Details
Synopsis
In this novel by British New Wave author M. John Harrison, Mick "China" Rose is in love with Isobel Avens, who harbors an obsession with birds and flying. China, in turn, is obsessed with the magnetic and somewhat psychotic Choe Ashton, his partner in a cell culture and virus courier service, who convinces China to participate in dangerous and illegal activities. China loses Isobel, who undergoes a radical transformation as the courier service starts going under, but China is still unable to free himself from Choe's influence.
| Size | | Length: | 255 pages | | Height: | 9.0 in | | Width: | 5.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 14.4 oz |
Industry Reviews
"Harrison writes well about love and loss, about the sense of bereavement that follows the break-up of a relationship. But the most impressive feature of this book is not the insights into the nature of love, but the quality of the prose, which is intensely sensual and concrete, minutely attentive to textures, colours, odours....When you write with the uncommon brilliance of M. John Harrison you can be forgiven almost anything."
Times Literary Supplement - Liam McIlvanney (05/30/1997)
"Childhood offers few pleasures more satisfying than closing a book and immediately turning back to the first page, to begin reading it all over again....In the last 15 years I can think of only two novels I've surrendered to thus: Robert Stone's 'Children of Light' and William Gibson's 'Neuromancer'. To this short list, now add M. John Harrison's 'Signs of Life', a coup-de-theatre which brings the curtain up on an adult tale of obsession, sexual and otherwise, and by novel's end lets it crash down onto all of late-century Europe....'Signs of Life' is an irresistible harbinger of the world we're entering, and an elegy for the one we've lost."
Washington Post Book World - Elizabeth Hand (09/28/1997)
"To my mind, this sudden leap into science fiction--the revelation of feathers and wings and altered metabolism--changes the entire trajectory of the novel. Ursula Le Guin has said that one of the virtues of science fiction is its ability to make metaphors literal. Once Isobel's dream of flight enters the realm of (fictional) possibility, the reader sees her in an entirely different light. What had seemed aimless now seems purposeful; what had seemed foolish now seems brave, even heroic."
New York Times Book Review - Gerald Jonas (11/02/1997)
"Hardcore SF readers may find this one impossible to get through, while hardcore readers of the mainstream may become uneasy with its occasional leaps of imagination. But anyone willing to accept the book on its own quirky terms is in for a bravura achievement, as Harrison wanders a (very) British, (very) literary landscape whose characters sometimes cross into out own field, as their lives take on strange new dimensions."
Locus - Faren Miller (06/01/1997)
"His books are fictions of elegant delirium, dark and transcendent by turns....An extraordinary writer."
Publisher's press materials - Clive Barker
"Like all good literature, Harrison's stories are worth reading again and again: the more you read, the more you understand."
Publisher's press materials - Iain Banks
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