As well as being based on a failure to understand the limitations of language as a communications tool (or indeed the limitations of a traditional idea of what communication can achieve), I think that kind of writing is patronising to the reader and I’m surprised to find people talking about “actively reading” these texts when they seem to mean the very opposite of it. When you read such obsessively-rationalised fiction you are not being invited to interpret, but to “see” and “share” a single world.

I don’t see this happening in worldbuilding fiction. “The writer – as opposed to the worldbuilder – must therefore rely on an audience which begins with the idea that reading is a game in itself. There’s a provoking quote by Harrison floating around on the web, although the original post seems deleted: “For the detictive, he thought, nothing is ever only itself.” I will look into some of these matters in the remainder of this text – not so much a traditional review, but an essay using interviews and reviews to ponder this particular branch of literature & art. But I’m not sure if Empty Space works as a political-poetic manifesto. I agree with Harrison that we should be aware of the artificiality of our fictional entertainment. I’m still interested in the politics & epistemics & metaphysics & biology of representation and language.

And I’m still interested in these matters. Maybe I’ve overdosed on postmodern deconstruction at university? Then again, that was over 20 years ago. For me, there was not enough story, and too much meta-puzzle. The same goes for the emotional level: he is an expert in painting characters with only a wee bit of language.īut besides all that, I have come to realize the particular game Harrison plays in this particular novel simply does not interest me. On a scene level, he manages to evoke much – technically he’s brilliant.

On a sentence level, Harrison is a master, a poet. I can see why, but no – more on that later. Paul Kincaid has called the entire trilogy “the most significant work of science fiction to have appeared so far this century” in the LA Review of Books. The novel got glowing reviews on Speculiction and A Sky of Books and Movies. And I plan to read a whole lot more of Harrison too.īut I stopped reading Empty Space at 60% in. I liked everything I’ve read by Harrison so far: Light, Nova Swing, the 2017 short story collection You Should Come With Me Now, and his latest 2020 novel The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again.

Light by m john harrison