Speaking (as we were) of the glamourour life of writers, Bookslut points to an interview with Iain Banks. If you’re not familiar with Banks, he’s a prolific author who alternates “mainstream” literary novels (as “Iain Banks”) with genre SF novels (as “Iain M. Banks”). With a very few exceptions, his books are very smart, fairly bloody, and darkly comic.
He apparently sells very well in the UK, but hasn’t really managed to crack the US market, to the point where his most recent SF novel (The Algebraist) is only available from a small press. It’s a shame, because he’s written some absolutely brilliant stuff– Use of Weapons and Look to Windward are spectacularly good SF.
He has a mainstream novel coming out soon (The Steep Approach to Garbadale), so the interview mostly focusses on that. It also features some pretty sharp comments about the book, and his books in general, which is refreshingly unlike the soft-focus treatment inevitably given to interview subjects in the US. I’d say “Why Oh Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps?,” but then I’d have to send Brad DeLong a nickel…