Iain Banks Dies of Cancer At 59 141
An anonymous reader writes "BBC News is reporting that Iain Banks, best known for his Culture series novels and The Wasp Factory, has died of cancer aged 59. It had been announced several months ago that he was suffering from bladder cancer, and he had stated his intentions to spend his remaining time visiting places which meant a lot to him after marrying his partner."
First post (Score:4, Informative)
Cancer sucks...
Re:Immortal now. (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently supportive comments, such as this one, on the blog someone set up for him, http://friends.banksophilia.com/28-2/ [banksophilia.com] (already 'slashdotted' even before this post came up on my RSS feed, so check google cache... but when I did it didn't have the latest post), were a great source of joy for him in his final months.
RIP indeed, it's times like this one might wish there was an afterlife. As it is right now my thoughts are mostly for his family and close friends.
Re:Oh (Score:3, Informative)
I wanted to learn more about the workings of the Culture.
A world where everyone has everything they could ever want doesn't make for very interesting reading. You can't really have drama without conflict, which I suppose would make Turn to Windward the best choice if you want a book set mainly within the Culture.
Re:First post (Score:5, Informative)
Gall bladder cancer, not urinary bladder.
A sad form of cancer as it's almost never detected in time(due to no symptoms and few tests that finds it by incident), find it early, and it have a excellent prognosis, find it late, and it's game over.
Colorectal cancer is somewhat similar in that it grows slowly for a long time before turning lethal, but colonoscopies are much more frequently performed, and symptoms can show earlier.
Re:Farewell, good sir. (Score:2, Informative)
While not having read the entire series yet, I generally read as you do. These books could be self-contained for all intents. There are no real plot carry overs, or over arcing characters that I can tell so far. The most pervasive reference seems to be the Idrian Culture war that is taking place during the first one, and that only extends to 'thems was the dark times"
Re:This kind of thing is why I went back to school (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/14434/20130328/cancer-treatment-cd47-miracle-bullet-breast-colon-bladder-antibody-eat-macrophage-immune.htm [medicaldaily.com]
That is one of the examples at least. Last I read it was very hard to make but is showing amazing results. I have not found out yet if the phase 1 trials happened and how they have gone.
Productions problems seem to be a fairly common things for nanomedicines right now.