Customer Reviews
And how well the man writes. . . - By: Petronius, 20 Dec 2007 
Genre novels are never considered for the Booker prize. And never mind that middle-class angst is as much a genre as crime or science/weird fiction. When challenged, the keepers of the provincial book-club flame murmur disparagingly that, of course, science fiction writers are, well, not that good, are they? Certainly not the kind of work to offer ladies-who-lunchin Tunbridge Wells, with whom the publishing industry is curiously obsessed. . .as it is with celebrity, surely the publishing equivalent of hedge funds. Trouble being that publishing is infested with marketeers convinced books are the same as detergent or baked beans; that you can turn anything into a 'brand' & that the market rules, okay.
Except this is, actually, piss-poor marketing. The best companies have always sought to innovate, to lead rather than follow. But nowadays all too many publishers play follow-my-leader, scared to develop the next big thing themselves, terrified they'll miss out when someone else does.
The point being that M John Harrison ought, by now, to be one of Britain's best known, most justly celebrated, authors. Not only because he deals with complex subjects - quantum mechanics, Gnosticism, humanity's future - but because the man writes like an angel, fallen or otherwise. Nova Swing is a follow up to 'Light', which was one of the most significant novels of any genre over the past twenty years. 'Swing' deals with the (un)reality of a quantum universe, combined with a film-noir plot. It is, like all Harrison's work, beautifully written & with that seemingly effortless economy & precision which marks the truly great writer. Buy this book. Read this book. Be enthralled.
Space Noir... - By: J. Bloss, 12 Sep 2007 
Nova Swing manages to combine a number of genres - the film noir & sci-fi being the main elements. It follows the exploits of Vic Serotonin as he ventures into the forbidden zone where physics & reality are forever changing - he does this as a "tour operator" takingin the curious... & others. The novel contains many of the recurring elements of Harrison's works with beautifully described locations & complex characters. It also focusesin on many of the sub-characters - what do the events mean to them & what are they trying to achieve. If you like Harrison's work you will not be disappointed but I would recommend other novels by this author rather than coming to this novel first.
Are we all tourists these days - By: S. Bentley, 08 Aug 2007 My first (and somewhat belated) exposure to M. John Harrison came with a short story called Tourism about a character called Jack Serotonin going into a site with a woman & only Jack coming back. The story focussed on what happened to the people on the outside of the site as they waited for Jack to come back. The short story was a precursor, a taster to this novel, with a name or two changed & the plot of the first chapter mapping onto that story with a few shifts. What follows is an investigation into an outlandish world described like a detective novel. Which is fitting, as the best detective novels have a good sense of place, & Nova Swing's downbeat, downmarket setting is a very memorable world.
In a sense, the plot is secondary. The story is about the characters who inhabit this world & how they interact with it. However, I will say that the fact that Harrison includes a quote from Roadside Picnic by the Strugatskys is very telling. Had he not acknowledged this as an influence (along with a small allusion - I think - to Philip K. Dick's Clans of the Alphane Moons), I might have been a little saddened. However this story is an inversion of that one because it's about what takes place outside the site where strange things happen. It's about how society is filled these days with tourists, people who will never know what it is to be lost, how society has become so safe that it's sometimes hard to see why we keep living. Serotonin is one of the few menin this world who thrives on being lost, both inside the site &in his own life.
As ever with Harrison, there is sex, there is body horror, there is profundity. And isn't that what British SF is all about?
A worthy sucessor to Light..... - By: Mr. A. J. Whiteway, 09 Apr 2007 'Nova Swing' is M John Harrison's sequel to 2003's 'Light', a book that marked a welcome return to Science-Fiction. Harrison can be a polarising writer & 'Nova Swing' does nothing to change this.
The story is loosely related to 'Light' & concerns a cat & mouse game between detective & 'tour operator' Vic Serotonin. Serotonin risks all by routinely going into the 'event site', a place where normal laws of physics don't seem to apply & the risk to the person's mind seems huge.
Whereas 'Light' was arguably a character driven piece that wrapped three narratives into an intense conclusion, 'Nova Swing' allows its two main characters to fade into the background, instead choosing to explore the effects of the event site on the secondary charactersin the book. Initially this move can seem confusing, but to me it enabled the book to build to a much richer & ambiguous conclusion than 'Light'. Harrison's prose (as always), is a wonder & the dark noir world will feel instantly familiar to those familiar with the Cyberpunk genre.
This is a book that does not offer up any easy answers, it makes you work for them. For that alone, I highly reccomend it.
