Light

Light: Empty Space (Kefahuchi Tract) 

by M. John Harrison | 336 Pages | Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy Literature | Publisher: First edition published by Gollancz. My edition published by Orion Publishing | Year: 2002 | My Rating: 9/10

“When you have done all things worth doing, you’re forced to start on things that aren’t”
― John Harrison, Light

Light is profoundly complex, dark, draining, unusual sci-fi mystery with a great ending. It has an uneven mosaic of two timelines filled with symbolism and curious characters. It’s not an easy read, nor it is likeable in the first instance. The book builds on you with the time you invest through the pages and remain invested in the story. 

The story bridging three stories from present Earth of 1999 and post Earth with distant and futuristic galactic settings in the year 2400, initially feels disjointed. Yet Harrison’s skill lies in gradually and subtly revealing the connections among these strands that are anchored by the mysterious cosmic phenomenon known as the Kefahuchi Tract. In this future, humanity is scattered across planets surrounding the Kefahuchi Tract, a space-time anomaly, a “singularity without an event horizon”. Violence and sex recur throughout in brusque, almost clinical tones as part of a broader theme that human depravity and detachment persist, whether in corporeal present or digital futurity.

In 1999 London, Michael Kaerney, quantum physicist and serial killer, is seeking an escape in a future that doesn’t yet exist – a quantum world that he hope to access through a breach of time and space. In this future, Seria Mau Genlicher has already sacrificed her body to merge into the systems of her starship, the White Cat. In this future, Ed Chianese, a drifter and adventurer, has ridden dynaflow ships, run old alien mazes, surfed stellar envelopes. Haunting them all through this maze of menace and mystery is the shadowy presence of the Shrander, a being with a horse skull for a head. 

I have wanted to read this book for so long, until I received it as a birthday gift 22 years later. This enigmatic blend of literary complexity, cyberpunk, and metaphysical dread is worth reading. However, this certainly is not a casual read. You need focus and dark scientific imagination to relish its thematic depth. Once you have read this, you would be hooked to read the two sequels Harrison wrote, completing the triology.