LONDON :-
Scottish author Iain Banks has died age 59, two months after he revealed he had late-stage cancer and was unlikely to survive beyond a year, the BBC reported on Sunday citing his family. The author of "The Wasp Factory" was one of Britain's most prolific writers and wrote both mainstream novels and science fiction, the latter under the name Iain M. Banks. He died less than a fortnight before the publication of his final book, "The Quarry", which was due out on June 20.