Editing Espedair Street (section)

==Literary significance & criticism==
The band is loosely modelled on [[Pink Floyd]] or [[Fleetwood Mac]] although Banks has said that the character of Weird was in part inspired by [[Fish (singer)|Fish]], the ex-[[Marillion]] singer and lyricist ("When I created Weird [...] I think Fish was at the back of my mind as a wee subliminal influence").<ref>Iain Banks & Fish, "How We Met", ''[[The Independent]]'', 25 April 1999, retrieved 12 March 2012 [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/how-we-met-ian-banks--fish-1089637.html]</ref> There is a tone of [[rock journalism]] in the parts of the book about Frozen Gold.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}} Coincidentally, onetime aspiring rock musician Sandy Robertson, who later became a well known rock journalist at Sounds magazine, lived in Espedair Street in the early 70s before the book was written.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

As Banks' first novel to eschew 'special effects', not being [[gothic novel|Gothic]] [[horror fiction|horror]] like ''[[The Wasp Factory]]'', a literary [[mystery fiction|mystery]] like ''[[Walking on Glass]]'', or [[science fiction]] like ''[[The Bridge (Banks novel)|The Bridge]]'', most critics regard it as one of his most accessible works.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

'''Espedair Street''' is also a real street in [[Charleston, Paisley]], where some of the significant events in the book take place.