By any other name ...

Iain M Banks writes great Science Fiction, but he also gives the space ships in his novels amazing names. I thought I would share some of these with you, all of the following are names of warships and one is the name of a pirate ship. See if you can guess which one it is.

• Honest Mistake


• Grey Area


• Fate Amenable to Change


• Ethics Gradient


• Xenophobe


• What Are The Civilian Applications?


• The Very Little Gravitas Indeed


• Clean Air Turbulence


• Wisdom Like Silence


• Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival


• Tactical Grace


• Steely Glint


• Serious Callers Only

Each name gives the ship a character all of its own. By the way, Clean Air Turbulence is the pirate ship.

Bank On It.

Iain M Banks is an amazing author of grand science fiction told within a coherent overarching setting, yet each book can be read independent of the others. Banks also has some of the best space ship names ever committed to paper. (I won't spoil anything by telling you some but Banks is imaginative.) Banks is also good at setting the scene of his stories, and the reader is quickly swept up in the vistas he describes.
A Banks novel is always going to include complex, but not confusing, storyline with politics and war all playing a part in driving the plot forward. When reading it is easy to sit back and let the words flow over you like a river that sweeps you along.
If you don't like the sound of Banks' science fiction, you could try his general fiction published under the name of Iain Banks. These too are well worth reading, with their supernatural twists and family dramas.
In other news Star Wars turned 30 this month. (I can't believe I'm only a few months older than Star Wars.) So Happy Birthday and hopefully people will continue to enjoy watching this landmark film.