One of the peculiar burdens of the science fiction genre—both in film and fiction—has been to uphold ideals of heroism in a society skeptical of the concept. During the very period in which literary fiction was purging itself of heroes, or embracing edgy anti-heroes, science fiction was dishing up simple, stereotypical champions of truth, justice and the American way.
Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, John Carter of Mars—such figures defined the genre, and both created and fulfilled certain expectations among the audience for sci-fi. Maybe these characters didn't wear a white hat, like the "good guys" in cowboy films, and flew a spaceship rather than ride a horse, but beneath these superficial differences, the conventions of sci-fi genre followed in lockstep the rule book established by creators of Westerns and adventure stories. Commercial considerations demanded that these tales reflect the worldview and dream life of the adolescent males who made up most of the market for science fiction stories.
This state of affairs persisted, more or less unchallenged, until the so-called "New Wave" in science fiction of the 1960s. During this period, the younger generation was challenging the assumptions of their elders in every field, and sci-fi was no exception. The rules changed under the onslaught of authors such as J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, Samuel Delany, Thomas Disch, Harlan Ellison and Brian Aldiss. Not only were heroes put out to pasture, but most of the values they espoused were questioned and found wanting. The fascination with new technologies was displaced by an obsession with new lifestyles, codes of behavior and social structures. Indeed, a novel such as J.G. Ballard's Crash could dispense with science and technology entirely— nothing more advanced than the automobile was required to propel this story of car crash fetishists— yet still seem stranger and creepier than anything a 1930s sci-fi author had ever imagined.
But like so much else from the 1960s, a movement that promised to define the future merely epitomized the passing spirit of an era. By the mid-1970s, the age of sci-fi heroism had returned with a vengeance. Star Wars (1977) became the highest grossing motion picture of all time, and spawned a mini-industry of books, merchandise and follow-up films unprecedented in cinema history. The Star Trek movie (1979) would also set a record (for largest gross receipts from an opening weekend), and even if this franchise lagged somewhat behind Star Wars in commercial impact, it set the gold standard for fan support. To this day, the word "trekkie" summons up images of devotion and obsession that only cults and religions can match.
Science fiction books inevitably felt the impact of this return to the heroic notions of an earlier day. Star Wars books were huge sellers—sales fueled by the immense success of the films—and no doubt influenced how other genre authors conceived and executed their own works. Who could be surprised that Frederik Pohl's Gateway , Hugo winner from 1978, essentially returned to the borrowed cowboy themes of an earlier day? Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game , which ranks alongside William Gibson’s Neuromancer as a defining sci-fi works of the 1980s, brought a new level of conceptual intricacy to the proceedings, but the young- man-saves-the-universe concept would be quite familiar to sci-fi fans who had already encountered Luke Skywalker…or, for that matter, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. For all intents and purposes, the rebellion of the New Wave in science fiction had been overwhelmed and almost forgotten after little more than a decade.
This lengthy preamble is necessary to understand the impact and importance of M. John Harrison’s 2002 novel Light . Here Harrison takes on board the ethos of the 1960s New Wave, updating the settings and softening some of the rougher edges—but not too many, since rough edges were inevitably defining qualities of this movement—and showing what the "anything goes" ethos of the Summer of Love might look like in the new millennium.
At the most superficial level Harrison applies this sense of "anything goes" to the scientific principles at work in his book—although readers will soon discover that they are equally applicable to the ethical imperatives and lifestyle choices of virtually every character in the work. Harrison outlines these prevailing scientific concepts as not so much a matter of human design but rather a core part of the essence of an amazingly flexible universe:
"Every race they met on their way through the Core had a star drive based on a different theory. All those theories worked, even when they ruled out one another's basic assumptions. You could travel between the stars, it began to seem, by assuming anything. If your theory gave you a foamy space to work with—if you had to catch a wave—that didn't preclude some other engine, running on a perfectly smooth Einsteinian surface, from surfing the same tranche of empty space. It was even possible to build drives on the basis of superstring-style theories, which, despite, their promise four hundred years ago, had never really worked at all."
Those familiar with the theory—or perhaps anti-theory is a better term—of science developed by philosophy Paul Feyerabend in his book Against Method will find a kindred spirit in Harrison. Feyerabend attacked Thomas Kuhn's influential theory of scientific paradigms and Karl Popper's concept of falsifiability with an extravagant and almost anarchic view of science that embraced every possible approach and system. In Feyerabend's world, you could achieve results by following standard scientific procedure, but you might also achieve breakthroughs from studying voodoo or delving into mysticism. Harrison adopts a similar perspective here, offering up the extravagant idea that almost any scientific theory will work if you believe in it deeply enough.
But the science here is just a veneer. For Harrison’s real fixation is how the ethos of "anything goes" applies to the characters of his novel. At the very beginning of Light , readers encounter a scientist, Michael Kearney, who murders a woman for no immediately apparent reason. We later learn that he is a serial killer, and two plot lines—one a standard sci-fi tale about a scientist researching a new technology, and the other about a crazy killer on the loose—coexist uneasily throughout the course of the novel. As subsequent events will prove, the unfolding plot does not require that this scientist to be a serial killer— Harrison just adds it for "color." But it’s color of shade that fits with the overall scheme of this novel, which is designed to adorn psychopathy in the most pleasing patterns possible.
Then, just ten pages into the novel, Harrison changes the scene—jumping 400 years into the future, and introducing a completely different cast of characters. These disruptions occur periodically in this novel, and one of its strong points is Harrison’s ability to connect the dots in the final pages—far beyond the point at which most readers will have despaired of the story lines ever converging. Or at least most of the dots: the reader is left with some heavy lifting to do in brining a coherent structure to this novel. Don't expect to have all of your questions answered. But, by the conclusion of Light , you may at least know what you are asking about.
Some things remain the same, even if our author changes the century, galaxy and characters. The moral ambivalence of the book’s opening persists unabated through the entire duration of the novel. Starship commander Seria Mau Genlicher takes the center stage for about a third of the book, and her personal antipathies are even more destructive than Michael Kearney’s. Our first encounter with Seria Mau finds her ruthlessly killing men, women and children in a predatory space battle. Even an allied warship commander is puzzled enough to tell her: "We wonder why you kill your own kind so ruthlessly."
The scenes and characters continue to change with rapidity throughout Light . But you will never have to worry about distinguishing between the good guys and the bad guys. It’s all relative in Harrison’s universe, and any hypothesis you might have about the possible moral underpinning at play here will be disappointed by the final outcome. There is no moral framework at work—just as there is no reigning scientific paradigm—and if there is a "hero" here, it is merely the universe which allows you to "be anything you want to be." In fact, that very slogan appears on advertising posters in Harrison’s novel.
The posters show up at a "tank farm"—a place where addicts hooked on virtual reality are immersed in vats, with their brains and nervous systems manipulated to give them imaginary experiences of various sorts. Why go to a movie if you can be part of a movie? We've seen this device before, in The Matrix for example, but in Light this substitution of wish fulfillment for lived reality is emblematic of the entire ethos of the book. When the foundations of reality are shaken enough, make believe rises in status, if only by comparison.
These distinctive factors of Light —the undermining of the concrete, the negation of the heroic, the shattering of traditional codes of behavior—will raise objections from many readers. At first glance, these objections might seem to be primarily moralistic in nature. But the issues involved here are much more complex than just a case of competing value systems. Any author needs to be cautious in presenting a story as nihilistic and solipsistic as this one. Readers are drawn into works of fiction by a sense of identification and empathetic connection with characters. Not with every character, of course—but a novel that is populated solely by narcissistic killers and deluded addicts risks collapsing into the literary equivalent of an amusement park ride. The audience gets thrills and chills, and moments of titillation, but not much more.
I give Harrison credit for working hard to avoid this dead-end. Symbols and themes are etched into this book at a very high level of sophistication—a sophistication all the more striking when compared with the seediness and absence of self-reflection of the players on stage. At first glance, you may think that this author relies too heavily on habitual phrases and pet concepts, literary mannerisms that appear again and again, almost as a crutch or tic. Why are characters always picking bits of tobacco off their lips? Why are so many people in this book climbing into tanks—no, not tanks like the Sherman and Panzer, used in warfare—but, as in the "tank farm" example above, more like the ones you need to display exotic fish? Why do cats constantly show up in scene after scene? But what appears to be lazy repetition begins to take on different overtones as Light progresses. Some of the connections and symbolic resonances are explained in the text, many others are left for readers to mull over after finishing the book. Indeed, few genre works of recent memory are more ambitious in their use of symbols.
Harrison is less daring in manipulating words than in upsetting value’s systems. But, at his best, his writing sparkles. Here is his description of a traveling circus of the 25th century: "In a time like that, who needed a circus?...Circus was in the streets. It was inside people's heads. Eat fire? Everyone was a fire-eater. Everyone had geek genes and a story to tell. Sentient tattoos made everyone the Illustrated Man . Everyone was high on some flying trapeze issue of their own…. They were their own audience, too."
This could sum up Light as a whole—a story about a society that has become a circus, and where the dividing line between normal observer and bizarre performer is nullified, and sometimes flip-flopped. And how you react to this book will ultimately be determined by how much you would enjoy immersion into a 24/7 real world circus. If the idea of "anything goes" excites and delights you, Harrison's novel will give you an adrenalin rush and plenty to ponder. But if you look in fiction for characters with whom to identify, figures to cheer on and admire, you will probably find that this author’s Light offers illumination, but not much warmth.