Book review: Nova Swing by M. John Harrison

Book review: Nova Swing by M. John Harrison

Nova Swing by M. John Harrison is a surreal follow on to his award winning novel Light. Set in the same universe, dominated by the Kefahuchi Tract, a near limitless expanse of stars and systems linked economically and socially to one and another, as his novel Light, it showcases the travails of Vic Serotonnin, a travel guide into a spatial anomoly called The Saudade Event Site, where time, distance, and bodies are warped.

Vic is a travel agent, one of a few people that are willing to risk their lives, minds, and bodies by travelling inside the Site, as it is known. Landmarks are useless in the Site, the ground changes and shifts, and what seems like hours inside, days or weeks can pass outside of the Site.

Compounding these issues is the local law enforcement efforts to prevent these tours as the dangers are deemed too difficult to asses completely, so it has been declared illegal to enter or bring anything out of the Site, which is the main income of the Travel Guides. Carrying out artefacts found inside and selling them to collectors.

There are a variety of relationships the protagonist copes with, from fellow travel guides and their family entities to local gansters and other unsavory types. These all complicate Vic Serotonnin’s life, as strange new artefacts, that appear to be people come to life, begin to emerge from the site.

These separate events all lead to betrayals and loss of innocence as well as life. There are strange alterations brought on by the artefacts, police investigations, as well as snippets of the lives lived in this odd and still familiar setting. With concepts like gun-punk chic and Radio Retro as well as scenes of hordes of cats running into and out of the event site, it leads the reader into a world similar, with similar concepts and ideals to the modern world, with surreal twists scattered throughout as well.

In much the same feel as the previous novel Light, M. John Harrison introduces us the readers into a world very different than where we live, yet still recognizable. Filled with addicts, people working to make a living, alcohol and space travel, dreams are one thing the human spirit has not lost, and Mr. Harrison demonstrates that in the pages of his novel.

While not the easiest novel to pigeonhole into a particular category, this reviewer feels it belongs best in the emerging sub-genre of Singularity Fiction, along with such authors as Cory Doctorow, Iain Banks, Charles Stoss, and Sean Williams. A definite one to read.