IAIN Banks, who has succumbed to cancer two months after announcing he was terminally ill, made elaborate plans for his ashes to be fired out of a rocket and scattered across the Firth of Forth.

The author agreed funeral plans with his new wife Adele that included a ceremony at his local crematorium in Fife followed by his remains being distributed over the Forth, in the Grand Canal in Venice, outside a cafe in Paris, on a beach on Barra and in Loch Shiel, where his father's ashes were scattered.

The writer visited Italy, France and the Outer Hebrides on his honeymoon after revealing eight weeks ago he was dying of gall-bladder cancer.

In video: tributes from literary colleagues

Last novel shows his passion and dark humour in face of illness

Obituary: Iain Banks

In a BBC interview with Kirsty Wark to be broadcast this week, he said: "I've had a brilliant life and I think I've been more lucky than unlucky, even including the news of the cancer. I'm leaving a substantial body of work behind me. Whether that'll survive, who knows, but I can be quite proud of that and I am. There's none of the books that I'm not proud of.

"I don't have many regrets in my life. I suppose like a lot of men I've hurt women when I was being selfish or there's a real hurt towards ex-girlfriends that probably didn't need to have happened.

"That's probably the greatest series of regrets in my life."

Yesterday, tributes poured in for the popular writer who died calmly and without pain, according to his wife, in the early hours of yesterday, aged 59.

First Minister Alex Salmond hailed one of the nation's "greatest literary talents" while fellow writer Irvine Welsh said he had been one of the "finest writers and greatest imaginations ever."

His last book, The Quarry, about a man in his 40s dying of cancer, will be published on June 20 by Little, Brown, who last night said he was "an irreplaceable part of the literary world".

His friend and fellow author Ken McLeod said: "He was still in good spirits and concentrating on his plans and projects and expecting to have another few months. But his situation took a turn for the worse."

Mr Salmond shared a stage with Banks at the Edinburgh International Book Festival two years ago, where they discussed his acclaimed Culture science fiction novels.

Mr Salmond said: "Iain was an incredibly talented writer whose work, across all genres, has brought pleasure to readers for over 30 years. It is his range as a novelist that characterises him, and marks him out as one of Scotland's greatest literary talents.

The First Minister added: "I have been in correspondence with him in the last few weeks and can testify to the extraordinary vitality with which he continued to approach life.

"His determination not just to complete his final novel but also to reflect his illness in the pages of his work will make that work all the more poignant and all the more significant."

Crime author Ian Rankin has described his late friend as a writing machine whose best creative years could still have been ahead of him.

He said: "He does leave behind a substantial body of work. He was 59. Who knows, his best years may still have been ahead of him.

"Writers tend to go on to their 70s and 80s and beyond, they don't stop writing.

"In some ways he was a machine, he was doing a book a year - a sci-fi novel, then a straight novel, then a sci fi novel.

"The writing still excited him, the ideas still excited him, there was no shortage of ideas, he wasn't coming to the end of his time as a writer.

"I think he absolutely loved that he could straddle both worlds because not many writers can do that successfully.

"He could go off to science fiction conventions, he could go to comic shops and sign for people who were very excited to meet him and talk about this world that he created, this culture he created.

"But he could also go to traditional bookshops and talk to audiences, go to literary festivals, and he loved that he could do both of those."

The creator of the Inspector Rebus novels said science fiction was Banks' first love.

"There were things he could do in the science fiction that he couldn't do in the straight novel and vice versa," he said.

Rankin described his late friend as a gregarious man with a great imagination, an impish sense of humour and a "child-like wonder at the world".

He said Banks, whom he last saw a few weeks ago in an Edinburgh bar, had taken a sudden turn for the worse after believing only last week that he had a few months to live.

"Adele, his partner, sent out an email yesterday evening to friends just to say on Tuesday he was being told he had a few months still and then suddenly on Wednesday there was a deterioration," said the crime writer.

"There was still plenty to do and he was loving what life he had left. It's just one of the things with cancer, just when you're not looking, that's when it hits you in the face."

The author Neil Gaiman tweeted: "Iain Banks is dead. I'm crying in an empty house. A good man and a friend for almost 30 years."

Welsh said: "RIP Iain Banks. One of the finest writers and greatest imaginations ever," while broadcaster Janice Forsyth said: "Thank you for the books and your wry humour, charm, unfailing courtesy and generosity. Raising a glass in the sun to you."

Pat Kane, the journalist and musician, said: "So ebullient, creative and radical you'd think he'd beat any metastasis."

Scottish crime writer Val McDermid tweeted: "Iain Banks, RIP. Grateful for what he left us, angry for what he'll miss and we'll miss."

Little, Brown Book Group said the author was "one of the country's best-loved novelists" for both his mainstream and science fiction books. "Iain Banks' ability to combine the most fertile of imaginations with his own highly distinctive brand of gothic humour made him unique."

Banks, born in Dunfermline, Fife, published his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984 and his debut science fiction book, Consider Phlebas, three years later.

His novel The Crow Road, which opens with the memorable line "It was the day my grandmother exploded", was adapted as a popular television series in 1996.

In 2008, Banks was named one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

After announcing his illness in April, Banks asked his publishers to bring forward the release date of The Quarry so he could see it on bookshop shelves.

Little, Brown said the author was presented with finished copies of his last novel three weeks ago.