THE author Iain Banks, who has announced he has cancer and not long left to live, is currently "enjoying life to the max" on honeymoon in Italy with his wife Adele.
The Scottish writer of novels such as The Crow Road, Complicity, and a series of highly-acclaimed science fiction books, is in sunnier climes a day after stunning the literary world and thousands of readers by announcing he has just months to live.
His friend and fellow Fife-born writer Ian Rankin yesterday said he had received an email from Banks, 59, and he was in Italy and "aware of everyone's good wishes and support".
Banks has cancer in his gall bladder, liver, lymph nodes and probably his pancreas.
He said he has been told he has months to live and intends to spend as much time as he has left seeing friends, relations and visiting places that have meant a lot to both he and Adele.
In his statement, he said he had asked Adele Hartley, his partner, "if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow".
Yesterday, the writer Val McDermid, also from Fife, wrote of her peer and friend: "I've known for weeks this news was coming but that makes it no easier to look at these words on the page.
"When Iain leaves the stage, the lights will be dimmer, the possibilities less and the prospects more dreary.
"For he is one of the most playful, inventive and entertaining writers of our generation."
There are now more than 90 pages of tributes and messages to Banks on his online guestbook, containing hundreds of contributions.
Christopher Glidden wrote: "Thanks for all the huge thoughts and subtle touches and great stories. I haven't yet read all the books in the world, but I still haven't found an author whose writing I enjoy as much as yours. And thank you for validating what I suspected for a long time – Laphroaig is amazing."
Ellie Silver said: "All I can say is thank you; thank you for the stories, and for the people – Prentice, Alban, Ashley, and Uncle Rory, to name but a few. Your books have been an irreplace-able part of my teenage-hood, and their characters are just like old friends."
Banks's final book will be The Quarry, and he said his publisher, Little Brown, was now bringing forward its publication date.
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