someone I felt I knew so well. Someone who knew nothing about me. To read a book is to know the author, because it allows you a window into their mind.

So on meeting him I knew him as a man who wasnt afraid to buck the trend as far as sci fi or contemporary fiction went, who was imaginative and could take the aspects of writing that most authors would ignore and spin a story based on these details, in doing so creating an individual writing style unique at the time among authors.

I'm sure his style and way of writing have been much imitated by now, and when I come across an author that emulates Iain's style, I smile to myself, because I know the books that author has been reading, you know?

The first time I met Iain was in 1997, a week or so after Derek died, in James Thinns in Dundee. At that point I carried my guitar every where, but I had no idea he was coming to Dundee, so I didnt have any of his books with me. I asked him to sign my guitar. There are two signatures on it. The first is on the body, where he scrawled his name in large letters in tip ex, and apologised to me for the messy scrawl. He signed the strap in marker in his actual signature so I could show people it was genuine. The marker is fading. I should scan it or take a photograph soon to show it was there, but if I'm just left with the scrawl I dont mind. I have no plans to sell the guitar, it means more than money now.

It was the end of what had been a long day for him. I caught him just as he was packing up I think, and all the fans had gone, but he gave me a couple of minutes of his time, and, since at the time I wasnt very literary minded I told him I loved his culture series (his sci fi), and I asked when he would write the next one.

He told me he viewed his science fiction as self indulgence, that if he let himself he would only ever write science fiction.

I always thought this was a strange notion - he must have loved contemporary and crime fiction just as much, because he was taking time from a genre he loved and giving that time to different genres. Maybe he just wanted to be known as a strong all round author, and show himself capable of carrying stories set in the here and now.

I'm just guessing at his motivations, so I'll stop and say he was kind and polite to me and he'll never know what that meant in the months following Dereks death.

Enough that I am grieving Iain Banks now. A gentleman and a loss to the literary world.

The second time I met him was at a lecture he gave in Dundee central library, where he was going to give readings from Dead Air, then just released. A question and answer session followed. I cant remember if I asked a question. At that point there was no great tragedy in my life, so I remember it with less intensity perhaps.

Is it disrespectful to keep using his first name? He was such a nice, gentle man that I dont think he would mind.

Anyway, I wanted to say that what I do remember from that night is that Iain was a brilliant public speaker. A small man sat in a packed out room, he inhabited the whole space, and was confident enough in his writing and public speaking that he made the chapters he read live for us. He fielded questions brilliantly and easily, but with none of the attitude that success brings lesser men.

The whole time I was wondering will he remember me? it had been four or five years and I had only met him once. I knew he would remember the guitar - when he had signed it he told me it was the only guitar in the world he had ever signed. (It must have been an unusual request, asking an author to sign a musical instrument..)

Anyway, I took a sheet of paper instead of one of his books, because I wanted to be able to hang it on my wall where I could see his signature.

Is that weird? Remember, I had read a lot of his words, but you rarely see an authors handwriting.

So I handed him my sheet, asked for his autograph, and while he was writing I asked if he remembered signing my guitar, and after writing -
"Doug, All the Best, Iain M Banks."

And he laughed and wrote at the bottom -

"Hope you haven't sold the guitar."

No Mr Banks, No Iain, I never sold that guitar, and even if it gets so worn it becomes unplayable I never will.

As far as I know it is still the only guitar in the world he ever signed, which makes it very precious, but even if it isnt anymore it will always be a treasure to me.

So there: I've told a small story about a great man, and I dont feel like I've done him justice yet.

I believe authors are courageous, every book is an expression of their mind, and when they send their manuscripts to publishers they are giving someone a chance to reject them in a very personal way.

I believe in the modern age the thing that Britain has most to be proud of is our literature, perhaps more than any other art form even, and I say Britain rather than Scotland or England in this case because a lot of British authors are inspired by what happens throughout this union, regardless of borders, or their own particular nationality.

And make no mistake, I regard Iain as a British author - he may have been born in Scotland, and spent a lot of his life up here, but I know he lived in England, long enough that he could write stories obviously based in real knowledge of England and the English as a people.

I am happy to share Iain across the borders, I am happy to share him with the whole world, because I know that across the world other fans are crying like me.

So goodbye Mr Banks, goodbye and thank you for your words, in person and most especially in novels. The world is emptier with the loss of such a large soul, literature is a little bit more impoverished today than it was yesterday, because you'll never write another book, and yet we are richer than we deserve because you gave us so very much of yourself.

I always hoped I would meet you again, maybe in another life - and so you pass from life to legend, I'm sure other people are already sitting down to write about you.

Today the messages will fly back and forth across the net.

They say "Did you hear about Iain M Banks?" or "Goodbye my favourite author."

I'm going to have to finish this now.

I'm already in danger of repeating myself, and I'm just not doing you justice. You were funny, and clever, a genius I think. You had a warm voice and an easy smile, and insights into people that I would never have found on my own, in a world without your books. I think that without your work many of us would have been less intelligent, certainly less imaginative.

So goodbye Iain. Thank you for everything, thank you for being nice to me, thank you for your kindness. Thank you for your novels, thank you for your hard work. Thank you for doing what you loved. Thank you for being so important to me.

I have wept and wept and wept now, Iain. I've been writing this post for a while now, and I'm almost out of words, but it will be a long time before sadness or tears run dry.

I dont know what memorial could be greater than your novels, so I guess you'll never be entirely absent.

I think that's the right place to finish.

Thank you again, Mr Banks. It will be a long time before someone like you passes this way again.