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Light by M. John Harrison
01/01/2003 . Source: Rod MacDonald 
pub: Gollancz. 320 page enlarged paperback. Price: £10.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-575-07026-9. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. Check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
Over thirty years ago, M. John Harrison was a new writer in the Michael Moorcock sphere of influence but happily he now has his own unique, strange, esoteric and academic identity. Yes, he's not just a writer, he's a creator of literature. Equally fortuitous is the fact that his writing is of a high standard which is, in my opinion, in excess of Moorcock and many of his contemporaries.
Harrison, a man now pushing sixty, has evolved and so has his writing. His years of experience within this craft, experience that consists of many novels, short stories, essays and articles, propel him to new heights and abilities in the writing of 'Light'.
This is really skilful stuff. I can't fault any of it. However, that doesn't mean to say I like it! This is a cruel novel, lacking in sympathy for humankind: it sees us as we really are without the veneer of civilisation.
There are no heroes to be found within the pages, except if you want to term psychopaths, psychotic erotics, neurotics and the criminally insane as just so. Alas, unless you're of this type, you won't fit into the future that Harrison has created.
Michael Kearney is a brilliant computer scientist. We join him at a new year party for 2000. Fair enough, you say, but then he runs downstairs with a thirty-something woman and kills her for no apparent reason. This comes as a shock, the first of many to hit you from out of the pages.
It isn't a dramatic death. Rather, the loss of this poor woman's life is something inconsequential and happens with the same impetus as would Kearney taking a drink or driving his car.
This sets the tone for other events. Things that should be screeching and screaming are played cool - this is the detachment of the psychopath. I found all this rather unpleasant to read. The killing brought back memories of books set in concentration camps where the boundary between life and death was treated with equal indifference and lack of deference.
Kearney is a proper nutter. Like most, he's haunted. In his case, it is a strange horse skull called a Shrander (probably one I backed a few weeks ago at Newmarket). He also decides actions by throwing dice and kills women only. We then progress a few hundred years to a woman as good as dead.
In some respects, Kearney has something to do with her condition because she is lying within a vat in a super spaceship which he and a colleague were responsible for developing. He also has another connection to this woman which materialises in later stages of the story.
Seria Mau is her name. She is really part of the control mechanism of the K-ship White Cat. A bunch of strange individuals inhabit this ship. Seria Mau doesn't like them very much and neither do I. Equally reprehensible in many respects is the other major character, Chinese Ed. He kills people too.
I think he was supposed to be a person of comical traits but with so many nasty things happening in and around him, these were swamped. Why do we have so much killing?
In our daily lives here in the early 21st century, killing is a relatively rare event, so much so that it is reported in the news. This wouldn't happen in Harrison's world four hundred years hence. Is this the future he sees for us? Maybe so. There is a degradation of morality with increasing time portrayed here. OK, there's a psychopath in the 20th century but matters are much worse as the pages turn. I don't think any of us would like to live in his future.
The Kefahuchi Tract is an area in the galaxy where much of the action takes place. This is a weird region non-conformist with the laws of physics. It also has enigmatic objects. Many years before, other civilisations ventured into the galaxy using their own starship devices.
Their traces are still to be found in this region and the trio of characters somehow fit into place within this strange future.
This isn't a book to read at bedtime. The literature is challenging though not excessively so because its main power is to scare but not in the way that a Dracula horror film would. This is cold and frightening in a detached way, reminding me of a German movie where two surreal psychopaths went about killing the occupants of holiday homes.
Normally I would reject this type of book out of hand but the fact that it's so well-written gives it more than enough validity for me to recommend it to everyone except children. If most Science Fiction writers could create books of this power we'd be a lot better off.
Rod MacDonald
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