Light
Comment from Jon Courtenay Grimwood: Light is the kind of novel other writers read and think: "Why don't I just give up and go home?" That was certainly my first reaction on reading its mix of coldly perfect prose and attractively twisted insanity. It's also the only book to bring me unpleasantly close to sympathising with a serial killer. But this is M John Harrison: so antihero Michael Kearney is a mathematically brilliant, dice-throwing, reality-changing hyper-intelligent serial killer haunted by a horse-skulled personal demon. Harrison's genius is to tie Kearney's narrative thread to those of Seria Mau – a far-future girl existing in harmony with White Cat, her spaceship, surfing a part of the galaxy known as the Kefahuchi Tract – and Chinese Ed, a sleazy if likeable cyberpunky chancer with a passion for virtual sex. This is not a kind book, or even a particularly likeable book. But then I suspected it was never intended to be, and the author wouldn't want the kind of people who want to like characters as his readers anyway. What it is is stunningly written, meticulously plotted, hallucinogenically realised and brutally honest. No one who reads it could doubt that Harrison might win the Booker if he could be bothered. Light is also the book that novelist and critic Adam Roberts was so sure would win the Arthur C Clarke award, he offered to change his name to Adam Van Hoogenroberts if it didn't. We're still waiting...
Stats for nerds
6recommend
7mentions
7people
2011–2026years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- It’s hard to know what anyone considers the “usual greats”. Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature, but she doesn’t seem to make it into the “average” person’s greats list, possibly because her use of language is very much not grade 5. Try The Golden Notebook, The Summer Before the Dark, The Grass Is Singing, The Good Terrorist, The Fifth Child, or the series that starts with Shikasta.
E.L. Doctorow is another such example. Try The Book of Daniel, Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, Loon Lake.
In the scifi genre (aside from the Shikasta series already mentioned), M. John Harrison is worth a look. He’s got a long bibliography but Light might be a good starting point.
Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum.
Some of Ursula Le Guin’s more serious books might fit the bill, like The Dispossessed or The Left Hand of Darkness.
Someone already mentioned Mervyn Peake, he definitely fits this category.
- try M. John Harrison - he has similar command of the word. His Kefahuchi Tract trilogy (Light, Nova Swing, Empty Space).
- The Magus, John Fowles
Dune (all 6)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig
Manufacturing Consent
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan
If This Is a Man, Primo Levi
Light, M. John Harrison
- In the same vein, an article[1] in The Telegraph entitled "The Hobbit: How the 'clomping foot of nerdism' destroyed Tolkien's dream - and the fantasy genre" makes a few similar points.
I'm inclined to agree with them - Tolkein's brand of endless minutiae does not a good novel make. His is a world of casually racist undertones and completely shallow characters. The good and bad guys in Tolkein are good and bad for no particular discernible reason, and I think fantasy has yet to dig its way out of Tolkein's shadow.
However, I think new wave (and an emphasis on stylism in general) has done a lot to rehabilitate sci-fi. Personally, I think Gene Wolfe and M John Harrison deserve a lot of praise for pushing the genre along. Harrison's "Light"[2] comes to mind as a modern incarnation of a new wave novel that still manages to earn its sciency stripes.
1: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11289765/The-Hobbit-...
2: http://www.amazon.com/Light-M-John-Harrison/dp/0553382950
- Getting a little meta, but while Harrison's "Light" was indeed a refreshing blast of sea air, "Nova Swing" I found almost intolerable in what felt like a haphazard reapplication of some of the time-independent concepts that made Light so wonderful. It felt self-conscious and distracted, to be unkind.
- I'm really surprised Charles Stross didn't get into the list. One of the best futurists currently writing, IMHO.
I also highly recommend M. John Harrison's 'Light' http://www.amazon.com/Light-M-John-Harrison/dp/0553382950.
