Reviews

Nova Swing by M. John Harrison

nigellicus's review

5.0

Found this a bit if a slog, to be honest. Not sure why. I quite like Harrison, and he seems a good fit after a Mieville. This is the science fiction novel as mood piece, a piece of improvised jazz noir - I think it says that somewhere on the cover. The space-port setting is amazingly atmospheric, the surreal but ultimately meaningless labyrinth like something out of Borges provides a sort of abstract null attractor at the book's centre, a void of meaning that replicates the moral void at the heart of noir. The writing is cool and clipped, shiny and sharp as diamonds, like something uttered laconically from the corner of the mouth of a PI poet staking out a street corner or holding up a bar nursing his drinks and his scars. Kinda brilliant really, even if it took me a while to get in the mood.