Light
Harrison, M. John. Light. Gollancz ISBN: 0575074035
Although I sadly lost my copy back around 1989 The Centari Device by M. John Harrison has always stuck in my memory. It's not that I remember the story (which I do). Or that it's a great tale (which it is). Or that it's Space Opera (which I love). I remember it because it because the words on the page somehow managed to alter my connection with reality.
I had somehow got myself in precisely the same mood when, on a particularly surreal day last week I wandered into a bookshop hoping to find the last Iain M. Banks book I needed to complete my collection. The books were in alphabetical order so I found the books of Banks easy enough. As luck would have it there was one copy left of the book I wanted. Sitting next to it, so obviously out of place, was Light. I wouldn't have paid this much attention normally. However there was my odd mood, also just under the book's title was the following line:
"Light is brilliant" - Iain M. Banks
Picking up the book the blurb inside alluded to the fact that Light was Harrison's first 'hard' SF novel since The Centari Device was published in the mid 70s.
It was at this point I gave-up trying to reconnect to my normal reality. There were just too many little coincidences. I simply surrendered to the inevitable and bought Light too. I'm glad I did - it's one of the best books I've read in a long time.
Light is superbly written - Harrison's prose is a joy to read. I'd describe it as effortless except I'm sure a lot of effort went in to making it appear so. The three stranded story is deep, dark, and downright bizarre in places. One starts in 1999, two in 2400. There are connections, some you see clearly, some you don't. Even the blurb on the back of the book heightened the effect of weirdness, it seemed to bear no resemblance to what was going on. Then about 100 pages in I started to get the creeping feeling that the blurb was telling me about the end of the story. I wasn't wrong - yet it still made no difference. And then there is all the quantum physics which I can't rightly say I understand at the best of times - not that you really need to understand it.
However, personally, the best bit about Light is that strange alteration of my connection with reality. It's a book which somehow manages to sum up a feeling. A feeling which stayed beyond the point where I needed to hunt for something suitable to use as a bookmark. A feeling which made reality seem almost dream like. A head trip. Definitely. One which I'll be taking again very soon.