Light
M. John Harrison
Bantam, Sep 2004, $16.00, 336 pp.
ISBN: 0553382950

In 1999, research scientists Michael Kearney and Brian Tate work to encode data in quantum events. Recent results are not what they expected, but look more promising than they imagined when they started. However, Michael is turning psychotic, as an internal essence pressures him to commit murder.

In 2400, New Venusport, Ed Chianese daily struggles to survive with his only solace being virtual reality escapes unlike his former glory days of surfing black holes. However, his woes turn bleaker with no escape available when it seems as if half the city wants a piece of him because he owes money to the wrong lenders.

Several years since the Golddiggers of 2400 AD, White Cat Captain Seria Mau Genlicher is linked directly to the mathematics of her spaceship as if her mind is the vessel's AI. On the run, she has problems with her new woman body and her tailor Uncle Zip offers little help.

The woes of these three and other losers will "merge" in a quantum realm at the "Beach", a segment of space abutting the impenetrable Kefahuchi Tract. Here nothing works properly and space debris and the occasional treasure exist, many from before the beginnings of time.

Ironically LIGHT is a dark, gritty tale told predominately on three fronts. The storyline is not a Star Wars action thriller (even with plenty of violence), but instead a complex cerebral and gloomy science fiction with prime players seemingly doomed to tragic lives. Paradoxically Michael (and Tate) is recognized four centuries later as the fathers of interstellar space. Not everyone will enjoy this tense, multifaceted novel that contrasts the intricacies of life past, present, and future.

Harriet Klausner