Iain Banks has become one of Britain's most prominent and prolific writers.
Banks is first and foremost a brilliant storyteller.
He takes evident joy in being able to push his plotlines as far as they can go, sending the reader at breakneck speed through unexpected plot twists, cliffhanger endings and, in his sci-fi, mindbending technological possibilities. You get used to being God, basically. No-one tells you what to do. Yet amongst the sex, death, drink and illegal substances that peppers Banks' writing, there lurks a distinct moral probity. Sent to London in pursuit of her errant cousin Morag, Isis slowly comes to realise that all is not what it seems either within the cult's enclave or amongst the Unsaved of the outside world.