Skyfall - Harry Harrison

Before you ask: NO it isn't a James Bond book and NO it isn't the Alien prequel.  

 
Now that we have that out of the way I can get on with the book review.  Firstly, I have only ever read one other Harry Harrison novel.  That novel is Make Room! Make Room! which the movie Soylent Green was 'based' on, however was pretty much an entirely separate entity seeing as the whole point of the movie was shifted.  Spoiler alert... Soylent Green is people.  But not according to the book which was well written but kind of left me hanging on the whole cannibal front seeing as Soylent Green is NOT people.  In the book at least.  But I digress.  The point is that I looked at the cover of this book and wondered what lies it was spinning about it.  Maybe there isn't any spaceships and it's actually on Mars!  I damn well hoped for destruction and death, as the cover seems to promise.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I did not have high hopes for this novel.  The thing that drew me to in the first place was that it was perfect.  Not one crease in the spine, no dog eared pages and not a mark on it.  Pretty good for a book printed in 1979.  The covers were smooth and even, just like I had plucked it new off the shelf.  At once I wondered if it had ever actually been read, if anyone else had even intended to read it. Maybe it was an unwanted gift or surplus stock.  I figured that if anyone were to take this book's virginity it ought to be me.

When I say that Harry Harrison is a boring writer I think I am misunderstood.  He has a style of writing that feels as if it were written by a supercomputer, and as if he doesn't really understand human emotion or interaction.  It is dull, but factual.  I really didn't know if I could get through this book.  At one stage I was sneakily perusing my other books just in case I had a moment of weakness and gave it up.

Then it hit me.  It was like a tonne of bricks.  HOLY HELL. Characters that I almost hated for their tedious and dull existence became alive.  No Patrick! Don't let him go out into the vacuum!! Coretta you tramp, good on you for getting your rocks off! At one stage I was reading it in the work tea room when I had to cry out because a character was about to get wasted and he didn't even see it coming.  I was distraught.  I think my co-workers think I need therapy.

I honestly don't know how he did it.  The words still had the same sterile and automated feeling but something had changed.  I cared for the characters, I related to them.  I am stuffed if I know why.  I guess I could call him a 'Hump Author', not unlike J.R.R. Tolkien.  One of those people that insist on boring the hell out of you for the first 60 pages or so but if you can just get over the 'hump' it all comes together to be something spectacular.

The story is based around a joint venture by the Americans and Russians to create an ultimate power source but sending a giant rocket, filled with fuel and uranium and weighing 20,000 tonnes into orbit around earth to capture and deliver energy from the sun to Earth.  What could possibly go wrong.  A fucking lot, apparently.  It is one of those stories that Murphy tends to have a big part in, as he screws all the characters over probably laughing and he does it.  In some parts the inevitability is painful, but worth the perseverance.    

 If you are a persistent reader such as myself and if you can make it through the boredom then an exciting and, admittedly stressful, story awaits.  And trust me, it is worth the struggle. 

4 out of 5 stars