Light (novel)
First UK edition
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| Author | M. John Harrison |
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| Cover artist | Chris Moore |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Gollancz |
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Publication date
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31 October 2002 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback and Paperback) |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 53391657 |
| Followed by | Nova Swing |
Light is a science fiction novel by M. John Harrison published in 2002. It received the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and a BSFA nomination in 2002, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2003.
The book centres on the lives of three individuals — the physicist (and serial killer) Michael Kearney, on the verge of a breakthrough in theoretical physics sometime in 1999; Seria Mau Genlicher, the cybernetically-altered female pilot of a "K-ship", and the ex-space pilot and adventurer Ed Chianese. Seria Mau and Ed's stories take place in the year 2400 AD.
The lives of these three individuals are linked in many ways, though most tangibly by the presence of a mysterious creature called The Shrander, who appears in many guises to all three characters throughout the novel (with anagrammatic names of Sandra Shen and Dr. Haends). They are also linked by the Kefahuchi Tract, a space-time anomaly described as "a singularity without an event horizon", an object of awe and wonder that has been the ruin of many civilisations attempting to decode its mysteries.
The Shrander takes many forms, most often with the body of an old woman in a maroon wool coat, with a horse's skull for a head which may be similar to its original form. Harrison appears to have taken his inspiration for this strange entity from the legend of the Mari Lwyd, a creature with a horse's skull for a head, bedecked in ribbons, that features in the ancient folklore of Gwent and Glamorgan.
Elements of Light originally surfaced in Harrison's short fiction, particularly the stories "The Horse of Iron and How We Can Know It" and "The Incalling". The former contains prototypes of the Shrander and Kearney characters, whilst the latter deals with the Sprakes, a clan of dubious urban magicians. Both stories are available in the collected volume of Harrison's short fiction, Things That Never Happen.
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