In distressing news, best selling author Iain Banks has revealed that he has only months to live after reaching the final stage of gall bladder – meaning that his latest novel The Quarry will be his last.

Banks revealed the devastating news on his official website, where he wrote "I am officially Very Poorly. After a couple of surgical procedures, I am gradually recovering from jaundice caused by a blocked bile duct, but that - it turns out - is the least of my problems.” Continuing his heartbreaking statement, he wrote "I have cancer. It started in my gall bladder, has infected both lobes of my liver and probably also my pancreas and some lymph nodes. The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for 'several months' and it's extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year.

The Scottish writer has won a handful of prestigious awards in his career, taking two British Science Fiction Association Awards for Use Of Weapons and Feersum Endjinn in 1991 and 1995. He also won a British Fantasy Award in 1997 for Excession, while his book The Algebraist was both a Hugo Award Nominee and a Locus Award winner in 2005. He’s largely considered one of the finest British sci-fi fiction writers of the past 50 years.