A short story by Iain Banks about a transsexual alien is to be the first of his sciencefiction works to be adapted for the big screen.
A film of A Gift from the Culture, a little-known piece which was written in 1987, is being made by British director Dominic Murphy and produced by the production company headed by Stephen Daldry, the director of Billy Elliot. Banks has given his blessing to the project after being impressed by Murphy's debut film White Lightnin', a biopic of the American dancer Jesco White.
The movie will have a budget of about £13m and is expected to begin shooting in South Africa next year. It is the first film to be made out of the Fife-born writer's series of novels about the Culture, a utopian, socialist alien society. A film of his crime novel Complicity, starring Jonny Lee Miller, was released in 2000.
The rights to the story have been acquired by London-based Film and Music Entertainment, which is chaired by Daldry, who received Oscar nominations for his tale of a miner's son who takes up ballet dancing as well as for The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and The Hours with Nicole Kidman.
Banks hopes it will be the first in a series of films focused on the Culture but admits his "inner nerd" is concerned about how his sci-fi writing will translate to the big screen. He writes the Culture stories under the name Iain M Banks to distinguish them from his mainstream work.
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The plot centres on a character called Wrobik, a member of the Culture in exile on another planet, who has undergone a female-to-male transformation but is still attracted to men. He is offered the chance to save his male lover from kid-nappers and pay off gambling debts by committing an act of terrorism.
The story, which was originally published in the science fiction magazine Interzone, runs to only 20 pages in a short story collection by Banks called The State of the Art.
"I have mixed feelings about it [being filmed], as I knew I always would - although I could, of course, have said no," said Banks in an interview with Empire magazine.
"The longer it is before the novels get filmed, the longer they stay entirely mine.
"One thing I particularly worry about in the Culture stories is how the spaceships might look. That's such a nerdy thing to worry about, isn't it? But nevertheless, I am. My inner nerd is concerned."
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Asked about the potential for a series of films based on the Culture novels Banks replied: "I think it's obviously in the back of everyone's mind, but a lot depends on what happens with this one. My agent certainly loves the idea that it's the start of something big."
Mike Downey, producer of the film and co-owner of Film & Music Entertainment, said: "Iain Banks is an extraordinary writer with extraordinary storytelling gifts.
"We have been toying with doing a sci-fi film for a long time but we wanted to do something that played with the idea of gender and its role in a future society - but in a society that wasn't a million miles away from where we are now.
"The plight of an alienated individual, marginalised and in debt in a corrupt society has resounding contemporary resonance."
Downey added: "Iain has not been well served by the film industry in the past and we are taking our first tentative, mutually respectful steps in the right direction. We would like this to be a lasting, evolving partnership but we have to take it one step at a time."
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The rights to Banks's second novel in the Culture series, The Player of Games, were bought by Hollywood studio Pathé about 10 years ago but the film was shelved after a change of management at the company.