> Ian Banks must have been a kind of fucked up dude, given he invented some particularly dark stuff.
_Contextually_, I've seen a lot worse. Banks doesn't glorify this sort of thing, generally; bad things are done by bad people. (Almost to a slightly preachy extent; the elite of the Empire of Azad watching literal torture porn seems like _slightly_ over-doing it on the whole "have I mentioned that they are bad?" thing...) It's when an author has the _hero_ pulling out fingernails that I start to get a bit worried.
_Contextually_, I've seen a lot worse. Banks doesn't glorify this sort of thing, generally; bad things are done by bad people. (Almost to a slightly preachy extent; the elite of the Empire of Azad watching literal torture porn seems like _slightly_ over-doing it on the whole "have I mentioned that they are bad?" thing...) It's when an author has the _hero_ pulling out fingernails that I start to get a bit worried.