Perhaps the UK’s foremost writer of science fiction, Iain M. Banks’ most recent book is Matter, the seventh of his epics to be set in the futuristic utopia known as the Culture. Minus the “M”, Banks is best known for his shockers The Wasp Factory and Complicity as well as 1992’s acclaimed character study The Crow Road. I spoke to him at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Dazed Digital: Science fiction doesn't get a lot of respect in UK literary culture. Why do you think that is?
Iain M. Banks: Well I think standard technophobia plays a part in it, but there is a persistent current in intellectual discourse that devalues, and indeed denigrates, any genre or method that actually reminds us of our own basic humanity. According to this view, we are not supposed to laugh or cry or wince or become sexually aroused when we read a book or experience any other creative work; we are meant only to appreciate it with our higher functions. You know, with our intellect alone. I think science fiction is too much fun to be taken seriously - and we all want to be taken seriously, don’t we? Especially writers and critics - so we all pretend that any stuff which is a total slog to get through is somehow more worthy than works we actually enjoy. “Go,” as our American cousins would say, “figure.”

DD: You chose not to be involved in the film adaptation of Complicity, one of your most famous works. Care to comment on the finished item?
IMB: It was an honourable failure. I think it could have used a bigger budget.

DD: Why did you not attempt to do the screenplay to either that or The Crow Road?
IMB: You know, I did a very early screenplay - about 20 years ago - for The Wasp Factory but it wasn’t very good and I discovered writing screenplays is a different skill when compared to writing novels. The main reason, though, is that I am a control freak who has gotten used to being God. When you type the words “the end”, after finishing the final draft of a novel, then that is really it. That is what the readers get to read. But at the end of what you may think is the final draft of a film script… Well that is just the beginning of the real process of making the movie, and all sorts of other people then take over and have a potentially much greater influence over what the end result looks like and means. So that is just not for me.

DD: Is it true that a sequel to The Wasp Factory is in the works?
IMB: I have been mentioning the title of The Lost Wax Method as a possible sequel to The Wasp Factory, but it's a bit of a joke to be honest. In theory, if I came up with a totally spiffing plot, which would only work as a sequel to one of my past novels, then I would certainly consider it - but my general, and fairly strong, feeling is that it is always better to go onto something new rather than revisit old stuff. This is partly professional pride, I guess.

DD: Finally, what would be the biggest compliment that someone could say about you at your funeral?
IMB: “Can anybody else hear that knocking sound?”