Nova Swing

Written by M. John Harrison

Narrated by Jim Frangione

A highly acclaimed author, M. John Harrison is well known for his reality-bending tales. In this sci-fi noir, the physics-defying Saudade Event Site is a place to find strange landscapes and seemingly impossible physical phenomena-perfect for tourism. Into this environment comes Vic Serotonin, a "travel agent" whose newest client is a mysterious woman with a hidden agenda. "The miracle ... Harrison performs is to expand the possibilities of perception." -Guardian (UK)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 10, 2008
• ISBN: 9781436184021

M. John Harrison

MICHAEL JOHN HARRISON is the author of, among others, the Viriconium stories, The Centauri Device, Climbers, The Course of the Heart, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, Signs of Life, Light and Nova Swing. He has won the Boardman Tasker Prize (Climbers), the James Tiptree Jr Award (Light), the Arthur C. Clarke Award (Nova Swing) and the Goldsmiths Prize (The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again). He lives in Shropshire.

Reviews for Nova Swing

[kale.dyer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A bizarre world, an enjoyable and well written read.

[bob_kemp_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this in parts compelling and baffling on first reading. It's a kind of SF noir that picks up on the same universe delineated in Light, one in which unimaginably old and intelligent civilisations have messed with the quantum fabric of the universe and caused uncontrollable ruptures in space-time. Impacted on this are various members of a decadent and scattered human race, scratching out a living by stealing unimaginable arefacts from the discontinuity. The noir references are fun, the characters unusually sympathetic, and there is a darkly satirical commentary on our own consumption-led society threaded through it.

[marklacy-355086 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not nearly as interesting or exciting as I had hoped. None of the dialogue made any sense to me. I was hoping to learn more about the "event site" but didn't. The ending seemed totally useless. Surprised I stuck with it.

[maura853 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Harrison's strategy for dealing with the perennial "second volume in the trilogy" challenge doesn't come clear until very near the end, but fortunately, the build up to that moment when we say "Oh, riiiight, now I see where we've been going -- and, maybe, where we're going from here" is never less than entertaining, if at times a little confusing.

I'd like to reread this, one day soon -- having also reread Light, the first novel in the Kefahuchi Tract Trilogy. I told myself, as I started on this, that it wasn't necessary to remember the fine points of Light, as this is set some time in the future (why do I think it's as much as 400 years? Am I making that up?) from the first novel, and the only references to the characters and events of that novel are unreliable memories and sidelong glances. But by the end, I began to realize that I might have been wrong, and I might get a better, more satisfying handle on the events of this novel if I'm clearer on how (to mis-quote Gladiator, which I am always happy to do) what we do in one life will echo in the next.

With all that in mind, a few random observations:

I LOVE Saudade. Harrison's world-building is never less than clever and convincing, in a weird, over the top sort of way. If you have to live in a city that has been blighted by being on the edge of the incursion of a spooky, reality-bending alien site, you want it to be Saudade.

I love Harrison's causal knowledgeableness of classic SF and fantasy. I probably missed 90% of his off-hand references, but the 10% of those I caught made life worth living .... Just one (page 142 of my edition): The night's weather pursued him from bar to bar, The World of Today to The Breakaway Station, lacquering his hair across his reddened face ...

Two pages later, he mentions a tour ship heading off to "The Planet of the Alphane Moons." I love you, M. John Harrison.

I don't love that my friend M. John can be a little, hmmm, withholding, plot point-wise. Obviously, what's going on between small-time crook Vic Serotonin, Detective Lens Aschemann, and crime kingpin Paulie DeRaad (Do you love the names? If you don't, you are dead to me ...) is the McGuffin of all McGuffins (until it's not ...), but I have to confess that I was a bit startled when I realized that the crime Aschemann is investigating is actually a serial killer, with a very distinctive MO. Might have been told that a bit earlier, I think ...

I adore the references and allusions to The Strugatsky Brothers' Roadside Picnic. Even if it wasn't anything more than a wonderful tribute to one of my favorite novels (and it is, it is ...), it brilliantly takes the ideas developed by the Strugatskys from 1970s Soviet Union to the world of today.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A bizarre world, an enjoyable and well written read.

[revslick_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you've ever imagined what Schrodinger's box would look like if it were a world, then this is it. Harrison is an amazing world builder of the bizarre. I found myself even having dreams of this alter-reality. Unfortunately, his characters and story are lacking. I loved the world, but found myself disinterested in the characters and eventually cared less about the story.

[kevinashley_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is of a type that one rarely, if ever, encounters - a sequel that is utterly different in style and form to its predecessor. Nova Swing explores a patch of universe affected by the Kefahuchi tract that was introduced in 'Light'. But it isn't a sequel in a narrative sense, and I don't believe you need to read one before the other or indeed read them in any particular order.I did, however, read 'Light' first, some years ago. I loved it. For me, 'Nova Swing' doesn't live up to it. It's a conscious attempt to pastiche a noir detective story and it has many of the characters and plot devices familiar to them, translated to suit the unusual setting of a world which the Kefahuchi tract penetrates at one point. There are weary detectives, good-hearted prostitutes, bar owners good and bad, prize fighters and carnival-like environs. And cats. Lots of ghostly cats.It's entertaining in parts, amusing in some and it contains some new ideas. Not all of them are worked through to my satisfaction, and so I ended up disappointed that I had had a good read where I expected a great one. If you don't expect so much, you'll probably get a lot more from this.

[tnt4tek · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's hard to characterize these latest entries from M. John Harrison. The setting of the universe butted up against the Kefahuchi Tract doesn't so much drive the plot as it allows Harrison to examine human nature as it might exist in a waking dream. The emotions of his players are not a product of the universe but we are informed about them by the way they interact with the strangeness that surrounds them. The characters, a "tour" guide, a former entradista and thrill seeker, an affable detective and his hard as nails counterpart, each react to the Saudade "event site", a place where your expectations of reality are fractured into a million psychedelic pieces, in ways that inform us of the authors vision of human curiosity and frailty. The continuous theme of these two works is the nature of reality and our place within it. Here, the Saudade event site serves as the vehicle to contemplate our segregation of the realistic and the imaginative. Those who venture into the site struggle not to succumb to it's weird visions but are drawn in by curiosity. At the same time, the site is expelling wide-eyed creatures full of possibility who struggle not to be swallowed by harsh reality.Harrison is clearly intrigued by the possibility that reality could be explained in code or mathematical equations. And with that possibility comes the ability to affect nature purely by manipulating said code. One of the biggest let downs in this follow-up was failure to build on some of the revelations on the nature of humanity given to Ed Chainese by the Shrandor at the end of Light. In fact, aside from a few casual instances, the events depicted in Light are never mentioned.This book is a hard read and is demanding of the reader. If you are interested in exploring the quirks of humanity that the story presents, you'll enjoy Harrison's narration of his characters plights. If you're looking for an easy read on a summer afternoon, this may not be your cup of tea.

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Unlike its predecessor "Light," which rather annoyed me by coming off as being half of one novel, half of a second, and a quarter of yet another, this exercise in noir surrealism worked quite well for me in terms of coming to a satisfactory climax. This is over and above its virtues of further developing Harrison's bizarre melieu and in having characters with a sympathetic side, despite their tics. If I'm marking this novel down for anything it's that a little noir goes a long way for me, and there are times when it felt like Harrison was laying on the cliches a bit too thick.

[bobnolin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

In preparation for reading Nova Swing, I re-read Light, since this book takes place in the same "universe." And I'd completely forgotten what Light was about. Light made more sense the second time around, though there are some things that seem to be deliberately left unexplained, which I find annoying. For example, many times the book references the "Tate-Kearney equations", and we see Tate and Kearney in the present-day section, but Harrison never shows us the moment they make their momentous discovery. Their equation apparently enables FTL travel, so it seems like rather a big deal. But all we are shown is the bizarre relationship between Tate and Kearney dissolving. And then Tate himself dissolves...weird. Did the equations do that to him? It's not clear. Clarity is replaced by implication, suggestion, and atmosphere in Harrison's work. So if you just read along and just keep driving when you hit those logical speed bumps, you'll be fine. Another example I have to mention is the Shadow Operators. What are they? They're amusing, but we have absolutely NO IDEA what they are, and yet here are again Nova Swing, and Harrison still refuses to give us even a clause's worth of explanation. Just a few words would do. Anyway, this is turning out to be a review of both Light and Nova Swing, but mostly Light, since I read it twice and only got halfway through NS before returning it to the library unfinished. Though these books are in the same universe, they really have little to do with each other. On top of that, they are each different sub-genres of SF. Light is an attempt to mix mainstream realism with SF, sort of like if Iain Banks had taken writing lessons from Raymond Carver. For his next outing, Harrison apparently thought he'd mix up SF with Noir. The result was not nearly as successful, reading more like Guy Noir, Private Eye than Hammett. When Harrison uses (apparently without irony) the line "he was all over it like a cheap suit," I closed the book. This is a cartoon, not a novel. If the author isn't going to take his work seriously, why should I? He's just playing around. One final note: people seem to throw up at the drop of a hat in this guy's books. What's up with that? I mean, like every other page, someone is losing their lunch, and usually you have no idea why.

[jaygheiser · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Compelling read. Very postmodern future in which nothing quite happens and life is meaningless.

[clong_818048 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Harrison is an author who more often than not makes you work to figure out what’s happening, rather than simply telling you what’s happening. This typically makes for slow and engaged reading, with a payoff which has just about always worth the effort. In his books it often feels like, just as you’re getting a handle on the strange world he’s created, important things mutate in surprising ways.Having said that, Nova Swing is the easiest to follow of the several of his books that I have read to date. It is more conventional in construction and offers a reasonably straightforward plot. Which is not to deny that it’s a story about bizarre characters in a bizarre setting doing bizarre things. As with everything I’ve read from this author, what plot there is takes a back seat to imagery and atmosphere and characterization. Vic Serotonin and Lens Aschemann are the two most interesting of a varied and sympathetic cast of characters. This book owes an obvious debt to the Brothers Strugatsky’s memorable novel Roadside Picnic.