Quote of the day

"My theory is that it's the most important genre, and I include mainstream as a genre, because it's the only genre that is absolutely concerned basically with the effects of scientific and technological change on human beings and human society and human individuals. Nothing else can tackle that. In the old days, that didn't matter because you tended to die in the same society you were born in. Nowadays society changes around us so quickly that we need a literature that talks to exactly that problem."

I've never really been interested in science fiction, but this eloquent and well-considered defence of the genre from the late Iain M. Banks suggests that I should be.

RIP to someone who faced up to terminal illness with a dry wit and a lack of self-pity.