Rating: 
Summary: Torture Is Not An Abstraction
Review: Recent newspaper articles have commented that some of our citizens feel that terrorist suspects should be tortured in order to elicit information about their activities. It would seem that some Americans are divorced from the reality of torture, and view it as an abstract concept. Those folks should read this book. There are some disturbing torture scenes in this novel, but they are not gratuitous. After reading these scenes I would hope that you would agree that torture in not an acceptable interrogation technique. Colin Harrison writes books that do not follow standard formulae, even when the book is a thriller such as this one. Afterburn is also a tale that takes its time; a story that does not feel required to advance at a frantic pace. In my opinion the characters are well defined. CH spends a lot of time acquainting us with their thoughts, feelings and behavior. The problem for some readers might be that no one in the book is very likeable. The plot circles slowly around an event that happened prior to the beginning of the book. A truckload of stolen air conditioners is intercepted by the police, and one of those involved, Christina Welles, serves some prison time for her bad behavior. Near the beginning of the book she is released from prison. Other characters are introduced chapter by chapter, and we begin wondering how they will all be tied together. While it would be difficult to identify with any of them, they do arouse your curiosity. What particularly intrigued me was the increasing feeling that some, if not all, of the main characters might meet with disaster. But you are never sure who will survive, and who will not. There is also an important mystery in Afterburn that you do not become aware of until the second half of the book. It then begins to slowly grow until you are caught up in a new wave of suspense. In my opinion this Colin Harrison novel is on a par with the rest of his works: an excellent, ingenious tale. I've got to side with the professional critics who raved about the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Tragic
Review: Afterburn was my first Colin Harrison book. You discover quickly that he is a talented writer, and the story starts off with a bang. Unfortunately, the tale degenerates into a web of depressing subplots involving characters whose personal tragedies are almost painful to watch unfold. Everyone's sins come back to haunt them in a big way.
With some social commentary from the author leaking through in several places, you begin to wonder if he really has this bleak a view of the human condition. All in all, a well-written book, but you better have a copy of a Dave Barry book nearby to read to recover from the experience.
Rating:
Summary: What a shame.
Review: Afterburn's descriptions and the metaphors Harrison employs are remarkably vivid and unusual. The characters are interesting and well developed, too, and the plot twists were engrossing. The ending, however, was perhaps the most unsatisfying downer I have ever read, and it ruined this otherwise fine book for me. I'm still scratching my head as to how the author (and the reader) could invest so much in a lead character, only to have him meet the fate that's dealt out in this book with infinitely less resourcefulness and results than he (the character) demonstrates in the preceding 400+ pages. I don't demand happy endings, but I don't think that what was done here was true to the character.
Rating: 
Summary: dynamite
Review: We read stories because they take us to places we may never go. Harrison's characters are so powerful that we become voyeurs in this strange, dark world he has created. We may not like that world, we may never want to be a part of it, we may squirm through the torture scenes, but the pages whisper as they turn. Hours race by. With Harrison, you are THERE. Afterburn is dynamite.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint of heart
Review: Afterburn is my first exposure to this author, and I can see why this novel generates the strong sentiments, both positive and negative, that it has. Let's start with the obvious-Colin Harrison is a brilliant writer and Afterburn is a daring book. It is not your average cookie-cutter feel good run-of-the-mill thriller. And that's the problem for the people who hated it. The sex, the violence and the torture are all so vividly portrayed that you shrink away from the words even as you read them. But if you're daring, and if you can appreciate the word smithing that underpins Afterburn, then you'll enjoy it. If not, you'll hate it. I came down firmly in the enjoy/admire category.
Rating:
Summary: Sex and Violence
Review: Colin Harrison is a talented writer. Bodies Electric and particularly Manhattan Nocturne are smart, sharp thrillers, spiky and resonant. Much of Afterburn is well-written, yet somehow it is kind of a dreadful book. The much-discussed-in-this-space sex and violence weren't the problems for me -- I thought the sex scenes were fun and the violence genuinely harrowing -- hey, it's a thriller. In a better conceived story they would have helped, not hurt, the narrative. But when you turn the final page, there's little else to remember: the "climax" basically consists of endless pages of description of a random number scheme, the book ends with a thud, and you realize there's been precious little story involved, even from the outset. In some misguided quest for realism or spasm of self-indulgence, the author seems to have forgotten that he's writing a pulp thriller. How do we know this? He's got pulp characters, pulp situations, pulp dialogue. Pulp sex and violence. Good ones, at that. But he has no story to give them shape and resonance, just a long, long, set-up and then a depressingly random series of events that conspire against (almost) everyone. And every bit of it, from Vietnam to prison to Manhattan to the above-mentioned number scheme, eventually becomes alarmingly over-detailed. Many self-conscious Dickens references don't make for a Dickens novel. Yes, you can abandon story in literary fiction, but in pulp, no matter how well-wrought, without it all you have left is, well, sex and violence.
Rating: 
Summary: A mixed bag
Review: Harrison's other novels have been among the best written and most compelling of recent mysteries. This book had many readable elements, but falls apart in the closing chapters. One of the subplots, involving artifical insemination, could easily have been dropped, as well. Nonetheless, when it's good, it's very good. Harrison writes vividly and knows how to move a story along. The violence, as in his other books, is not for the squeamish.
Rating: 
Summary: Vile
Review: Harrison cannot create a believeable character, weave a credible plot,...(little difference in this book and for all I know the gutter of his mind). A book that invites, no, demands the question: how did it get published? Why did it get published? Is there no justice? It's interesting to note that the "professional" reviewers praised this stinker to high heavan, perhaps because Mr Harrison is "deputy editor" at Harper's, that wheezing moribund of a certain type of Northeastern liberalism that the rest of the United States left to die in its own contradictions many, many moons ago. The "average reader" is of course smarter -- giving this mutt of a novel the minimal stars, with all the implied sneers and contempt, it deserves.
Rating:
Summary: Horrid.....hopefully an aberration
Review: I read Harrison's earlier novels "Bodies Electric" and "Manhattan Nocturne" and enjoyed them very much, so I was really looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, "Afterburn" was a tremendous disappointment for me. The beautifully descriptive writing style evident in his earlier works is utterly lacking here. Perhaps it was just the shift from the first-person perspective in the earlier books to the third-person here, but the writing here is very plodding, prosaic, and workmanlike. Worse than that though, is the incredibly graphic and gratuitous sex and violence upon which Harrison dwells throughout "Afterburn". Hey, I like reading a nicely written erotic passage as much as anybody--I thought the 'sex scenes' in "Bodies Electric" were some of the hottest I'd ever read--but this book went way beyond eroticism. I'd suggest that, next time, Harrison might do better to leave a bit to the imagination and not provide us the equivalent of a gynecological exam. Violence? Well, after the 3rd or 4th multi-page torture scene, I started skimming rather than reading....as well as wondering if Harrison's apparent fascination with the intricacies of torture were an indication that he's a crazed sadist...or just a burned-out novelist trying to overcompensate for the loss of having something to say.
Rating:
Summary: A throwaway
Review: I too did not finish this book. It had a compelling start, but soon fell into needless gratuitous sex and violence. Certainly isn't worth any media praise it received. I never throw books away, but this one found its way to the trash bin. Wouldn't want anyone I respect finding it in my library.
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