disambiguation
by uzwi
Just to reiterate, because people still turn up here looking for it:
The novel called Pearlant, which was to be published by Gollancz in April 2012, is now entitled Empty Space & will be published by Gollancz in May/June 2012.
Pearlant was the working title. By the time I’d finished, I didn’t like it. No one else liked it either. I thought I’d call it Black Heart. Characters of mine have been drinking Black Heart Rum since “The Gift” in 1987, although they only got going in earnest in 2001. But Gollancz turned out to be publishing another novel called Black Heart in the same month. So I reverted to the working title for Light, which I always liked because space isn’t empty at all.
Empty Space is the third & final book in the Light setting. It suggests that I always had a plan, albeit of the usual mad, half-hidden kind. If you didn’t like Light because of the sex, don’t get Empty Space. If you didn’t like Light because of a perceived “coldness” don’t get Empty Space. If you can’t navigate yourself morally, politically & emotionally without three sentences of direction for every sentence that furthers the action, don’t get Empty Space.
Oh, & we have an outstandingly raw-looking cover design.
the m john harrison blog 
Light is one of the best books I’ve read. Am so looking forward to Empty Space.
Can’t wait for this now. Nova Swing was hilarious and stunning. And Empty Space is a great title for the final book in the sequence.
I hope they’re not leaving you in charge of marketing.
What Julian said.
Enticing, not? But since I liked the sex of Light, liked the perceived coldness and navigated morally, politically and emotionally without three sentences — no, lost downriver between the delta and those silted-up tributaries — looking forward to reading Empty Space anyway. Can’t be worse than the author’s anti-blurb
Sex, coldness, and an utter lack of handholding.
Be still my heart.
I’ve been waiting for news like this for years!
You’ve pretty much ruined the rest of literature for me, Mr. Harrison. (Everyone else seems to treat their readers like children crossing a highway, and the hotel windows don’t open.)
Hope you’re pleased with yourself!
So, this is probably the wrong place to ask, but I want to present a short story of yours at a fiction writing workshop in New York. I love ‘Running Down’ (of Things That Never Happen) so I’m shooting in the dark here: in case you read this and you’re in a procrastinating mood, maybe you could point me to where I can find it – or any of your stories for that matter – in digital format. I’d scan it but everything I own of yours is heavily underlined and bescrawled – enough to ruin the virgin experience.
Rock!
Re: “If you… don’t get Empty Space.”
You missed one: “The Pope says it’s very naughty.”
Your antimarketing has worked. I must now buy and reread all the series to prove I can withstand everything you can throw at me….:P
looking forward to getting lost in realms I’ve never considered before, without moral or philosophical oars, up the river, space lanes, or English bit of grit & green with bleeding colors and empty space
Antimarketing: the new black. But I suppose the crux of my polite advice lies in that cascading “if”.
@Ina Grix: “Running Down” isn’t on the web I’m afraid. But you can find some stuff, including “The East”, here–
http://www.freesfonline.de/authors/M.%20John_Harrison.html
Personally I think Pearlant is a more interesting title, but whatever- every one of your logic gates has made me more excited for the novel. Can’t wait!
The cover @Amazon: mind struggled to get a purchase there. I sensed the whole novel twisted inside. And not. And seeping out. Would be great fun to watch browsers snag themselves on it, move on, forget, not quite sure what had just happened to them, infected. Take a look….http://www.amazon.co.uk/Empty-Space-Kefahuchi-Tract-Trilogy/dp/0575096306/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328047111&sr=8-1
I searched google for “Pearleant” and was scared since I could not find it any more… Puh, noch mal Glück gehabt :D. I am so much looking forward to the book. Any Idea when it will be published in German? Please, if you have any influence so far, make that Marianne and Hendrik Linckens will translate Black Herat too! Best German prose since… well, ever maybe 😀
Hi Lars. I hope Empty Space will be published in German sometime in 2013. I imagine it will be translated by Marianne & Hendrick Linkens, who translated Licht & Nova.
@ uzwi
Thank you!