Ranking Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting Book Universe
Matt (@cleric20) Adcock
There’s something gloriously dangerous about returning to the world of Trainspotting.
Over the decades, Irvine Welsh has built a sprawling chemical-stained saga around Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie; a literary universe fuelled by heroin, cheap lager, catastrophic choices and the occasional stab of aching humanity. He certainly likes the Trainspotting spin-off dollar but when the characters are this good, I’m game for it!
Reading them chronologically gives the whole thing the feel of a doomed gangster epic, average lads trying to outrun themselves while Scotland mutates around them.
Here’s my Darkmatters ranking…
6. Dead Men’s Trousers — ★★★☆☆
Welsh attempts the big “one last ride” reunion novel, bringing the old crew back together for another orbit of grudges, scams and existential rot.
There are flashes of brilliance here — especially when the book slows down long enough to let age and regret seep through the cracks — but it often feels like the characters are becoming self-aware legacy acts. Begbie still terrifies, Renton still intellectualises his selfishness, Sick Boy still slithers around like a narcotic given human form… but the electricity has understandably ebbed a little.
Like meeting old rave mates at midday in a pub: warm, funny, faintly tragic.
5. The Blade Artist — ★★★½☆
A bold swing (of the knife)…
Welsh takes Francis Begbie — one of modern fiction’s purest engines of chaos — and asks the unthinkable: what if he actually changed?
Set largely in America, this feels less like a Trainspotting novel and more like a grim psychological thriller wearing Begbie’s face. The violence still erupts like arterial spray across white walls, but underneath is a surprisingly mournful meditation on masculinity, repression and whether monsters can ever really retire.
Not everyomne bought the reinvention, but there’s something admirable about Welsh refusing to simply replay the hits.
4. Skagboys — ★★★★☆
The heroin origin story nobody really needed… until Welsh absolutely nailed it.
Skagboys transforms the gang from already-broken legends into painfully recognisable young men drifting through Thatcher-era collapse, boredom and hopelessness. The tragedy is that we know exactly where all this is heading, yet Welsh somehow makes the descent feel fresh and horrifying anyway.
Some of the funniest writing in the series sits right beside moments of absolute soul-crushing bleakness. Watching Renton slide toward addiction feels like seeing a warning light slowly flicker on but get ignored.
A prequel with actual purpose, which is as rare as a clean toilet in Leith.
3. Porno (or T2) — ★★★★½
Meaner. Sadder. More mature. Lost loves and regrets.
Set years after Trainspotting, this sequel finds the characters older but not remotely wiser, dragged into a gloriously grubby attempt to break into the adult film industry. Underneath the sleaze and scams sits a savage portrait of people trapped by nostalgia, ego and the lies they tell themselves.
Begbie becomes genuinely frightening here, less cartoon psychopath, more walking human grenade. Meanwhile Sick Boy reaches peak reptilian charisma (I have to confess to a man crush on him!).
The book also quietly predicts influencer culture, fame addiction and performative identity years before social media was even a big thing.
Darkmatters T2 film review: https://darkmatt.blogspot.com/2025/02/irvine-welsh-on-screen.html
2. Men in Love — ★★★★★
The unexpected masterpiece.
Where the earlier books often run on speed, rage and chemical desperation, Men in Love is surprisingly tender beneath all the sex, violence and self-destruction. Welsh digs into relationships, vulnerability and the terrifying possibility that these idiots might actually want happiness.
It’s still riotously funny and filthy — obviously — but there’s a melancholy maturity running through it that gives the characters unexpected emotional weight. Renton gets a bit sidelined but that allows Sick Boy to be the star of the show as he gets married!!
Spud, who just can’t catch a break, emerges as the bruised moral heart of the whole rotten enterprise and Begbie is the hand grenade of a Best Man!?
1. Trainspotting — ★★★★★
Still untouchable. Choose life…
Not just the best book in the series but one of the great British novels full stop.
Raw, hilarious, fragmented and horrifying, Trainspotting hits like a pint glass to the face. Welsh captures addiction, poverty, male friendship and urban decay with a voice so authentic it practically sweats cigarette smoke off the page.
The genius is in the contradictions: it’s disgustingly funny one moment, emotionally annihilating the next. Beneath the swagger and chaos lies a howl of rage at a generation abandoned by politics, purpose and opportunity.
And whilst Begbie remains one of fiction’s greatest nightmare creations: a pub psycho lurking somewhere between folk horror and social realism. All the cast get decent engagement, in a way that’s deeper than the film…
Speaking of the excellent film - my review: https://darkmatt.blogspot.com/2025/02/irvine-welsh-on-screen.html
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