List of spacecraft in the Culture series

This is a list of spacecraft found in the Culture novels and short stories by Iain M. Banks. Most ships in this list are members of The Culture, the hybrid society featured in many of these novels. In this setting, each Culture ship, and some others, is also an artificial intelligence with a distinctive personality. Many of these ships are significant characters in the novels.^[1][2]

Naming

The machine intelligences called Minds (and, as a consequence, the Culture starships that they inhabit) usually bear names that do a little more than just identify them. The Minds choose their own names, and thus they usually express something about a particular Mind's attitude, character or aims in their personal life. Warship names are similar in retaining the whimsical nature, though the humour tends to be more cynical and threatening.

Banks composed many of the Culture ships' names very carefully to express the attitude of the ship's Mind, and a few names contain puns where both meanings are appropriate to the ship's attitude. A few of the ship names, like variations on "gravitas" are also installments in running gags.

Some ships' names hint at their purpose, but in a way that is not clear until near the end of the book. For example, Sleeper Service is a sleeper agent whose cover is a suspended animation "sleeper service".

Common ship types

Common ship types in The Culture series include:

Class	Acronym	Description
General Systems Vehicle	GSV	Mobile habitats and factory ships, largest and most capable Culture ship type. May be home to billions of people.
Medium Systems Vehicle	MSV	Smaller versions of the above. Sometimes former GSVs downgraded as larger GSV classes were developed.
Limited Systems Vehicle	LSV	Smaller versions of the above. Sometimes former GSVs or MSVs downgraded as larger GSV classes were developed.
General Contact Vehicle	GCV	Contact craft larger than GCUs and smaller than Systems Vehicles, with functions intermediate between the two.
General Contact Unit	GCU	Standard Contact craft, used for exploration and for studying and interacting with other societies. Considerable combat capability, but less than dedicated warships.
Limited Contact Unit	LCU	Smaller, less capable versions of the above.
General Offensive Unit	GOU	Dedicated warships.
Rapid Offensive Unit	ROU	Dedicated fast warships.
Limited Offensive Unit	LOU	Dedicated warships, smaller and less capable than GOUs and ROUs
Demilitarised ROU	(D)ROU	ROUs with main armament removed, used as courier ships.
Demilitarised GOU	(D)GOU	GOUs with main armament removed, used as courier ships.
Demilitarised LOU	(D)LOU	LOUs with main armament removed, used as courier ships.
Very Fast Picket	VFP	Synonym for (D)ROU.
Fast Picket	FP	Synonym for (D)GOU or (D)LOU.
Picket Ship	PS	Euphemistic designation for Abominator-class GOUs, to give the impression that they are equivalent in function to FPs and VFPs; in fact they are state-of-the-art warships, the most powerful to appear in the series.
Superlifter	SL	High-speed tugs, consisting largely of engine and used to accelerate or decelerate other ships. Some temporarily militarised as a stop-gap in the early stages of the Idiran War.

Novels

Consider Phlebas

Ships mentioned in Consider Phlebas include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GCU	Nervous Energy	Mountain
Culture	GCU	Prosthetic Conscience
Culture	GSV	Bora Horza Gobuchul	Ocean, later Range	The name chosen by the Mind at the centre of the events of the book, after its rescue and emplacement in a GSV.
Culture	GSV	Determinist	System	Largest GSV class mentioned in the books.
Culture	GSV	Eschatologist (temporary name)	Ocean
Culture	GSV	Irregular Apocalypse
Culture	GSV	No More Mr Nice Guy
Culture	LSV	Profit Margin
Culture	ROU	Revisionist	Killer
Culture	ROU	Trade Surplus	Killer
Culture Ulterior	GSV	The Ends Of Invention		Officially discharged from Culture service, with its Mind removed, and employed as a neutral vessel to evacuate Vavatch Orbital.
Idiran	Light Cruiser	The Hand of God 137
Non-aligned (Ex-Hronish)	Armoured assault	Clear Air Turbulence		Pirate ship, one of the main settings of the book.

The Player of Games

Ships mentioned in The Player of Games include:^[3]

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Azadian	Battlecruiser	Invincible		Flagship of the Azad Empire.
Culture	Clipper	Screw Loose
Culture	GCU	Flexible Demeanour
Culture	GCU	Just Read The Instructions		Friend of the drone Chamlis Amalk-ney
Culture	GCU	Of Course I Still Love You		Friend of the drone Chamlis Amalk-ney
Culture	(D)GOU	Limiting Factor	Murderer	Jernau Morat Gurgeh's ship to Empire of Azad. An allegedly demilitarized GOU.
Culture	GSV	Cargo Cult
Culture	GSV	Little Rascal	Plate	'Throughput'-ship (ship assembly and crewing).
Culture	GSV	So Much For Subtlety	Range
Culture	GSV	Unfortunate Conflict Of Evidence
Culture	GSV	Youthful Indiscretion
Culture	LOU	Gunboat Diplomat		A Special Circumstances craft; its name is a play on the gunboat diplomacy concept.
Culture	(D)ROU	Zealot
Culture	Superlifter	Kiss My Ass	River
Culture	Superlifter	Prime Mover

The State of the Art

Most of the Culture ship names in this collection come from the titles of the chapters in the titular novella. The narrator explains that it has used the names of ships produced by a manufactory of the Yinang Orbitals of the Dahass-Khree, birthplace of the Arbitrary and known for ships that are "a bit crazy."^[4]

Ships mentioned in The State of the Art include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GCU	Ablation*
Culture	GCU	Arbitrary	Escarpment (middle series)	The only ship actually appearing in the book.
Culture	GCU	Arrested Development*
Culture	GCU	A Series Of Unlikely Explanations
Culture	GCU	A Ship With A View*
Culture	GCU	Big Sexy Beast
Culture	GCU	Boo!
Culture	GCU	Cantankerous
Culture	GCU	Credibility Problem*
Culture	GCU	Dramatic Exit*
Culture	GCU	Excuses And Accusations*
Culture	GCU	Funny, It Worked Last Time...
Culture	GCU	God Told Me To Do It*
Culture	GCU	Halation Effect*
Culture	GCU	Happy Idiot Talk *
Culture	GCU	Helpless In The Face Of Your Beauty*
Culture	GCU	Heresiarch*
Culture	GCU	I Thought He Was With You
Culture	GCU	It'll Be Over By Christmas
Culture	GCU	Just Another Victim Of The Ambient Morality*
Culture	GCU	Minority Report*
Culture	GCU	Never Talk To Strangers
Culture	GCU	Not Wanted On Voyage*
Culture	GCU	Only Slightly Bent
Culture	GCU	Perfidy*
Culture	GCU	Sacrificial Victim*
Culture	GCU	Space Monster
Culture	GCU	Stranger Here Myself*
Culture	GCU	Synchronize Your Dogmas*
Culture	GCU	Thank You And Goodnight*
Culture	GCU	The Precise Nature Of The Catastrophe*
Culture	GCU	Ultimate Ship The Second
Culture	GCU	Undesirable Alien*
Culture	GCU	Unwitting Accomplice*
Culture	GCU	Well I Was In The Neighbourhood*
Culture	GCU	You'll Thank Me Later*
Culture	GCU	You Would If You Really Loved Me*
Culture	GSV	Bad For Business

*Names mentioned in the chapter names of the title novella only. All of them belong to ships produced by the Infracaninophile manufactury in Yinang orbital.

Use of Weapons

Ships mentioned in Use of Weapons include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GCU	Just Testing
Culture	GCU	Sweet and Full of Grace
Culture	GCU	Very Little Gravitas Indeed		Part of the "... Gravitas ..." running gag.[5]
Culture	GSV	Congenital Optimist
Culture	GSV	Size Isn't Everything		Home GSV of the Sweet and Full of Grace.
Culture	GSV	What Are The Civilian Applications?	Continent	Limited edition Prompt subclass. Can outrun a Very Fast Picket.
Culture	(D)ROU	Xenophobe	Torturer

Excession

Ships mentioned in Excession include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Affront		Frightspear
Affront	Light Cruiser	Furious Purpose	Meteorite
Affront		Kiss the Blade
Affront		Riptalon
Affront		SacSlicer II
Affront		Wingclipper
Affront	Battleship	Xenoclast
Culture	Cruise Ship	Just Passing Through
Culture	GCU	Different Tan	Mountain
Culture	GCU	Fate Amenable To Change	Escarpment
Culture	GCU	Grey Area (aka Meatfucker)		Ostracised for non-consensual mindreading of biological individuals, earning it the condemnation of other ships, who then ignored its chosen name in favor of Meatfucker.
Culture	GCU	It's Character Forming
Culture	GCU	Jaundiced Outlook	Ridge	Child ship of the Sleeper Service.
Culture	GCU	Problem Child	Troubadour	Early (vs Excession-contemporary) GCU, historical mention. Nominally captained by Zreyn Tramow.
Culture	GCU	Reasonable Excuse
Culture	GCU	Recent Convert
Culture	GCU	Tactical Grace	Escarpment
Culture	GCU	Unacceptable Behaviour
Culture	GCV	Steely Glint	Plains
Culture	GSV	Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The	Plate
Culture	GSV	Death and Gravity		Its name is a play on the adage that only death and taxes are inevitable; "taxes" are replaced with gravity, since the Culture doesn't have taxes (or money).
Culture	GSV	Ethics Gradient	Range
Culture	GSV	Honest Mistake
Culture	GSV	Limivorous	Ocean
Culture Sabbaticaler	GSV	No Fixed Abode	Ex-Equator	No fixed abode is a legal term for someone without a fixed address, such as a homeless person. Its name is an observation on itself as a moving starship inherently has no fixed abode.
Culture Eccentric	GSV	Quietly Confident, later Sleeper Service	Plate	Known as storage ship for biological persons in stasis. The name Sleeper Service is a pun on sleeping car (transport) and sleeper agent (espionage). It also secretly converts itself to be "mostly engine" so it can move unexpectedly quickly - a parallel to sleeper cars (racing).
Culture	GSV	Uninvited Guest
Culture	GSV	Use Psychology
Culture	GSV	What Is The Answer and Why?
Culture	GSV	Wisdom Like Silence	Continent
Culture	GSV	Yawning Angel	Range
Culture	GSV	Zero Gravitas		Part of the "... Gravitas ..." running gag.[5]
Culture	LOU	Attitude Adjuster	Killer
Culture	LSV	Misophist
Culture	LSV	Serious Callers Only	Tundra
Culture	MSV	Not Invented Here	Desert	The Desert class was originally a GSV class that was demoted to MSV as Culture ship sizes grew. The Not Invented Here is usually termed an MSV, but is also referred to as an actual GSV twice (Genar-Hofoen was told that the NIH was a GSV by Tish, and he subsequently refers to it as a GSV even after knowing that it is now an MSV), while towards the end of the book it is referred to as an LSV by the Sleeper Service and in authorial narration. Accounts of its history are also contradictory: at one point, characters indicate that the NIH is generally believed (even within Special Circumstances) to have been destroyed five centuries earlier; at another, the narration states that it has always remained an apparently normal part of the Culture, with a very well-documented past.
Culture	ROU	Heavy Messing	Gangster	An allusion to a term from Glaswegian, or from Ned-ese. Generally if one is said to be "heavy messing" they are considered by an aggrieved party to be interfering or aggravating a situation in which they have little to no stake in.
Culture	ROU	Killing Time	Torturer	A pun on a saying that 99% of war is just killing time, while the rest is the killing time.
Culture	(D)ROU	Frank Exchange Of Views	Psychopath
Culture	Superlifter	Charitable View	Cliff
Culture		I Blame My Mother
Culture		I Blame Your Mother
Culture Convertcraft	Main Battle Unit	Full Refund (formerly MBU 604)	Empire	Former Homomdan MBU, now Culture Convertcraft
Culture Ulterior		Highpoint
Culture Ulterior	ROU	Shoot Them Later	Gangster	Eccentric and Ulterior AhForgetIt Tendency
Zetetic Elench		Appeal To Reason		Part of the Stargazer Clan
Zetetic Elench	Explorer Ship	Break Even		Part of the Stargazer Clan
Zetetic Elench		Long View		Part of the Stargazer Clan
Zetetic Elench	Explorer Ship	Peace Makes Plenty		Part of the Stargazer Clan
Zetetic Elench	Explorer Ship	Sober Counsel		Part of the Stargazer Clan
Zetetic Elench		Within Reason		Part of the Stargazer Clan

Look to Windward

Most of the Culture ship names in Look to Windward are only mentioned in a humorous conversation about ship names in Chapter 11, Absence of Gravitas, and do not represent characters in the novel. The Chelgrian ships are not artificial intelligences like those of the Culture.

Ships mentioned in Look to Windward include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Chelgrian	Privateer	Winter Storm
Chelgrian	Temple ship	Piety
Chelgrian	Temple ship	Soulhaven
Culture	GSV	Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall	Equator	Part of the "... Gravitas ..." running gag.[5] Also mentioned in Matter.
Culture	GSV	Lasting Damage		The Lasting Damage was a combat GSV during the Idiran-Culture War. After it was destroyed in battle, a recorded copy of its mind-state was re-embodied in a new Mind and incorporated into another GSV of the same class. Its original Mind was later found to have survived the ship's destruction, and also incorporated into a new GSV.
Culture	GSV	Lasting Damage I		The second ship incorporating the original Lasting Damage Mind, which had been assumed destroyed but eventually returned. This second ship was also destroyed, but its Mind again survived, and merged with the recorded mind-state of the Lasting Damage II, also destroyed. It became the Hub Mind of Masaq' orbital.
Culture	GSV	Lasting Damage II		The ship incorporating the backup copy Mind of the Lasting Damage.
Culture	GSV	Sanctioned Parts List
Culture	ROU	Nuisance Value	Torturer
Culture	VFP/(D)ROU	Resistance Is Character-Forming	Gangster
Culture	Superlifter	Vulgarian
Culture	OU	All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff^†
Culture		Someone Else's Problem^†
Culture		Lacking That Small Match Temperament^†
Culture	GCU	Poke It With A Stick^†
Culture	OU	I Said, I've Got A Big Stick^†		The small print (spoken softly) is a pun on "Speak softly and carry a big stick."
Culture		Hand Me The Gun And Ask Me Again^†
Culture		But Who's Counting?^†		LOU Me, I'm Counting provides the answer
Culture		Germane Riposte^†
Culture		We Haven't Met But You're A Great Fan Of Mine^†
Culture		All The Same, I Saw It First^†
Culture		Ravished By The Sheer Implausibility Of That Last Statement^†
Culture		Zero Credibility^†
Culture		Charming But Irrational^†
Culture		Demented But Determined^†
Culture		You May Not Be The Coolest Person Here^†
Culture		Lucid Nonsense^†
Culture		Awkward Customer^†
Culture		Thorough But... Unreliable^†
Culture		Advanced Case Of Chronic Patheticism^†
Culture		Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory^†
Culture		Conventional Wisdom^†
Culture		In One Ear^†
Culture		Fine Till You Came Along^†
Culture		I Blame The Parents^†
Culture		Inappropriate Response^†
Culture		A Momentary Lapse Of Sanity^†
Culture		Lapsed Pacifist^†
Culture		Reformed Nice Guy^†
Culture		Pride Comes Before A Fall^†
Culture		Injury Time^†
Culture		Now Look What You've Made Me Do^†
Culture		Kiss This Then^†

^†Names mentioned in a humorous conversation about various Culture ships in Chapter 11 of the novel.^[6]

Matter

Ships mentioned in Matter include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GCU	Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall		Part of the "... Gravitas ..." running gag.[5] Also mentioned in Look to Windward.
Culture	GCU	It's My Party And I'll Sing If I Want To	Escarpment	Pun on the song It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to, which continues "... You would cry too if it happened to you."
Culture	GCU	Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill
Culture	GCU	Pure Big Mad Boat Man		An inside joke based upon the language of Ned (Scottish) culture. It would be read/heard as "a pure big, mad boat, man" roughly meaning "a very large and deadly serious boat my good man".
Culture	GCU	Qualifier	Trench
Culture	GCU	Transient Atmospheric Phenomenon		Transient Atmospheric Phenomenon has been suggested as an alternate name for a UFO
Culture	GCU	You Naughty Monsters
Culture	GCV	Subtle Shift In Emphasis	Plains
Culture	FP/(D)GOU	Eight Rounds Rapid	Delinquent
Culture	GSV	Seed Drill	Ocean
Culture	GTC	Now We Try It My Way	Interstellar	An ancient ship of now-obsolete General Transport Craft type.
Culture	LSV	Xenoglossicist	Air
Culture	MSV	Don't Try This At Home	Steppe
Culture	VFP/(D)ROU	You'll Clean That Up Before You Leave	Gangster-class
Culture	Superlifter/GCU	Liveware Problem	Stream-class Superlifter, modified Delta-class GCU	Likely a Special Circumstances operative. The phrase is a joke among computer engineers, suggesting that the problem lies with the user.[7]
Morthanveld	Cat.3 SlimHull	Now, Turning to Reason, & Its Just Sweetness
Morthanveld	Cat.4 CleaveHull	On First Seeing Jhiriit
Morthanveld	Cat.5 SwellHull	Fasilyce, Upon Waking
Morthanveld	Great Ship	Inspiral, Coalescence, Ringdown		Comparable to a GSV; the name refers to stages in the merger of two black holes.
Nariscene	Star Cruiser	Hence the Fortress	Comet
Nariscene		Hundredth Idiot, The	White Dwarf	Chose its name from a Nariscene proverb.

Surface Detail

Ships mentioned in Surface Detail include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GCU	Armchair Traveller	Mountain
Culture	GCU	Bodhisattva, OAQS	Initially unknown, later Escarpment	Part of Contact's Quietudinal Service (Quietus). Quietus ships added letters OAQS - On Active Quietudinal Service - to their names while they were so employed.
Culture	GOU/PS	Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints	Abominator
Culture	FP/(D)GOU	No One Knows What The Dead Think		Formerly known as the GOU Obliterating Angel.
Culture	GSV	Pelagian	Equator
Culture	GSV	Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly	Plate
Culture	GSV	Total Internal Reflection		One of the "Forgotten" Culture ships.
Culture		Hidden Income		Type not mentioned in novel, but possibly General Transport Craft (see Matter)
Culture	FP/(D)LOU	Hylozoist	Killer
Culture	FP/(D)LOU	Me, I'm Counting	Hooligan	Another ship in the Culture is called But Who's Counting?
Culture	FP/(D)ROU	The Usual But Etymologically Unsatisfactory	Psychopath
GFCF	Contact Craft	Messenger Of Truth	Succour
GFCF	Minor Destructor Vessel	Fractious Person
GFCF	Minor Destructor Vessel	Rubric Of Ruin
GFCF		Abundance Of Onslaught	Deepest Regrets	Deepest Regrets-class ships are capital ships and the pride of the GFCF fleet
GFCF		Vision Of Hope Surpassed	Deepest Regrets	Deepest Regrets-class ships are capital ships and the pride of the GFCF fleet
Jhlupian	Heavy Cruiser	Ucalegon		Ucalegon means "a neighbor whose house is on fire"
Nauptre Reliquaria	Bismuth Category	8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary

The Hydrogen Sonata

Ships mentioned in The Hydrogen Sonata include:

Civilisation	Ship Type	Name	Class	Comments
Culture	GCU	Displacement Activity	River
Culture	GCU	Warm, Considering	Delta
Culture	GOU	Headcrash	Delinquent
Culture	GOU	Questionable Ethics
Culture	GOU	Xenocrat	Delinquent
Culture	GSV	Contents May Differ	Atmosphere
Culture	GSV	Empiricist	System	Described as being big, even by the standards of System Class ships. It is known to include seven Minds, rather than the more usual three.
Culture	GSV	Just the Washing Instruction Chip in Life's Rich Tapestry
Culture	GSV	Kakistocrat		home GSV of Mistake Not… "Kakistocrat" is Ancient Greek, meaning "very bad ruler".
Culture	GSV	Teething Problems		most recent home/contact SV of the Warm, Considering
Culture	GSV	Unreliable Witness		original home SV of the Smile Tolerantly
Culture	LCU	Anything Legal Considered	Ridge
Culture	LCU	Beats Working	Scree
Culture	LOU	Caconym	Troublemaker	Although classed as a LOU, Troublemaker-class LOUs are referred to as "nominatively camouflaged", outclassing earlier GOUs. "Caconym" is Ancient Greek, meaning "bad name".
Culture	LOU	New Toy
Culture	LSV	You Call This Clean?	Blue
Culture	MSV	A Fine Disregard for Awkward Facts		original home SV of the Warm, Considering
Culture	MSV	Passing By And Thought I'd Drop In	Desert
Culture	MSV	Pressure Drop	Shelf
Culture	ROU	Learned Response
Culture	ROU	Refreshingly Unconcerned With the Vulgar Exigencies of Veracity	ex-Thug	Fast Picket
Culture	ROU	Value Judgement	ex-Thug	Fast Picket
Culture	Superlifter	Zoologist	Boulder
Culture Eccentric	Ue	Mistake Not…		The Mistake Not… is of indeterminate ship type and class; it identifies itself as Ue, for Unit (eccentric/erratic). Its full name, which is a private joke amongst other Culture Minds and almost never used, is the Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath
Culture	VFP/(D)ROU	Outstanding Contribution to the Historical Process	Psychopath
Culture	VFP/(D)LOU	Rapid Random Response Unit	Troublemaker
Culture (Culture-Zihdren-Remnanter hybrid)	(ex-)GCU	Smile Tolerantly		The Smile Tolerantly, once an ancient GCU, is now what might best be described as a Culture-Zihdren-Remnanter hybrid. When they learn of it, many of the other ships react with disgust to this hybrid status (amounting to letting another culture mess around with your mind).
Gzilt	IR-HAS cruiser	5*Gelish-Oplule	regimental cruiser	Indefinite Range, High Acceleration/Speed
Gzilt	IR-HVW battlecruiser	7*Uagren	battle-cruiser	Indefinite Range, High Velocity/Weapon-load
Gzilt	IR-FWS battleship	8*Churkun		Indefinite Range, Full Weapon Spectrum
Iwenick	Space-Capable Inter-Element Transportation Component	Iberre		Private yacht, named after the owner's father-mother
Iwenick	Strategic Outreach Element	CH2OH.(CHOH)4.CHO		The chemical whose formulation is given in this name is glucose.
Liseiden	Collective Purposes Vessel	Abalule-Sheliz
Liseiden	Collective Purposes Vessel	Gellemtyan-Asool-Anafawaya	(First Class)	flagship
Liseiden	Collective Purposes Vessel	Laskuil-Hliz
Liseiden	Collective Purposes Vessel	Quiatrea-Anang
Liseiden		Fulanya-Guang
Ronte		Melancholia Enshrines All Triumph	Interstitial/Exploratory
Zihdren-Remnanter	Adjunct Entity	Oceanic Dissonance
Zihdren-Remnanter	Ceremonial Representative Carrying Ship	Exaltation-Parsimony III

Further Ships

The following ships have not appeared in any books, however they were named by Iain M Banks in an interview with The Guardian.^[5] These ships obtained their names as a result of another (unnamed) Involved civilisation criticizing Culture ship naming policy, claiming that such powerful ships ought to have names with a little more gravitas.

• Stood Far Back When The Gravitas Was Handed Out
• Gravitas, What Gravitas?
• Gravitas... Gravitas... No, Don't Help Me, I'll Get It In A Moment...
• Gravitas Free Zone
• Low Gravitas Warning Signal
• Absolutely No You-Know-What

In Popular Culture

The autonomous spaceport drone ships Just Read the Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You, operated by SpaceX, were named after ships mentioned in The Player of Games, as a posthumous tribute to Banks by Elon Musk.^[8]

See also

• List of fictional spaceships

References

1. Excession review (from a bookseller reviews page of the Waterstone’s bookstore chain, Orpington store. Accessed 2008-03-29.)
2. "Iain Banks writes books about sex and drugs. Iain M Banks is a sci-fi nerd. Are they by any chance related?" - The Guardian, Tuesday 20 May 1997
3. Iain M Banks. The Player of Games.
4. The State of the Art - Banks, Iain M., 1991
5. "Iain M Banks Q&A". Guardian. 11 September 2000. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
6. Banks, Iain M. (2001). "11: Absence of Gravitas". Look to Windward. Great Britain: Orbit. pp. 241–243. ISBN 978-1-84149-059-5.
7. Liveware (from the 'webopedia.com' website. Accessed 2008-06-18.)
8. Speck, Emilee (June 25, 2015). "SpaceX resupply launch, barge landing attempt set for Sunday". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved June 26, 2015.