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M John Harrison is a name that will be familiar to many of you through his New Worlds connection with MM (and if you can ever find any of the stuff he wrote for New Worlds, do - it's cracking stuff). I first came across him at the ripe old age of eight or nine, when, on my first ever foreign holiday, I picked up a slightly battered copy of "The Centauri Device", a Harrison's initial foray into The Genre Known As Space Opera. I loved it, falling instantly in love with Harrison's incredible, vivid prose and great pacing.
However, writing "The Centauri Device" seems to have put Harrison off the entire SF genre, as after that most of his writing was in either fantasy (the excellent Viriconium series), or straightforward - but decidedly unique - fiction (such as "Climbers" or "Signs of Life"). Wherever his imagination went, though, I followed - and I think I've learned an awful lot about writing along the way. But not once did MJH return to the same territory as "The Centauri Device".
Then, late in 2003, along came "Light", in which MJH returns to Big Space Opera and almost casually writes a book that's streets ahead of anything and everything that the likes of Iain M Banks and Stephen Baxter have written. A three-headed story that weaves between the present day and 2400, "Light" is the story of a woman who is a ship, a serial killing physicist, and a man who's entire life veers between an unpleasant reality and the comforts of a fantasy. Around this, Harrison makes a tale that's complex, baroque, deep and elegant.
The cover to "Light" is studded with plaudits from a veritable who's who of modern genre fiction, from the aforementioned Baxter and Banks to Mieville and many others. Put simply, it's the first great science fiction book of the new century. Essential reading.
However, writing "The Centauri Device" seems to have put Harrison off the entire SF genre, as after that most of his writing was in either fantasy (the excellent Viriconium series), or straightforward - but decidedly unique - fiction (such as "Climbers" or "Signs of Life"). Wherever his imagination went, though, I followed - and I think I've learned an awful lot about writing along the way. But not once did MJH return to the same territory as "The Centauri Device".
Then, late in 2003, along came "Light", in which MJH returns to Big Space Opera and almost casually writes a book that's streets ahead of anything and everything that the likes of Iain M Banks and Stephen Baxter have written. A three-headed story that weaves between the present day and 2400, "Light" is the story of a woman who is a ship, a serial killing physicist, and a man who's entire life veers between an unpleasant reality and the comforts of a fantasy. Around this, Harrison makes a tale that's complex, baroque, deep and elegant.
The cover to "Light" is studded with plaudits from a veritable who's who of modern genre fiction, from the aforementioned Baxter and Banks to Mieville and many others. Put simply, it's the first great science fiction book of the new century. Essential reading.
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