He may just have released his first horror graphic novel with last week's Dark Entries from DC/Vertigo, but don't expect crime writer Ian Rankin to suddenly jump genres again and start writing science fiction... He's worried about the consonants, apparently.
The Scotsman newspaper reported on Rankin's appearances at the Edinburgh Festival, and we noted with sadness his attitude towards SF:
[S]ad to report, Rankin said he'd never write a sci-fi novel, since many of them were "like a bad scrabble set", with every character having too many letters x and z in their names.
Someone send some good science fiction to Rankin immediately - It sounds like he has a curiously skewed take on what's involved in the genre. But maybe that's what happens when you grow up reading too many Doctor Who novelizations.
Stuart Kelly: Rankin scrabbles sci-fi [Scotsman]