Middlesex University Literary Festival - 1 April 2009 1615

[daveh]

Iain is the headline speaker at the two-day student run festival at the Trent Park Campus, Bramley Road, London, N14 4YZ.
He is scheduled for a two hour slot from 16:15 on Wednesday, 1 April.

See http://www.mdxlitfest.com/programme.htm

[daveh]

This is next Wednesday. I should be there - have booked the day off. Anybody else going?

[Deep Black]

Sadly not :(

[daveh]

Iain was on good form yesterday. The festival organisers had timetabled him for two hours which was good as there was plenty of time for questions and they were generally of pretty high quality, although got a bit bizarre at the end. Iain read the prologue from Transition, and was then asked about twenty questions by a knowledgeable student who was one of the organisers of the event, and there was still time for another twenty or so from the audience.

The first line of Transition is (I think) actually the same line as The Steep Approach to Garbadale originally had before he changed it. I take this as an example of Iain reusing ideas. He did say that as he gets older he seems to have less ideas but the ability to make better use of them.
When asked about his next book he said it was 99.9% certain to be a Culture one, and probably shorter than Matter, and more "in" the Culture.

He was asked if he had ever thought about giving it all up, and said that he would when he ran out of ideas. Adding that now Transition was pretty much out of the way his goals for 2009 were 1) to complete the Fife Coastal Path and 2) Write a symphony - with a big structure, big narrative and big themes.

I have been to quite a few Banks event now, and hear similar answers to similar questions quite often, but one question that pretty much stopped him in his tracks was being asked about his favourite science fiction concept, to which his initial response was "Bloody Hell", before thinking a bit and then talking about Bob Shaw's Slow Glass and saying how elegant a concept it was.

Oddest question was what Coronation Street character did he identify with? Iain admitted he didn't watch soaps, but various women of a certain age in the audience seemed to come to the conclusion he was like Ken Barlow!

By the way, the whole thing was filmed (using two cameras) the DVD should be placed in the University Library (I think) so Banks scholars can study it in the future.

More in the next Banksoniain.

[Deep Black]

A symphony?:eek:

Will the vid appear on YouTube?

[Conscious Bob]

Iain was on good form yesterday. The festival organisers had timetabled him for two hours which was good as there was plenty of time for questions and they were generally of pretty high quality, although got a bit bizarre at the end. Iain read the prologue from Transition, and was then asked about twenty questions by a knowledgeable student who was one of the organisers of the event, and there was still time for another twenty or so from the audience.

More in the next Banksoniain.

Twenty, phew! In my experience of these events the organiser jumps in with a couple of questions when the audience goes quiet. Twenty suggests to me that the audience were monks that had taken a vow of silence. Nice review DaveH.


A symphony?:eek:

Will the vid appear on YouTube?

Heh, well a music thang keeps threatening. You never know, he might just pack the writing in...

[daveh]

The twenty questions by the host was more of an interview after the reading before the audience was asked to provide questions.
Anyway, pictures online at http://www.mdxlitfest.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=5000887

[Conscious Bob]

Ah.

[Hilarity Unit]

When asked about his next book he said it was 99.9% certain to be a Culture one, and probably shorter than Matter, and more "in" the Culture.

Good news for us Culture fans. Also glad he isn't thinking of jacking it in any time soon. Just hope this symphony thing doesn't take on Civilization style distraction factor.

And thanks for the report Dave.