Early in M. John Harrison’s science fiction novel “Light,” different characters begin to mention “going deep” — whether deep into areas of space that have never been explored (or explored millennia ago and forgotten), or deep into knowledge, deep into information, also perhaps once explored and since forgotten.
If you choose to go along with the ride, I can promise you — you’ll go deep — even the jaded science-fiction geeks out there, who think that there isn’t anything worth reading any more. There is plenty here on which to geek out.
But it isn’t perfect. Most significantly, there are parts of the Kearney story which don’t sit well with me. I didn’t end the novel feeling as though I truly understood how Kearney came to kill. There is a cause and effect that the killings symbolize, yet I’m not sure Harrison makes the case completely for me.
The novel’s only false note.
No matter.
“Light” is good. “Light” is worth reading. “Light” is a story of self-, micro- and meta-discovery. The characters are believable. Their motivations pleasantly obscure. I read, I raced to the end and along the way their stories became my own. What I didn’t understand at first slowly became clear. At first, I didn’t understand shadow operators or cultivars or foam (yes foam!) or mathematics (yes mathematics!).
Actually, I’m still not quite sure what cultivars are, although I *think* I’ve got it.
Yet while the ending is good, Harrison certainly left me wanting more. In this story, the grandest of origin stories, I found myself in awe of the way Harrison shaped his answers to life’s greatest questions, and at the same time understood for the first time how answers to the greatest questions could lead only to more questions.
And on and on the cycle goes. In Harrison’s world, always someone came before. No after without before. No dark without light. No life without death. No gifts without sacrifice.
In its way, “Light” is a story of faith.
Yes, this agnostic felt strangely comforted at the novel’s finish. Indeed, I very much enjoyed the novel’s very last words. But I would like to see Harrison answer the next batch of questions he’s created.
I want to know more about the world of “Light.”
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