Goose the Blog 2.0

Salon.com has an interview up with Iain Banks, Scottish author. Banks writes science fiction under the name Iain M. Banks, and non-science fiction under the name Iain Banks. Clever, yes? Anyway, most SF fans know that Banks is the author of the popular and controversial Culture novels. (I say controversial, because many SF fans and writers tend to skew libertarian, and therefore free-market, and Banks' Culture is decidedly not a capitalist free-market. He's controversial in the same way the Kim Stanley Robinson is controversial.) I've read several of the Culture novels (the ones I can find at the library) over the last few years, and I think they are pretty good. I've also read a couple of his other fiction books. He seems to write thrillers that climax in somewhat explosive mega-violence before wrapping up with a dark, but satisfying, ending. Just generalizing.

Also filed under "interviews", Reasononline has an interview with Neal Stephenson, author of The Baroque Cycle trilogy that I've spent a few words reviewing over the last year. (Libertarians like Stephenson.)