Forbidden Planet will be hosting a signing by science fiction author Iain Banks. He will be signing his new novel Transition at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR, on Saturday 3rd October 2009 from 1 - 2pm.

A world hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse - Transition is set in a world that needs a firm hand. Instead, it has is the Concern, an all-powerful organisation with a malevolent presiding genius and numberless invisible operatives.

Among these are Temudjin Oh, an unkillable assassin and a faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher. And then there's the renegade, rebel-recruiting Mrs Mulverhill, and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward.

As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course.

Hugo Award winner Iain was born in Fife and educated at Stirling University where he read English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology.

He gained controversial public notice in 1984 with his first novel, The Wasp Factory and went on to create the 'Culture' in novels such as Consider Phlebas and Player of Games.

He's almost unique in achieving success in two genres: mainstream, literary fiction, and science fiction.