Most Popular Books by M. John Harrison

In Harrison''s dangerously illuminating new novel, three quantum outlaws face a universe of their own creation, where the rules are made up--and broken--along the way, and where there''s only one thing more mysterious than darkness.

EMPTY SPACE is a space adventure. We begin with the following dream: An alien research tool the size of a brown dwarf star hangs in the middle of nowhere, as a result of an attempt to place it equidistant from everything else in every possible universe. Somewhere in the fractal labyrinth beneath its surface, a woman lies on an allotropic carbon deck, a white paste of nanomachines oozing from the corner of her mouth. She is neither conscious nor unconscious, dead nor alive. There is something wrong with her cheekbones. At first you think she is changing from one thing into another - perhaps it''s a cat, perhaps it''s something that only looks like one - then you see that she is actually trying to be both things at once. She is waiting for you, she has been waiting for you for perhaps 10,000 years. She comes from the past, she comes from the future. She is about to speak... EMPTY SPACE is a sequel to LIGHT and NOVA SWING, three strands presented in alternating chapters which will work their way separately back to this image of frozen transformation.

Throughout his career, M. John Harrison’s writing has defied categorisation, building worlds both unreal and all-too real, overlapping and interlocking with each other. His stories are replete with fissures and portals into parallel dimensions, unidentified countries and lost lands. But more important than the places they point to are the obsessions that drive the people who so believe in them, characters who spend their lives hunting for, and haunted by, clues and maps that speak to the possibility of somewhere else. This selection of stories, drawn from over 50 years of writing, bears witness to that desire for difference: whether following backstreet occultists, amateur philosophers, down-and-outs or refugees, we see our relationship with ‘the other’ in microscopic detail, and share in Harrison’s rejection of the idea that the world, or our understanding of it, could ever be settled.

A magnificent city existing on the ringes of the past, and on the brink of destruction, Viriconium • With a foreword by Neil Gaiman Available to American readers for the first time, this landmark collection gathers four groundbreaking fantasy classics from the acclaimed author of Light. Set in the imagined city of Viriconium, here are the masterworks that revolutionized a genre and enthralled a generation of readers: The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, and Viriconium Nights. Back in print after a long absence, these singular tales of a timeless realm and its enigmatic inhabitants are now reborn and compiled to captivate a whole new generation. Praise for M. John Harrison’s Viriconium “The world that Harrison depicts is intricate and authentic, peopled with a multitude of strange yet lifelike characters—a combination which serves to make his richly imagined empire of Viriconium feel very real indeed. . . . This omnibus collection from the author of Light is canon-reading for those who wish to know the genre''s roots, as well as the heights, to which it can aspire.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Brilliant, beautiful, and absolutely essential reading. The breadth of vision and imagination alone in these books is unparalleled. It is truly one of a kind and will continue to haunt you in the best possible way for years.”—Jonathan Carroll, author of White Apples “Harrison’s Viriconium sequence is the jewel in the crown of 20th-century fantasy, a work that proves irrefutably that fantastic literature can be Art with a capital A, holding its own alongside the very finest writing of our time, or any other.”—Elizabeth Hand, author of Mortal Love “M. John Harrison is a true master of English prose. He possesses the eye of a painter, the ear of a bard, and a rigorous and playful intellect. The Viriconium novels and stories are infused with a haunting genius that never falters.”—K.J. Bishop, author of The Etched City

BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE GUARDIAN, THE OBSERVER (LONDON), GRANTA, AND TLS One of our greatest and most original living writers sets out the perils of the writing life with joyful provocation in this “anti-memoir.” M. John Harrison has produced one of the greatest bodies of fiction of any living British author, encompassing space opera, speculative fiction, fantasy, and magical and literary realism. But is there even an M. John Harrison and if so, where do we find him? This is the question the author asks in this memoir-as-mystery, turning for clues to forty years of notetaking: “A note or it never happened. A note or you never looked.” Are these notebooks records of failed presence? How do they shine a light on a childhood in the industrial Midlands, a portrait of a young artist in counterculture London, on an adulthood of restless escape into hill and moorland landscapes? And do they tell us anything about the writing of books, each one so different from the last that it might have been written by another version of the author? With aphoristic daring and laconic wit, this anti-memoir will fascinate and delight. It confirms M. John Harrison still further in his status as the most original British writer of his generation. “Wish I Was Here is a beautifully strange masterwork. It is as if M. John Harrison’s prose devises its own autobiography, while the figure of its author stands to one side tinkering at a eulogy for a dead cat, a manifesto against ruin porn, and a manual of operating procedures for creativity as funky as a Brian Eno card deck. How can this also produce a sublime fugue on memory and aging? Read it and see.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude

Set in the unique world first featured in the award-winning Light, here is a story of love, murder, and intergalactic noir on the razor’s edge of the imagination, as envisioned by the incomparable M. John Harrison. Not far from Moneytown, in a neighborhood of underground clubs, body-modification chop shops, adolescent contract killers, and sexy streetwalking Monas, you’ll find the Saudade Event Site: a zone of strange geography, twisted physics, and frightening psychic onslaughts. Vic Serotonin is an illegal “travel agent” into and out of Saudade. His latest client is a woman as unpredictable as the site itself—and maybe as dangerous. She wants a tour inside Saudade just as a troubling new class of biological artifacts have started leaving—living algorithms that are transforming the “real” world in unsettling ways. Pursued by a detective intent on collaring him for his illegal tours, and hunted by a gangster convinced that the travel agent has infected him with a rogue artifact, Vic must make one final trip as the universe around him rapidly veers toward viral chaos.

On a hot May night, three Cambridge students carry out a ritualistic act that changes their lives. Years later, none of the participants can remember what exactly transpired, but their clouded memories can''t rid them of an overwhelming sense of dread.

Shaw had a breakdown, but he''s getting himself back together. He has a single room, a job on a decaying London barge, and an on-off affair with a doctor''s daughter called Victoria, who claims to have seen her first corpse at age fourteen. It''s not ideal, but it''s a life. Or it would be if Shaw hadn''t got himself involved in a conspiracy theory that, on dark nights by the river, seems less and less theoretical . . . Meanwhile, Victoria is up in the Midlands, renovating her dead mother''s house, trying to make new friends. But what, exactly, happened to her mother? Why has the local waitress disappeared into a shallow pool in a field behind the house? And why is the town so obsessed with that old Victorian morality tale, The Water Babies? As Shaw and Victoria struggle to maintain their relationship, the sunken lands are rising up again, unnoticed in the shadows around them.

*WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2020* *A New Statesman Book of the Year* ''A mesmerising, mysterious book . . . Haunting. Worrying. Beautiful'' Russell T. Davis ''Brilliantly unsettling'' Olivia Laing ''A magificent book'' Neil Gaiman ''An extraordinary experience'' William Gibson Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2020, this is fiction that pushes the boundaries of the novel form. Shaw had a breakdown, but he''s getting himself back together. He has a single room, a job on a decaying London barge, and an on-off affair with a doctor''s daughter called Victoria, who claims to have seen her first corpse at age thirteen. It''s not ideal, but it''s a life. Or it would be if Shaw hadn''t got himself involved in a conspiracy theory that, on dark nights by the river, seems less and less theoretical... Meanwhile, Victoria is up in the Midlands, renovating her dead mother''s house, trying to make new friends. But what, exactly, happened to her mother? Why has the local waitress disappeared into a shallow pool in a field behind the house? And why is the town so obsessed with that old Victorian morality tale, The Water Babies? As Shaw and Victoria struggle to maintain their relationship, the sunken lands are rising up again, unnoticed in the shadows around them.

John Truck was to outward appearances just another lowlife spaceship captain. But he was also the last of the Centaurans, or at least half of him was, which meant that he was the only person who could operate the Centauri Device, a sentient bomb which might hold the key to settling a vicious space war. M. John Harrison''s classic novel turns the conventions of space opera on their head, and is written with the precision and brilliance for which is famed.

We''re running out of planet and we''re running out of patience. The party''s over and we''re looking for the door. But the exits are unmarked. The engines of the world are hidden from us. Ninety-six per cent of the universe is missing and the rest is stirred into motion by machinery that hides in plain sight. We''ve got to get out of this place - but how? Embracing everything from politics to polymorphism, physics & fantasy, Exit Strategies is your indispensable, (sometimes unreliable) guide to the escape tunnel. With a foreword by CERN physicist Michael Doser, and featuring stories by Jeff Noon, Kathleen Ann Goonan, and the best-selling fantasy writer Tad Williams, Exit Strategies looks for a back door to the universe over 150 pages. How much of the cosmos is real, how much an astronomer''s dream? And if we could escape from reality, what kind of utopia would we build for ourselves? Elsewhere in Exit Strategies, M. John Harrison meets a rising star of TV science, Hannu Rajaniemi considers what will happen when our books start reading us, and Claire Dean meets the artists bent on making J G Ballard''s Crystal World a reality. And in a special tribute, Adam Roberts considers the life, work and sheer sanity of the late, great Iain Banks. Every two months Arc maps the future through stories, features, essays and provocations from some of the world''s most celebrated authors from science fiction and beyond.

This eerie and visually arresting tale is set in the grotesque city of Uroconium, where Ardwick Crome dreams of a strange ritual from his childhood. The women of his village pursue a "lamb"; to eat a pie made from its head is considered good luck. But in his dream, the living animal itself is offered to Ardwick Crome, and the gift''s significance makes it too dangerous to accept...

Shaw sufrió un colapso nervioso, pero está recuperándose. Se muda a una pensión, consigue un trabajo en una cocina montada en un barco en ruinas y entabla una relación amorosa con Victoria, una mujer que suele presentarse contando que vio su primer muerto a los catorce años. La de Shaw no es perfecta, pero es una vida. O podría serlo, si su trabajo no lo involucrara en una teoría conspirativa que, en las noches oscuras junto al río, parece cada vez menos teórica y más real. Uno de los primeros encargos de su jefe es asistir al juicio público de un hombre que afirma haber visto extrañas criaturas acuáticas en el inodoro de su baño. Mientras tanto, Victoria abandona Londres y se va a vivir a una pequeña ciudad rural. Sueña con renovar la casa que heredó de su madre, estar más conectada con la naturaleza, tener nuevos amigos. Pero el sueño idílico de una vida más tranquila se choca con el día a día de la ciudad: ¿qué fue exactamente lo que le ocurrió a su madre? ¿Cómo puede ser que su nueva amiga desaparezca delante de su vista en un estanque de agua? ¿Por qué todos los vecinos parecen actuar de manera tan desconcertante y ominosa? Shaw y Victoria acumulan preguntas a una realidad que parece no tener explicación, pero quizás la respuesta esté cifrada en el título de esta novela extraordinaria. La tierra hundida ya vuelve a levantarse, celebrada unánimemente por la crítica, ganó el premio Goldsmith a la ficción innovadora y significó la consagración definitiva de M. John Harrison, maestro indiscutido del fantástico y lo inquietante. «Ningún escritor vivo escribe frases como él. Harrison es el eslabón perdido entre William Burroughs y Virginia Woolf». OLIVIA LAING «Uno de los novelistas más brillantes del momento». ROBERT MACFARLANE «Una experiencia extraordinaria». WILLIAM GIBSON «Magnífica». NEIL GAIMAN

Seit Jahrzehnten unter den Top Ten der besten SF-Bücher aller Zeiten: M. John Harrisons legendärer Roman „Das Centauri-Spiel“, mit dem der Autor des Bestsellers „Licht“ das Genre der Space-Opera revolutionierte. Ohne ihn hätte es Autoren wie Peter F. Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds oder Charles Stross nie gegeben. In erstmals ungekürzter und vollständig überarbeiteter Neuausgabe.

Hinter dem Ereignishorizont Der Wissenschaftler Michael Kearney ist mit der Arbeit an dem neuen Quantencomputer beschäftigt, als ihm zunehmend unwirkliche Erscheinungen aus seiner Vergangenheit zu schaffen machen. Vierhundert Jahre später hat eine Frau, die mit dem Bewusstsein eines Raumschiffs verbunden ist, mit demselben Problem zu kämpfen. Einem Problem, das offenbar die Struktur des Universums durchzieht. Doch dann machen beide eine unfassbare Entdeckung, die das Schicksal der Menschheit für immer verändern wird.

En una calorosa noche de Mayo, tres estudiantes de Cambridge, con la ayuda de un mentor, el enigmatico Yaxley, llevan a cabo una ceremonia ritual que revelara el misterio del Pleroma gnostico, la plenitud del ser anterior a la creacion de la materia. En los siguientes veinte anos, los tres se sentiran tan culpables que no podran recordar lo que han hecho y cada uno de ellos sera perseguido por alguna inquietante manifestacion de lo que han tocado y perturbado. El anonimo narrador se refugia en la vida cotidiana: carrera, mujer, hijo. Yaxley se hunde cada vez mas en los dominios de la magia y la perversion. Pam Stuyvesant y Lucas Medlar-- extraviados y vulnerables-- intentan descubrir el visionario esplendor de Corazon, la manifestacion del Pleroma que aparecio por ultima vez en el siglo XV, en la Europa Oriental.

From the inner realms of humanity to the far reaches of space, these are the science fiction and fantasy tales that are shaping the genre and the way we think about the future. Multi-award winning editor Jonathan Strahan continues to shine a light on the very best writing, featuring both established authors and exciting new talents. Within you will find twenty-eight incredible tales, showing the ever growing depth and diversity that science fiction and fantasy continues to enjoy. These are the brightest stars in our firmament, lighting the way to a future filled with astonishing stories about the way we are, and the way we could be. Including stories by K J Parker, Neil Gaiman, Yoon Ha Lee, Joe Abercrombie, Sofia Samatar, Greg Egan, E Lily Yu, Geoff Ryman, M Bennardo, Ramez Naam, Ted Chiang, Priya Sharma, Richard Parks, Lavie Tidhar, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Eleanor Arnason, Ian R Macleod, An Owomoyela, Karin Tidbeck, Madeline Ashby, Caitlin R Kiernan, Robert Reed, Ian Mcdonald, Val Nolan, M John Harrison, James Patrick Kelly and Charlie Jane Anders.

In a far future civilization is in decline and medieval social patterns clash with advanced technology. Lord tegeus-Chronus must save Viriconium, the Pastel CIty, from brain-stealing automatons from Earth''s past.