Bold and beautifully frustrating novel. Like his mythic and magnificent imaginary construction, the Kefahuchi Tract, it is a literary "broth of space, time and heaving event horizons; an unpredictable ocean of radiant energy, of deep light. Anything could happen there, where natural law, if there had ever been such a thing, was held in suspension."
So, a serial killer, an addict, and a mercenary killer-cyborg walk into a novel .... and Harrison pulls off an impossible three-hand trick of keeping me reading through the sheer inventiveness and bat-sh*t crazy ideas in the story lines of his three unlovable and (seemingly) morally bankrupt main characters. Harrison doesn't even deign to hint at how the the three stories link together until about 150 pages in. The reader must trust in his command of his material (and the Gentle Reader's own spidey-sense) that all will be revealed, and that there is more -- a lot more-- going on here than it might first appear.
It's a tribute to Harrison's mastery as a writer, and his command of the tropes of SF, that the withholding of the ultimate Big Picture never feels (very) frustrating. The detail and inventiveness and, yes, fun to be found in the separate threads -- stone-cold killer Michael Kearney, the pathetic twink addict Ed Chianese and ex-human starship cyborg Seria Mau Genlicher -- all make it worth the rides for their own sake.
Two random observations: first, this is the first volume in a trilogy, but it feels complete and satisfactory in its own right. I don't feel that I've been sold a bait-n-switch where I hoped for answers, only to be told "Hahaha, you want answers? You have to buy the next book!"
Second, did anyone else think that this was Harrison's homage to another morally ambiguous novel about alien technology taking humankind to very dark places, the Strugatsky Brothers' Roadside Picnic? Just wondering.
So, a serial killer, an addict, and a mercenary killer-cyborg walk into a novel .... and Harrison pulls off an impossible three-hand trick of keeping me reading through the sheer inventiveness and bat-sh*t crazy ideas in the story lines of his three unlovable and (seemingly) morally bankrupt main characters. Harrison doesn't even deign to hint at how the the three stories link together until about 150 pages in. The reader must trust in his command of his material (and the Gentle Reader's own spidey-sense) that all will be revealed, and that there is more -- a lot more-- going on here than it might first appear.
It's a tribute to Harrison's mastery as a writer, and his command of the tropes of SF, that the withholding of the ultimate Big Picture never feels (very) frustrating. The detail and inventiveness and, yes, fun to be found in the separate threads -- stone-cold killer Michael Kearney, the pathetic twink addict Ed Chianese and ex-human starship cyborg Seria Mau Genlicher -- all make it worth the rides for their own sake.
Two random observations: first, this is the first volume in a trilogy, but it feels complete and satisfactory in its own right. I don't feel that I've been sold a bait-n-switch where I hoped for answers, only to be told "Hahaha, you want answers? You have to buy the next book!"
Second, did anyone else think that this was Harrison's homage to another morally ambiguous novel about alien technology taking humankind to very dark places, the Strugatsky Brothers' Roadside Picnic? Just wondering.
Three quantum outlaws face a universe of their own creation...............
not my thing, couldn't finish it.
