I just reviewed M John Harrison’s book Light for Amazon. They haven’t approved it yet, so here it is for y’all:

I’ve been a fan of Harrison’s since his later Viriconium books, indeed it was his writing that coaxed me out of my fantasy/SF ghetto and into an appreciation of more mainstream works, but I have to admit that in the past I sometimes struggled to make headway through his often-depressing prose.

Not so with Light. Admittedly (as other reviewers have mentioned) the reader is dropped in at the deep end: concepts are introduced, things named, without any explanation of what they mean. This can be disorientating, but at the same time it makes reading an adventure, hurling yourself into the unknown, hoping that everything will make sense sooner or later. It does. And while you’re waiting, you can always have fun spotting themes (how many quantum opposites can you find? I’m sure I missed plenty, a second read is going to be almost as much fun as the first) and enjoying the poetry and occasional absurdity of the names.

The story itself is dark, funny, playful, deep as space itself and, ultimately, has a happy (or at least hopeful) ending, something very welcome in an M John Harrison novel. And it’s got three separate threads. Just like James Ellroy. Cool.

Light has reminded me that you can read SF without living in a ghetto. It’s a wonderful, genre-busting novel, one that should delight any intelligent life form.

I’m already re-reading it, thinking of writing a somewhat fuller review here in due course. Meanwhile, I just discovered this interview with Harrison, which (if you’ll pardon the pun) illuminates this and other works, and life in general, definitely worth a read.