The basic plotlines of this audacious SF novel are easy enough to explain: in 1999, Michael Kearney and his colleague Brian Tate are physicists, but Kearney is also a serial killer, trying to hold of a creature with horse skull for head, from which he stole an odd pair of dice; meanwhile in 2400, on a planet mankind has reached thanks to the paradigm-changing Kearney-Tate equations, Seria Mau Genlicher has had herself engineered into a virtual machine so she can pilot a K-ship, a decision she regrets, and Ed Chianese is an ex-pilot who spends all his time immersed in a noir world of virtual reality and running from the the loan-sharking Cray sisters. Seria and Ed have their own encounters with the creature, which is a Shrander. Add in the Kefahuchi Tract, a naked singularity that trails across space, defying attempts to comprehend its nature and vastness, and you've got the basic elements of the tale. From there, Mr. Harrison follows a series of questions : Where are the three main characters headed? What does the Shrander want? What is the Tract and what can we do with it?

However, reader be warned : the novel is much less straightforward than that set-up sounds. For one thing, Mr. Harrison is the writer who other writers whose books you've tried but failed to finish wish they wrote like. For another, he follows in the tradition of Patrick O'Brian by avoiding much discursion about the time period in which he's writing. In the Aubrey/Maturin series, which is historical, that gives us a sense of reading some sort of lost sea adventures as written by Jane Austen. We at least have what we know of the period and the language to help orient us. But when an author is writing about a future that springs from his own head, we have no such guideposts to cling onto. Rare will be the reader who doesn't set this book down at least once or twice in frustration at not knowing what the heck is going on.

But, if you do pick it back up and continue to the end, and if I've understood Mr. Harrison correctly, that ending is really interesting and makes the effort worthwhile. And the prospect of the Kefahuchi Boogie--you'll have to get that far--is truly thrilling.

(Reviewed:20-Sep-14)

Grade: (B) Orrin C. Judd

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M. Harrison Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: M. John Harrison
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    -EXCERPT: from Light by M. John Harrison
    -ETEXT: Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney in the Spring : a novelette by M John Harrison
    -ESSAY: Another view : Sci-? writer M John Harrison on Tate Modern's new Turbine Hall show (M John Harrison, 19 October 2008, The Guardian)
    -BOOK LIST: M John Harrison's top 10 (M. John Harrison, 16 November 2004, The Guardian)
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    -REVIEW: of Lewis Carroll in Numberland by Robin Wilson (M John Harrison, The Guardian)
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    -REVIEW: of The Birthday of the World by Ursula K. LeGuin (M John Harrison, The Guardian)
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    -REVIEW: of Walking to Hollywood by Will Self (M John Harrison, The Guardian)
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    -INFO: M. John Harrison (authorsnetwork.org : the directory of contemporary authors)
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    -PODCAST: Episode 147: Live with M. John Harrison! (Jonathan Strahan, 6/22/13, Notes from Coode Street)
    -INTERVIEW: M John Harrison: a life in writing : 'A good ground rule for writing in any genre is: start with a form, then ask what it's afraid of' (Richard Lea, 20 July 2012, The Guardian)
    -INTERVIEW: Disillusioned By The Actual: M. John Harrison (interviewed by Patrick Hudson, The Zone)
    -INTERVIEW: M John Harrison (interviewed by David Mathew, Infinity Plus)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Irradiating the Object - an interview with M John Harrison (Rhys Williams, University of Warwick)
    -INTERVIEW: Interview: M. John Harrison (Cheryl Morgan, 9 June 2003, Strange Horizons)
    -ESSAY: Covering Viriconium (John Coulthart, Jun 11, 2012, feuilleton)
    -ESSAY: It’s M. John Harrison Appreciation Week (Guy Salvidge, July 28, 2014, Wrapped Up in Books)
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    -REVIEW: of The Kefahuchi Tract Trilogy by M. John Harrison (John Gray, The New Statesman)
    -REVIEW: of Light by M. John Harrison (Complete Review)
    -REVIEW: of Light (Iain Banks, The Guardian)
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    -REVIEW: of Nova Swing by M. John Harrison (John Clute, The Guardian)
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    -REVIEW: of Empty Space: A Haunting by M John Harrison (Stuart Kelly, The Guardian)
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    -REVIEW: of Empty Space (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Signs of Life by M.John Harrison (Complete Review)
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    -REVIEW ESSAY: Why M John Harrison’s The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again won the Goldsmiths Prize: M John Harrison’s masterpiece has inventiveness embedded in its very DNA. (frances Wilson, New Statesman)
    -REVIEW: Mark Bould and Michelle Reid, eds. Parietal Games: Critical Writings By and On M. John Harrison (John Langan, July 2006, Science Fiction Studies)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVES: books by M. John Harrison (Infinity Plus)

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