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Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
01/02/2007 . Source: Simon Cooper 
Pub: Gollancz. 246 page hardback. Price: £17.99 (UK only). ISBN: 0-575-07027-7. Buy Nova Swing in the USA - or Buy Nova Swing in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk and www.mjohnharrison.com
This is a real class piece of fiction. The prose is always inventive, the narrative carries you along and the characters breathe their truths long after the final page. Short-listed for this year's BSFA awards, this must be a tough one to top.
In Saudade, a far future city, is the 'event site' - a circle of weird physics crashed to the earth from the stars. Not many are foolish enough to want to enter it. Except for Vic Serotonin, a 'travel agent', who makes his money from the tourists looking for something different. He also does a sideline in artefacts smuggled from the event site.
The problem for Vic is he's brought out an artefact too dangerous to handle and Lens Aschemann, a detective who looks like Albert Einstein, is onto him. But Aschemann has problems of his own and the event site itself is changing.
'Nova Swing' shares some of the same context as Harrison's novel 'Light' and though you don't need to have read it, be prepared to accept certain givens - such as the nature/origin of the event site, which is never fully explained. Although I can see this might put some people off, I enjoyed this lack of clutter in Harrison's style. It forces concentration on the reader, drawing attention to what the book is really about - the lives, loves, fantasies and nightmares of its characters.
The world they inhabit is one already weary with the Science Fiction it has become. Get a sentient tattoo, get a new body at the tailors, drink Black Heart rum at the Café Surf or go see the fights, where monstrously enhanced brawlers slash each other open, only to get rebuilt at Uncle Zip's and do it all again.
The story is told through multiple points of view. Meet Liv Hula, owner of the Black Cat White Cat Bar, Fat Antoyne the washed-up K-ship pilot and Edith Bonaventure, one-time child star entertainer. Though a straight narrative, centred around Aschemann's investigations structures the story, this becomes less and less important as the various characters find their own kind of resolutions.
Each of them is connected, some directly, some eventually but all share the same need for something more, a moving on, a hope they've lost. There's a clue to this in Harrison's naming of the city: Saudade. It's a Portuguese word known to be one of the hardest to translate but approximating to a feeling of longing for something that once was, mixed with the hope it may be again.
In 'Nova Swing', each of the main characters, apart from Vic Serotonin maybe, could be said to be feeling saudade. It's the bringing to life of this sweet sourness that makes them so real and where Harrison's skill is at times breathtaking.
For those already familiar with Harrison's writing, the quality of 'Nova Swing' will come as no surprise. For anyone else, this is a great place to start.
Simon Cooper
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