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Iain Banks: Walking on Glass (1985)

By Martyn Colebrook (University of Hull)

Indexing Data:

  • Domain: Literature.
  • Genre: Novel.
  • Country: England, Britain, Europe.

Life, Works and Times

Reader Actions

Although Walking on Glass was Iain Banks’ next published manuscript, following the publication and success of The Wasp Factory, he had already written a draft of his first science-fiction novel, Consider Phlebas. Walking on Glass can be seen as the first of Iain Banks’ novels to trespass on the different forms of conventional fiction and science-fiction. In an interview with David Howe of Starburst (Issue 151), Iain Banks commented that Walking on Glass “didn’t do exactly what it set out to do and I think you have failed to an extent if the reader can’t understand what you’re saying. I worry sometimes that people will read Walking on Glass and

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Published 11 January 2006

Citation: Colebrook, Martyn. "Walking on Glass". The Literary Encyclopedia. 11 January 2006.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8677, accessed 9 February 2010.]