Lucas reviewed Light by M. John Harrison
Lots of interesting and involving stuff going on, and well written—but I did not like its finale much.
4 stars
M. John Harrison's Light is a real blend of, and biting-of-thumb at, space opera, cyberpunk, horror. There are some parts of it that remind me of other space sci-fi (esp. Consider Phlebas; Harrison and Banks are friends and sometimes it feels like Harrison is poking at The Culture books specifically), but more thrilling, more clever—differently misogynist or uncomfortable in its use of race.
Odd to me that its ending seems to me to be treated with "no spoilers" kidgloves despite not being much of a solution or revelation, not promising greater plot or emotional consequence. So much of what drove me through it was its chaotic, hyper-charged far-future setting, its characters' deeply personal psycho-sexual problems—which are braided throughout the three stories, but just kinda left loose at its end? Even considered through the lens of a meta-textual argument about fantasies and "going deep," or of extreme dysmorphia and self-hatred, it …
M. John Harrison's Light is a real blend of, and biting-of-thumb at, space opera, cyberpunk, horror. There are some parts of it that remind me of other space sci-fi (esp. Consider Phlebas; Harrison and Banks are friends and sometimes it feels like Harrison is poking at The Culture books specifically), but more thrilling, more clever—differently misogynist or uncomfortable in its use of race.
Odd to me that its ending seems to me to be treated with "no spoilers" kidgloves despite not being much of a solution or revelation, not promising greater plot or emotional consequence. So much of what drove me through it was its chaotic, hyper-charged far-future setting, its characters' deeply personal psycho-sexual problems—which are braided throughout the three stories, but just kinda left loose at its end? Even considered through the lens of a meta-textual argument about fantasies and "going deep," or of extreme dysmorphia and self-hatred, it doesn't satisfy me.