The Centauri Device

The first Harrison novel I have been disappointed by. The author himself is on record as saying that this is probably his worst book, and he's right. A space opera with a hero who gets thrown from one chaotic scene to the next in search of a mysterious Device after a genocidal war, this was a turgid slog of a read. All the usual Harrison tropes are here but nothing seems to gel, to work. You end up not caring about any of the characters. I virtually forced myself to finish it which has not been the case with other Harrison stories.

Heaven knows why this was selected as part of the SF Masterworks series. It is a huge step down from the delights of Viriconium, The Course of The Heart and the Light Trilogy.

For completists only.

A bleak, nihilistic, and dark satire on the space opera genre. The drug and violence fuelled excesses of William Burroughs, meet and corrupt, shades of Banks and Reynolds. The plot is weak, the characters shallow, and the (anti-)hero totally miserable and unlikeable. All of this buried in impenetrable, florid prose.

An SF classic? May have been when it was written in 1974, but now it's just wearisome.

Don't read this, unless you are particularly masochistic . Score 1.5