Empty Space: A Haunting

by M. John Harrison

Overview

EMPTY SPACE is a space adventure. We begin with the following dream:

An alien research tool the size of a brown dwarf star hangs in the middle of nowhere, as a result of an attempt to place it equidistant from everything else in every possible universe. Somewhere in the fractal labyrinth beneath its surface, a woman lies on an allotropic carbon deck, a white paste of nanomachines oozing from the corner of her mouth. She is neither conscious nor unconscious, dead nor alive. There is something wrong with her cheekbones. At first you think she is changing from one thing into another - perhaps it's a cat, perhaps it's something that only looks like one - then you see that she is actually trying to be both things at once. She is waiting for you, she has been waiting for you for perhaps 10,000 years. She comes from the past, she comes from the future. She is about to speak...

EMPTY SPACE is a sequel to LIGHT and NOVA SWING, three strands presented in alternating chapters which will work their way separately back to this image of frozen transformation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780575096332
Publisher:	Orion
Publication date:	07/19/2012
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	891,364
File size:	487 KB

About the Author

M. John Harrison (1945 - ) Michael John Harrison is the author of, amongst others, the Viriconium stories, The Centauri Device, Climbers, The Course of the Heart, Signs of Life, Light and Nova Swing. He has won the Boardman Tasker Award (Climbers), the James Tiptree Jr Award (Light) and the Arthur C. Clarke Award (Nova Swing). He lives in Shropshire.

Editorial Reviews

An extraordinary writer

From the Publisher

The latest novel by an award-winning sf novelist and consummate stylist ties together three stories drawn from the universe of Light and Nova Swing. Anna, an elderly English widow whose mind has begun to slip, sees omens and strange visitations in her otherwise mundane life. Hundreds of years later, Nova Swing, a space freighter, carries an illegal artifact of an unknown alien race; the consequences are both unexpected and gruesome. On another planet, a policewoman attempts to piece together elements of a crime that seems to defy the laws of physics. As the three stories intertwine, a new reality develops that touches forever the lives of those involved. VERDICT Harrison's elegant language creates crisply surrealistic visions and rivals the best mainstream fiction writers for literary excellence. His complex novel is not for the casual reader but provides serious reading for the thinking sf fan, particularly those who are familiar with the other series titles.

Library Journal