Iain Banks has terminal cancer.

[Camy]

Scottish author Iain Banks has been diagnosed with cancer and only has months to live.

Author Iain Banks has revealed that he has late stage cancer and is unlikely to live for more than a year.

The Scottish writer posted a message on his official website saying his next novel The Quarry, due to be published later this year, would be his last.

The 59-year-old's novels include The Wasp Factory, The Crow Road, Complicity and the Culture series.

The statement said his health problems came to light when he saw his doctor, suffering from a sore back. He was diagnosed with jaundice, before further tests established the full extent of his illness.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22015175

When I read The Wasp Factory in the 80's I almost talked myself into therapy. It was the weirdest and most deeply disturbing book I'd ever read, and yet I'd thoroughly enjoyed it.

[The Pecman]

"The statement said his health problems came to light when he saw his doctor, suffering from a sore back. He was diagnosed with jaundice, before further tests established the full extent of his illness."

An old client of mine in the 1990s once told me that his 35-year-old son-in-law had been complaining about backaches for months, finally went to the doctor... and they discovered cancer. The poor guy was dead in like 10 days. Just awful. His family was grateful that it was so quick; this particular kind of cancer was incurable anyway, even if it had been discovered early.