(cover to State of the Art by Iain M Banks, published Orbit)

Of course an option is not the same as a film actually being made (and since its a short story I’d imagine they would have to expand it significantly, perhaps using Iain’s tale as the core) and optioned films can sometimes linger in development limbo (as Iain himself noted), but fingers crossed its a production that comes to pass because it would be great to see The Culture on the big screen (and probably even better as a mini-series, I’d think, for the full novels); in the same article Iain did express a desire to see fan-fave Consider Phlebeas adapted to a full length movie at some point. If A Gift From the Culture is indeed made and proves successful perhaps it will open the way for further Culture adaptations (although it is ironic that a short tale has been selected since Iain generally prefers to work at novel length rather than in short story form). More as and when we hear it. Iain’s latest novel is Transition and, despite not sporting his initial ‘M’ in the middle of his name here (which he uses to denote his SF material) it certainly has some interesting SF elements to it.

(cover to Transition by Iain Banks, published recently by LittleBrown)