Customer Reviews

Light

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

Light was a perplexing read, but in the best way. China Mieville mentioned M. John Harrison as an author to read, so being a Mieville fan I had to try Harrison out. Heck, Neil Gaiman gave the novel an enthusiastic blurb, so it must be good, right?
But, the story didn't grip me at first and I found myself wondering what the big deal was even while recognizing that Harrison is a true wordsmith. Even if this novel deeply turns you off in all other ways, any literate reader should recognize the quality of the writing. Harrison has a true gift for stripped down sentences and a powerfully apt use of vocabulary. Even in the early going, when I was kind of bored, I found myself rereading passages for the simple pleasure of the words on the page.
The plot was bizarre, lurid and somewhat jarring - jumping around in time and space to various loser protagonists. There were three storylines and although I assumed a resolution, the connections remained fuzzy and I was to the point of just getting through it. But about three quarters of the way through something happened - I got it. This is a brilliantly structured novel and I curse my lack of early attention now. Light should be approached as literature, not genre fiction. The convergence of the three characters and their stories happened so gradually, the realization startled me. When you realize there is not three stories, but just one story, interconnections missed earlier spring out. It was a singularly mind blowing epiphany for this veteran SF reader. I am still struggling with the text, but have to recommend Light as a singularly fascinating read.
Light is a fractal novel about fractals, where large ideas are reflected in smaller scale throughout the text. No details, but keep fractals in mind and you will see patterns brilliantly woven throughout the book. This novel gets five stars with the full recognition that it is a personal statement - the book just leapt out and blew me away. Light is going to irritate many and enrage a few like only powerful writing can do. I compare it to David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest in this way - a book with loud proponents and detractors. But honestly the book this reminds me the most of is Gravity's Rainbow. It's not in that league but there is a resonance. Light challenges SF conceits and blows away expectations and is aimed at those bored with popcorn heroes and trite space opera. But I can see even bright, literate readers having a hostile reaction.

People have been raving about M. John Harrison for a few years now, and I finally bent before the pressure of public opinion and submitted to what I expected would be a gorgeously written but somewhat dull work that walks that rather tiresome line between genre and mainstream literature: as much literary pretention as genre roots.

Boy was I surprised!

Mostly for the good. This is real science fiction. Harrison takes contemporary and speculative elements of physics, treats them with confidence, and transforms them into poetry. When it comes to working within the genre, he is not merely tossing in a few "speculative" elements, either: His action sequences raise the pulse; his characters are quirky, compelling, in most cases memorable; the fundamental plot hinges on some huge and intriguing unknowns that draw the reader in; there are some frightening scenes that linger with enough power to reappear in nightmare. Harrison has the storyteller's gift for hooking a reader and keeping him hooked.

However, it's worth noting that this book has a serial murderer as one of the main characters: his actions and motivations are grotesque, and ultimately very unsatisfying. This is one of the less memorable characters, and while the whole thread does tie in with the others, by the end it feels quite superfluous.

It's also worth noting that just about every thread, and just about every character, displays an increasingly tiresome fascination with sex. In particular, the graphic, repetitive, and loveless tropes of pornography. I haven't read Harrison's other work; perhaps he intended some deep thematic observation on human motivations, but the whole thing came off feeling like Harrison has a problem with porn addiction.

Finally, it's worth a mention that the ending, while beautiful in a linguistic sense, feels like a fairly standard sci-fi cop out. When things move beyond the power of an author to invent, throw in some mystical mumbo-jumbo, use skill with language to create a beautiful, but meaningless image.

With all these gripes, you'd think I would give this three stars, or maybe two. But the point is: *despite* these flaws, _Light_ by M. John Harrison is a pretty amazing book. The hype is not empty praise: this guy has something. I am left with the hope that it was the flaws in this book that were the exception, and not the wonderful story, not the exquisite and exciting use of language.

I have to admit that when I started reading this book, it took me a good amount of time to start to understand what is going on. Three stories going on at the same time, without much explanation how they relate to each other. There isn't much explanation about what is going on in the world in each of the stories either (they seem to be happening in different points in time, but later you find out that time is something very abstract throught the book), but when everything starts to fit together, towards the end of the book, it's delighful. Very well written, impressive piece of science fiction.

But I wouldn't recoment it to people that are not a science-inclined and sci-fi fans. M. John Harrison tends sometimes to throw some deep discussions about the validity of physics that may bore some.

M. John Harrison's Light is indescribable. A mind-warping romp that exists somewhere in the continuum between hard SF and cyberpunk. A cruel, violent story, with a core of pure forgiveness and grace. The story of three throughly unlikable people, who nevertheless earn the reader's affection. At times tragic, at others bitingly sarcastic, and even funny in certain patches. It requires the reader's complete confidence - one must trust that Harrison knows what he's doing. Amazingly, that trust is repaid.

I could try to say a few words about the plot, but to do so seems almost beside the point. A reader cracking open this deceptively slim novel had better not expect anything even approaching a linear plot. Almost to the very end, Harrison keeps his readers befuddled - the best you can hope for is to hang on as he drags you into the deepest, oddest reaches of the galaxy. Then, only a few pages before the end, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Harrison manages to tie it all together.

If you're looking for Sci Fi that breaks the mold, that challenges you, that is as much about inner space as outer space, look no further.

In 1999, research scientists Michael Kearney and Brian Tate work to encode data in quantum events. Recent results are not what they expected, but look more promising than they imagined when they started. However, Michael is turning psychotic, as an internal essence pressures him to commit murder.

In 2400 New Venusport, Ed Chianese daily struggles to survive with his only solace being virtual reality escapes unlike his former glory days of surfing black holes. However, his woes turn bleaker with no escape available when it seems as if half the city wants a piece of him because he owes money to the wrong lenders.

Several years since the Golddiggers of 2400 AD, White Cat Captain Seria Mau Genlicher is linked directly to the mathematics of her spaceship as if her mind is the vessel's AI. On the run, she has problems with her new woman body and her tailor Uncle Zip offers little help.

The woes of these three and other losers will "merge" in a quantum realm at the "Beach", a segment of space abutting the impenetrable Kefahuchi Tract. Here nothing works properly and space debris and the occasional treasure exist, many from before the beginnings of time.

Ironically LIGHT is a dark gritty tale told predominately on three fronts. The story line is not a Star Wars action thriller (even with plenty of violence), but instead a complex cerebral and gloomy science fiction with prime players seemingly doomed to tragic lives. Paradoxically Michael (and Tate) is recognized four centuries later as the fathers of interstellar space. Not everyone will enjoy this tense multifaceted novel that contrasts the intricacies of life past, present, and future.

Harriet Klausner

There's a lot to like in this book, theoretically. The worlds themselves are well-drawn, the language curt and no-nonsense with occasional flights into a kind of hard cyberpunk beauty (that sort of mimics but doesn't really ever come close to the best that William Gibson has given us). The science is seamlessly integrated into the story, and you come away with the impression that a lot of thought went into its structure.

The theory doesn't hold, though. This just isn't a very good book.

The action follows three different characters, along three different threads. At first, and for most of the book, they have no obvious connection with each other. Their stories appear to unravel aimlessly, and although lots of stuff happens, none of it seems to be in the service of an actual story. It has the effect of three brutal picaresques without destinations, physical or moral.

There is a payoff, but it takes a long time to get there, and by the time I did I was so exhausted and dispirited by the intervening unpleasantness that it didn't really have much of an impact.

There are three major problems with this book:

Information withholding: I like books with central mysteries, that make you wait (and work) to understand what's going on. It's a good propulsive technique, plot-wise. But the mysteries need to resolve. The author keeps us confused pretty much the whole way through, dropping occasional hints that aren't so much tantalizing as frustrating. As I said: by the time I figured out what was going on, I'd stopped caring. This might just be my limitations as a reader, but I gather, from other reviews, that a lot of people feel the same way. You work so hard to understand what's going on that it's difficult to enjoy any of it.

Dreams: Harrison uses dreams both in the service of both theme and plot: to elucidate the characters' psychology, and to give us a window into their past. This is unfortunate, because (in my mind) dreams are lazy plot devices that give the author an excuse to stop the narrative and jump back for some convenient exposition, instead of wending it into the story. Generally speaking, as soon as I hit a dream sequence, I lose interest. I lost interest a lot in this book. Which is a shame, because the content of the dreams here is often wonderful, strange and sometimes even touching. It just needs to be presented better.

Unremitting dourness: There is nothing pleasant about reading this book. The main characters are either savage and unlikeable, pitiable and unlikeable, or mystifying and unlikeable. Often all three. And, with the exception of the wife (who I liked almost as much as I pitied), none of the supporting characters are much use either. The worlds they inhabit are brutal, dire, unpleasant, and dour. There's a lot of sex here, but as portrayed it's mostly just another kind of violence. The whole thing's kind of a downer, pretty much the whole way through, and the strange note of hope at the end comes off false and unconvincing, as if it's been grafted on from another, happier book.

The writing itself has some odd lapses too, given the care that went into the structure of the book, and the obvious attention to detail. Lots of tortured, passive sentences. A few bits of dialogue that sound like campy Chandler.

Harrison is obviously very talented. I wanted very much to like this book, and I suspect I'll pick up another one of his novels sometime in the future. There's a great deal of potential here. It's just that most of it went unrealized.

Everyone seemed blown away by M. John Harrison's writing. Based on the recommendations, I gave it a go.

Boiled down, the book has three plot threads. Harrison begins with Michael Kearney, a sick, yet brilliant serial killer who is obsessed with a pair of dice and some creepy idea called "The Shrander" that's chasing him. When not dabbling in quantum mechanics and time travel, Kearney kills people in order to keep the Shrander at bay. 250 more complicated pages to go before you begin to understand or give a hooey as to why. After being introduced to Kearney, plot upheaval, and we find ourselves with the former Seria Mau Genlicher, a woman who becomes a starship, the White Cat (one of many Schrodinger references). Seria is intriguing and Uncle Zip, the genetic tailor she makes a bargain with is terrific. Harrison's writing and imagination start to shine at this point and I found myself more involved. Just as I got settled into a short groove, plot switch again, and we're at a tank farm. Kind of a junkie's alternate reality. Ed Chianese, a new character, is hooked on tank life and spends much of his life and money escaping his dismal reality. Ed actually brings a bit of humour and depth to the story. Ed is the first character I really, really liked.

As the book progresses we find that the White Cat wants her real life back, and like Kearney, has no compunctions about killing to get closer to sanity. Kearney, who is being hunted not only by the Shrander, but by his best friend and co-worker of sorts, is no more likeable and continues to explore quantum physics possibilities--meanwhile contemplating killing Anna, his co-dependent girlfriend who knows how twisted he is but unbelievably continues to love/want him. Ed Chianese gets caught up in bizarre situations and in a short-term love nest with a beefed up rickshaw girl named Annie (another incredible character--along with the Cray sisters), and eventually comes to realize that things are more complicated and worse than he thought. Ufda.

I came to the same conclusion as Ed Chianese. Things were worse and more complicated than I originally thought. The plot is a wormhole, which may or may not appeal to others. The threads eventually intertwine, but by the time they do, I was too frustrated by the author's bouts of incredible imagination and obvious intelligence mixed with the I-don't-care-about-my-readers attitude that the plot and writing demonstrate.

Harrison's bright, and like any nerd, I wanted to read and follow and then be able to tout how marvelous the book was simply so that I could claim I understood it all. Yeah, I got it, but I don't think it was worth the effort. I tried and tried and tried to like the damn thing, but to no avail. The ending was a let down. After all the twists and turns and talk, I expected something really grand. Plus, I'd been putting up with the idea that Kearney was "justifiably" killing people... It's a cold book. All of the characters felt like vehicles for ideas, rather than fully realized people I care about--the exception being Ed, but Ed isn't really what Ed thinks Ed is...and that just made me sad. That said, physics geeks might enjoy this, if only for the chance to read a fiction author who obviously knows and appreciates the stuff.

Light proves that ventures in science fiction involving the "New Wave" are alive and well. Harrison gives us a brilliant addition to the corpus of this sub-canon. We can only hope that its leanness and brevity will influence a wide number of authors who could use a little lesson in succinctness in their writing. The fact that Light is slim and self-contained will increase its readership by orders of magnitude and have that much greater influence on the genre. The fact that Harrison's skill and craft in writing is really unmatched by living authors will also increase its readership. The ideas within the book itself are a bit derivate: multiple dimensional travel, ships that shift with the thoughts of cyborg pilots, immersive virtual reality, quantum mechanics... none of these things are really new, which anyone must admit. Yet the way that Harrison weaves them in to his plot--a plot where he's doing some things that are really interesting and important--will hopefully inspire a great many writers who are currently tricksters and illusionists to attempt something really important of high literary merit. These are all positive influences on the genre.

WHO SHOULD READ THIS:

Really, the recommendation wizard of Amazon.com is right on top of this one. Former readers of Harrison's work, people who enjoyed Harlan Ellison, Jeff VaderMeer, China Mieville, and John Clute will also enjoy Light. It is written for people who enjoy reading books that are self-aware and aware that they are important. It is written for readers who are extremely demanding of their books and demand substance as well as spectacle. It is hard to imagine anyone being disappointed with Light who enters the text with this frame of mind.

WHO SHOULD PASS

There are a few reasons to pass on this book. For example, if murder, masturbation, promiscuous sex, and volition-less, reactive characters get on your nerves than you shouldn't attempt this book. Some critics have accused this book of misogyny and indeed there are few sympathetic female characters and quite a lot of violence towards women. There are some literary purists out there who don't like books that read like Important Books. Light reads like that; it forces you to understand and be aware as active and participatory readers unlike other immersive books--Tolkien being the best example but also works by Wolfe--that are not so self-important and read like legends themselves rather than important works of literature. This is all to say, to fully appreciate Light you need some literary training and the wherewithal to use it.  

Where other science fiction writers often give a sense of the scope of space, Harrison gives us a space teeming with people, aliens, ancient abandoned technology, and above all, squalor.

His characters are all wounded, incomplete, mad, hiding from the truth -- which is the case of this novel, is very, very strange and possibly worth hiding from.

Although I have some problems with the way the author glosses over the amorality of his characters, there is undeniably a powerful vision here, backed up by top-notch writing.

This one is for those who like the startling and weird. Philip K. Dick fans, in particular, will enjoy this novel.

M. John Harrison is under the impression that plot and character can be totally abandoned in favor of a frantic and sloppy exercise in "cyberpunk" style.

Far future cyberpunk just doesn't work.

First of all, the voice of the book is off: some deep future hep cat telling you like it is about quasars, dark matter, and quantum physics, baby, in language so opaque and "snappy" that a sense of wonder or even simple coherence is never achieved.

If you're going to do cyberpunk, and Harrison is very obviously trying, you need to offer a plausible immersion in a future world. Yes, I know good SF is never really about prediction, but good cyberpunk needs a faithful adherence to an illusion of reality. It can't just be a collage of weirdness for it's own sake, or a collection of hastily slapped together future slang, as this book is. The chosen style, such as it is, is consistently employed, but totally unsuited to the material.

You can't set a story 400 years in the future, and then keep coming up with reasons, on practically every page, for the environments to be drenched in "retro" detail. We don't read SF to immerse ourselves in a collage of weirdness we already know. Cyberpunk works because of its near-future mode, both strange and familiar, that engages cultural details and patterns of the reader's present and recent past. It requires highly specific descriptions of objects and fashions that have a kind of unfamiliar coherence. Harrison gives us absolutely none of that. He just lists a bunch of random objects and styles without really describing them or making them work together, so the "weirdness" just seems relentless, forced, and silly. Sort of like an interminable episode of Dr. Who.

The frantic onslaught of detail seems to come from a lack of confidence, a fear that the reader will realize that there is no actual story being told. We never get comfortable with the characters, or see them inhabit a coherent setting long enough for them to change or face challenges. All fiction has to do this to some degree. Even Ulysses by James Joyce does this. Harrison is no Joyce, or even William Gibson, and his readers don't come to his books expecting experimental art. They want SF, and his offering is in bad faith. I can't believe this book is as praised as it is.

Harrison's characters just scamper around facile collage landscapes, batted about by a Deus ex machina that, though revealed in the final chapter, has no organic, story-based reason for not being revealed in the very first chapter. There are one or two very conventional SF ideas that are stretched out over an entire, exhausting novel.

And all of this is a shame, because the first few chapters of the Michael Kearney section read like a first-rate horror novel. Harrison can obviously write well if he wants, and how he went so wrong is a mystery.