Light

Rating:
Summary: A sublime read
Review: Super realistic and surrealistic at the same time, this novel has a feel to it as the reality itself - virtual islands of meaning in the overall absurdity transcending human understanding. Intellectually energizing and challenging.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Thanks to its catchy cover and the strong endorsements of a "who is who" in science fiction writing I picked up this book in a local bookstore. Especially the suggestion of combining quantum mechanics with fiction seemed interesting, yet in all this book was quite a disappointment. As so often, an author uses a poor application of scientific/futuristic "special effects" not to aid or develop a strong narrative, but to disguise a rather poor one.

Combining three tales, one in the present, two in the future, the author offers us a convoluted and chaotic book, that only shows some sense of order in its final entirely lackluster pages. While I have enjoyed fractured narratives from the likes of Pynchon, Foster Wallace and recently Mitchell, Harrison can't help but use this technique to add insult to injury. While he often tries to be snappy and pseudo-intellectual, I am afraid that massive doses of psychotropic pharmaceuticals will be required to mistake this writing for successful.

Yet, I must admit, there are passages that in their randomness have moments of a poetic flow that hint at the author's talent. Unfortunately, these passages end up as diamonds in the dirt of a story that in the end is empty and bland.


Rating:
Summary: mixed feelings
Review: While reading this book, I kept changing my mind over whether I liked it or not, sometimes while on the same page. In this book, the author mixes some good writing about the nature of human existence with banality: some sections read like cyberpunk parody, the humor did not work in this context, and the overemphasis on sex was basically childish. All the females were promiscuous, neurotic, and man-dependent, which is strange to see in a book mostly taking place in the future. (To be fair, the males were at least equally aimless and pathetic.) At the end I still felt undecided: the book was distasteful and none of the characters were very likable, but I was still impressed by how he pulled their stories together.