Keep Smiling With Great Minutes

17Apr08

Just like my passion for the music of Richard Thompson, I don’t readily share my enthusiasm for the writing of the British author M John Harrison. Mainly because it’s so difficult to explain why they are both so damn good. They are both more than the sum of their work. With M John Harrison its not the stories themselves or even the words it something else, maybe the space between the words, or cumulative effect of all his perfect phrases that give his narratives such a haunting aspect. Other must be catching onto him too he’s just won the Phillip K Dick award for his novel Nova Swing, the same work has captured the Arthur C Clarke award at the end of 2007. I personally prefer his Short stories to the Novels.

His climbing/virtual reality  short story “Suicide Coast” published in the early 00’s and captured here : said more about the downside of the Digital age,  our want it now culture the emptiness of  “action without consequences”  than anything else I’ve read.

He’s just published another  corker of a story  “Keep Smiling with Great Minutes” in this collection. He calls it an offensive  : but I think it chimes perfectly with the mood of our age and I’ll be re-reading it all year. Buy it : read it :  see if you agree

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Tags: BSFA, Keep Smiling with Great Minutes, M John Harrison, Suicide Coast