Empty Space / M. John Harrison

Empty Space
by M. John Harrison

science fiction

copyright 2012
read in May 2015

rated 4/10: bad but could be read

According to the blurb on the back cover, this book could be "literature of the very greatest kind".

In fact, it's rubbish.

You can tell that the author is aiming for "evocative"... He plays with words. And evokes... nothing. Try this: "The effect was of a room abandoned but not yet used." Eh?!? If it had not yet been used -- who was there to abandon it ? What are the indicators of not yet used ? No idea.

Then there's the magic... sorry... the science. A woman looks in a suitcase and...

"Immediately she felt herself transported a thousand light years from [X], out somewhere in [Y], inside an EMC outpost so secret even [Z] has difficulty finding it."

I wonder what it feels like, to be immediately transported a thousand light years ? How does this woman recognize the feeling ? Does she do it every day ? What she now sees is magic flashing lights. Yet she knows -- somehow -- that she is in an EMC secret base. And she even knows someone else who has not been able to find this base ! How super secret is that ?! Ooooohh ! Amazing !

The characters are not likeable. Mostly, they are creepy. Some are loony.

There's gratuitous sex. Well, okay, that's almost compulsory if you want to get a book published. But this sex is ugly. And unpleasant.

One woman follows a child -- she's not sure why. She meets a New Man who lives in a hut on a volcano, takes up his offer of sex -- she doesn't know why. Wakes up to find that the New Man is gone -- doesn't question it. Goes home. Eh ?!

There's also gratuitous crudity. There's the woman who has sex, squats on the sink to pee, complains to her sex partner that now she won't be able to pee for half an hour, then goes back to bed for more sex. Complains ? Why ?! What's the point of that little bit of crudity ?!

There's a thread of related incidents. Related, but not connected by logic. If it's intended to be a plot, it's as disjointed as a typical dream. And rather unpleasant.

I was half way through Empty Spaces when I picked up another book... Started reading... Realized that I was just not interested in finishing Spaces.

In fact -- it's worse than that.

You know how some books are so pathetic, or annoying, or just plain stupid, that you skip forward to the last few pages to see how it ends ? Well... I'm not even interested in doing that.

I read half. Put it down. And am not interested enough to even wonder how it all ends.

Is this really "literature of the very greatest kind" ?

I think I'd rather read a good book.