Spaceport bars, usually an embodiment of the exoticism of science fiction’s encounter with the alien, here become dispiriting places where old men huddle over desultory dice games. Distant worlds are revealed to be provincial or are marked by the grim, rain-lashed ruins of some already dying and heavily polluting industry. Yet the very science-fictionality of the work is constantly undermined or deconstructed. There are space battles and cigar-shaped rocket ships that settle upon their fins, distant worlds and alien wonders. The three books are filled with figures and devices that recall science fiction of old. At its most superficial, perhaps, it can be seen in Harrison’s use of genre tropes. The balance takes on many different aspects and is to be found throughout the trilogy. And it is precisely that balance between creation and destruction that makes this such a major work. John Harrison can be said to both create and destroy science fiction in this trilogy. If Walter Benjamin is right that great writers either create a new form or destroy an old one, then M. JOHN HARRISON’S Kefahuchi Tract trilogy ( Light, Nova Swing, and now Empty Space: A Haunting) is the most significant work of science fiction to have appeared so far this century.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.Empty space is kind.
Readers who like fantasies tinged with the transcendent will find much to enjoy.Ĭopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. Harrison ( Things That Never Happen) tantalizes the reader with explanations that are always just out of reach, and this sense of imminent revelation heightens the tale's mystery and suspense. The meaning of the Pleroma and the Coeur, and how they relate to visions of awe and terror that taunt all three characters over the course of the story, are just part of the weird aura that cloaks all the novel's events and points back to a strange shared experience from their youth. All three are beholden to Yaxley, a creepy acquaintance from their schooldays who shows up periodically, always speaking in metaphysical riddles about a sensual realm called "the Pleroma." Meanwhile, Lucas entertains Pam with a fanciful history of "the Coeur," a symbol-laden quest that spans centuries and continents and is linked to the understanding of the Pleroma. Lucas and Pam are in a deteriorating marriage, and the narrator uses work as a refuge from family and friends.
Lucas Medlar, Pam Stuyvesant and the novel's unnamed narrator are all middle-aged intellectuals mired in the entropy of their lives. An unspoken secret that warps the lives of three Cambridge graduates is a springboard into mysteries of the heart and spirit in British author Harrison's enigmatic dark fantasy.
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