"If Holden Caulfield had narrated Lord of the Flies from Bedlam, it might have sounded something like Iain Banks' first novel, The Wasp Factory , a Grand Guignol complete with ax-wielding lunatic, drunken dwarf teenager and the narrator's own Secret Too Terrible to Mention. A fun read, if a little too intent on showering the reader with examples of common household adolescent perversions." --Liz Hand (in Science Fiction Eye , Volume 1, Number 3, March 1988).

"Well, you can call The Wasp Factory a lot of things, but mediocre it ain't." --Iain Banks (from an interview in Mark Ziesing's Journal Wired , May 1989).

"Factory made a big stir in the UK when it came out -- some people found it pretty shocking. It's great fun even when it's being egregiously nasty... Highly recommended." --Donn Seeley (donn@cs.utah.edu).

Culture Shock
("A Web site devoted to the work of Iain Menzies Banks... site maintained by Robert Keogh, e-mail: pillbox@uic.edu)

CyberCulture Cyberpunk Future

Postmodern Science Fiction Slipstream Send comments, additions, corrections, contributions to: hwt@anachron.demon.co.uk Return to Mark/Space homepage authors biographs keywords new books online books recommended reading bookshops library office spaceport teleport © Anachron Foundation. Page compiled by Henry W.Targowski