Notes on Scottish bands touring internationally and features on Scottish music, sport, film and the life written by and for Scots around the world. More →
Sometimes a writer comes along who is difficult to categorise, who doesn’t fit easily into any genre. Iain Banks is one such writer. Of course as Iain M. Banks, his other writing title, he is an out and out sci-fi novelist, but even that isn’t as clear cut as it at first appears.
‘Novels are full of padding, they’re clearly objectionable’
Paul Reekie ‘Submission’
The above quote is one of my favourites and comes from the 1996 short story collection ‘Children of Albion Rovers’. It is the way I feel about many novels, and neatly sums up why I have such a love for the short story.
There are many ways to start a novel, but surely one of the most arresting of recent times can be found in Alan Bissett’s ‘Boyracers’, which opens:
‘like rebel angels, bright, restless, sensually attuned to the flux and flow of mortal Falkirk, Belinda our chariot, our spirit guide, the wind rushing up and past her face [...]
Before finding success as an author, Fifer Ray Banks worked as a wedding singer, a double-glazing salesman, a croupier, a dole monkey, and a disgruntled temp. He recently spoke with our friends at Byker Books about deep fried Mars bars, John Terry’s libido and more.
Christopher Brookmyre is the author of thirteen brilliant novels to date, the latest being ‘Pandaemonium’, an earthly battle between science and the supernatural, philosophy and faith, civilisation and savagery set in the Scottish Highlands. Our friends at Byker Books spoke with Brookmyre about screenplays, swearing and St Mirren:
It has been decided by those who decide such things that there are only ever seven stories to be told. Roughly speaking these are; The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy (otherwise known as The Misunderstanding), Tragedy (or The Fall), Defeating the Monster, Rags to Riches and Rebirth. To this can be added an eighth, ‘A [...]
Allan Guthrie writes dark (and sometimes comic) crime fiction. He was born in Orkney, but has lived in Edinburgh for most of his adult life. He is also the author of the award winning ‘Hard Man’ and his latest novel is Slammer. Our friends at Byker Books recently shared a pint with Allan in Glasgow:
At last year’s Edinburgh Book Festival James Kelman complained that genre fiction was being packaged and promoted to the detriment of ‘literary’ fiction, such as, by coincidence, his own. His argument was that we don’t properly celebrate and engage with the country’s ‘difficult’ literature preferring the comfort of genre. He is reported to have claimed [...]
‘The best book ever written by man or woman…it deserves to sell more copies that the Bible.’ Rebel Inc
If you’re going to grab people’s attention with a cover line, that’s the way to do it. In 1993 Irvine Welsh’s debut novel ‘Trainspotting’ was brilliantly packaged to an unsuspecting public with the title in red on [...]
