In a personal statement issued yesterday, Scottish author Iain Banks announced that he has terminal cancer. According to the statement, his time is quite limited and his latest novel, The Quarry, will likely be his last.

I can think of few books that gave me the sort of bone-deep shivers that The Wasp Factory gave me. Unfortunately, Banks is one of those authors that I always meant to get around to reading. I have several of his books on the shelves (I can see Song of Stone from where I’m sitting), and now I have the terrible feeling that there is no more time. And that is so terribly unfair. Fuck cancer. So many dear friends and talented people gone, and simply no more time.