Rating: 
Summary: CULT CLASSIC
Review: This probably would have been better as a short story or novella - hence sometimes you feel like Banks is padding out as if this was an English assignment. Nevermind.Very good with a great twist that has become a hallmark Banks' novels. Not for animal lovers.
Rating: 
Summary: Powerful, disturbing debut by Banks
Review: The jacket of the book alone--which is reprinted by Amazon here--was enough to get me to pick this novel up. A teenage boy who once went through "a phase" of murdering others gives us a peek into his mind in this incredible debut by Scotsman Banks. The narrator, Frank, is not your average teenager. Not by a long shot. There doesn't seem to be a normal person in his entire family--or what's left of it. An obsessive father with more than his share of issues, an insane brother who has escaped and is returning home, a multitude of bizarre aunts and uncles, a flaky, irresponsible mother, oh, and a brother and two cousins that he killed. Frank describes the murders in great detail, and also gives us a serious justification for them, all the while mentioning his sanity like it's a given fact. But compared with what is around him, Frank is far from the worst. Isolated on a small island connected to a town via bridge, Frank doesn't officially exist on record. The island is his hunting ground, and he has grown into a large child, complete with even more elaborate games and rituals he can play and perform alone. It's difficult and perhaps unnecessary to note the lengthy plot, because this is a page turner, though it doesn't present itself as such right away. This is a careful novel that takes it time and reveals it's secrets at an excellent pace. And it has quite a few surprises for the reader. Personally, I found this novel to be a tremendous influence on Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. I can't recall from the interviews I've read from him, but Ellis must have read this book and read it well before or during his crafting of American Psycho. Both novels are in the first-person of someone who is supposedly less than sane, thus offering very graphic yet flatly related and highly descriptive scenes (that naturally wind up shocking us). Both novels offer murdering narrators who share a similar, obsessive style of carrying out their days. (In both books there are scenes of what is pure routine to the narrator--routine but important). In both narrators there is a clear hatred of another people--most notably women. When you read Frank Caulderhame, you can notice the elements that Ellis liked and worked with in Patrick Bateman. Nevertheless, this is a very fine debut for Banks. It was probably much more shocking back in 1984, but today it retains a distinct voice and all of its scares. Banks has the reader look where most people don't ever want to look, and that's always important and noteworthy if not to everyone's tastes. Highly recommended modern novel,especially if you like bizarre tales, are an Ellis or American Psycho fan certainly, or just want what has been called one of the "Top 100 Novels of the Century". Believe it.
Rating:
Summary: Bizarre study in gender relations
Review: This book begins like many horror novels. It's a confessional by a teenage boy about murders he committed as a young child. Frank Cauldhame describes his crimes in detail amid explanations for his own apparent psychosis and that of his older brother Eric, who has escaped from a mental hospital. Frank also describes the bizarre liturgy that he devised using carcasses of small animals to project himself off the island where he lives and into the heads of other people, including his brother. There isn't a normal person in his family. His unmarried father is an obsessive/compulsive physician and his absent mother a motor-biking flower child. Early on he proclaims his worst enemies to be "...Women and the Sea. These things I hate. Women because they are weak and stupid and live in the shadow of men and are nothing compared to them, and the Sea because it has always frustrated me...." Several women and men are introduced throughout the novel with appropriate gender commentary on all. Though a page-turner, the novel's ending is a let-down, almost anticlimatic after the grisly descriptions in earlier chapters. It's worth reading, though, and thoroughly chilling.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping yet somehow suble....
Review: Out of my cardboard oatmeal box which I use to randomly draw the next title I will be reading, I luckily chose The Wasp Factory to be my next endeavor. Nearing the end of the book I was currently reading I was getting a little ansy about the next novel which was on a friend's reading list.
To my surprise, not only was the book great, but an excellent read that took you away from reality and sutured you into a fictitious realm of self destruction, contentment, and pleasure.
I definately suggest this book.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant twisted mind!
Review: A real look into a twisted mind, wonderfully truthful.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Much Buzz Over A Real Drone
Review: Although some will tell you that this is a honey of a book, don't get stung. This work rambles on and on and on and on and on and on and on about NOTHING, which is basically the author's prose style. It gave me the hives.
Rating: 
Summary: A Shocking Waste of Time and Money
Review: Although a talented writer, Banks strives too hard to shock the reader, rather than stick to his story. Some of the dark humor is quite clever, but by the end of the "novel," you'll realize it's just been a waste of your time...
Rating: 
Summary: Twisted tale of making monsters
Review: I purchased this book based on how often it was recommended in the listmanias; I found this short novel both captivating and demented. The story is a first person narrative on a rather dysfunctional family located away from the general flow of humankind. The reader is presented with the thought processes and lifestyle of a sixteen year old murderer whose existence, beliefs and actions revolve around a childhood trauma; Banks does a fine, graphic, job of showing the results of that trauma. The story twists and turns, leaving you gaping at the end; the horror is in the believability that it exists. This is worth a reread just to see how Banks prepares the shocks and surprises. You'll definitely get the willies from this tale of madness.
Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly Believable
Review: The story itself is enough to warrant the read, but the characters are FABULOUS. The plot twists keep you guessing throughout the whole book and I didn't see the ending coming until it got there. This is not a book I am likely to forget. The true humanity of the players makes their twisted sides more believable and eternally more haunting.
Rating:
Summary: The Wasp Factory : A Novel
Review: Every good book can be defined within the perimeters of three categories - a major classic (example The Old Man and The Sea), a minor classic (example - On The Road) and just a good book. I will put this book in the third category. This does not mean I am trying to say its poorly written or anything like that - I just want to mention the fact that it's a good book but not a classic. When I was comparing this book with "Catcher in the Rye" - there are certain marked similarities between the characters of Holden and Frank (the main character of this book) - this similarity may just have been a coincidence but still this fact cannot be overlooked. Iain Banks has brilliant grip over the prose and brilliant narrative capacities. So while reading the book you will enjoy immensely. I feel once you start it - it's hard to stop till you have finished. The book deals with the adolescent agonies of a teenager - battered between the egos and whims of his family. Its deals with the dream world of this kid who tries to give expression to his own world through various rituals, acts of brutality and destructiveness but cannot find an answer to the mysteries which keep on teasing him from his childhood. Sometimes he finds solace in vengeance and sometimes acts of pure dream but he is never stupid. The acts of violence in this book never seem to be real - at least to me, non the less they are quite innovative. There is a final twist but that is also not quite realistic like the twists of O' Henry and Saki. I feel the twist he has used in the final chapter could have only served the purpose in a short story but not a novel. Finally the plot of the story (in my opinion) is not worthy of a novel - rather a short story would have been better. So after all these you may have the question why I gave it four stars - well it's a real nice book to read - some of portions are hilarious.
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