Light (Kefahuchi Tract, #1) by M. John Harrison

Light by M. John Harrison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My review from 2015
The introductory novel of the trilogy by M. John Harrison weaves the lives of the three protagonists who are separated either temporally or spatially – from the present day to the future, and, from Earth to the edges of the quantum anomaly called Kefahuchi Tract, which is a “singularity without an event horizon, the wrong physics loose in the universe”.
Trying to comprehend the quantum theory concepts that permeate the yarn is not an easy task. Uncertainty and Exclusion Principles, Planck’s constant, Wave-particle duality, Schrodinger’s Cat, Bosons, quarks and spin are just too confounding for a non-physicist. The Kindle version from Amazon.in was helpful in understanding many incomprehensible topics.
The present day protagonist becomes a serial murderer of women like Jack the Ripper. The catalyst is a pan-dimensional malevolent entity leaving a trail of mucus and other such yucky secretions. SF cliches like space rogues peddling earth-heroin cut with the ribosomes of a tailored marmoset, man-machine bio-physical interfaces, compulsive onanism, extreme genetic engineering, worm holes and faster than light travel abound the yarn, making it a compulsive read.
The novel begs the question – do people fighting their personal demons or psychiatric illnesses have some sort of quantum instability rather than a neurotransmitter imbalance in their brains?

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