Light is a science fiction novel written by M. John Harrison and published in 2002. 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.
"Light" won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2002.
Plot summary
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. 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, but the one she prefers appears to human eyes as the body of an old woman in a maroon wool coat, with a horse's skull for a head. It is hinted that this approximates to her original form.
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.
Harrison wrote a partial sequel, Nova Swing, which was published in 2006. Set a generation after the events of Light, it deals with characters alluded to in Light.
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