Nods Head Vigorously

Via Emerald City, Roz Kavney's five hundred words about M. John Harrison (scroll up for an interesting observation about Osama Bin Laden's lack of historical perspective, which for all its cleverness strikes me as rather missing the point). Kavney succinctly lays out everything that makes Harrison such a challenging, often frustrating but always irresistible author. I almost wish I could quote the whole entry, but here's a good pull-quote:
Science fiction is all about the fulfilment of wishes and Harrison is all about the vanity of human wishing and the shabby consequences of answered prayers. He is one of our most intense moralists because he tells us the truths that we often read sf and fantasy to avoid. Where therre are victories in Harrison's work, they are moral victories and the cost is almost too much to bear. He is a poet of things ending and failing to be reborn.
Read the whole thing.

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