Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Does anyone know why all of Ian Banks's books now all appear under his pseudonym of Iain M. Banks? Is this a new policy to dispense with pseudonyms? And if that is the case should this have happened the other way around in this case (the "M" is an adopted middle name, not actually part of his legal name)?

Which appears on the covers of his books?

It depends: he writes Sci-Fi under his "Ian M. Banks" pseudonym and everything else under his actual name.

Both - depending on the genre. He writes mainstream fiction under the name Iain Banks, and sci-fi as Iain M. Banks. The M was adopted to set his genre works apart.

Then I agree they should be separate. At a guess, a librarian who thought they were being helpful might have merged them. :(

I suggest disambiguating them back out, and adding a Librarian's Note to each of the two profiles so they don't get merged again.

OK, I'll make a start on this. If anyone else could help that would be great - I haven't actually read any of his books yet so I may not be the best person to do this.

I only noticed because I was looking at his author profile a couple of days trying to decide which of his novels to start with, then when I went back yesterday I found that it had been merged with that of Iain M. Banks (in the most bizarre possible of ways - all the information is still from the original Iain Banks profile; in light of that I think I'll delete the initial and then try to weed out the sci-fi).

OK. I think I sorted it, and weeded out Iain Banks the archaeologist at the same time. Probably good if someone else double checks it all though.

There should now be four profiles:

Iain Banks the novelist.
Iain M. Banks his sci-fi alter-ego.
iain banks the archaeologist.
Iain Banks who seems to be a photographer (this profile already existed).

I apologise if I've left any scattered variants of the above around while I sorted it all, but I think I took care of them. I've also added libararian notes to the first two above asking people not to merge them.

I've further now managed to clarify the archaeologist as Iain B. Banks.

Lee wrote: "I've further now managed to clarify the archaeologist as Iain B. Banks."

I think there might be a problem with calling the archaeologist Iain B. Banks because looking at his book covers, that doesn't seem to be the name that he uses. He uses Iain Banks. So I think he should just be disambiguated with spaces, but would welcome Rivka's input on that...

Otherwise congratulations, it looks like you have done a great job!

When a middle initial is known, it is preferable to adding additional spaces.

OK thanks!