I was most excited for Jeff Noon’s first full-length novel in 15 years*; back in what I now think of as those carefree days of the early noughties, he was parallel with Iain M Banks as the SF author whose stuff I absolutely devoured. Even those books which didn’t form part of his Vurt cycle revolved around similar questions – the decay of old meaning and the rise of new interfaces, the interpenetration of flesh and digital. Well, not anymore. A Man of Shadows is a noir pastiche – the fedora-clad private eye with a past is hired to find a tycoon’s missing daughter, only to stumble into something far bigger – set in a city where some areas are always day, and others always night. A setting, incidentally, which I’m sure at least one other SF novel did recently, and I thought it sounded fairly silly then. Noon (one wonders if the surname was part of his inspiration for these frozen moments?) at least has the wit to realise that it’s more about temperament than wealth who’ll go for which, that Dayzone and Nocturna will both have their well-off districts and their slums, that many will divide life between the two. But by making it clear fairly early on that there’s something rum happening with the no man’s land of Dusk that divides them, he risks the whole thing starting to feel too close to Mieville’s The City and the City and that book’s rumoured third space. And the whole idea of personal timelines – akin to the personal legal systems in Ken Macleod or Ada Palmer books – never fully cohered for me as anything more than a source of confusion. Sure, there's the whole 'time is money' angle, played out in everything from the most practical ramifications (if everyone's on different timelines, work need never cease) to the memories of a 'time crash' mirroring our own financial crises. But any sense that time proper is being affected by these shenanigans, instead of just timekeeping, is too marginal to have the necessary impact. Meaning that what should be the sort of pervasive strangeness which Noon's previous books conjured up so well doesn't quite catch as anything more than the breakdown of one man running himself ragged. Which may be because, in keeping with that whole noir vibe, this is a far more sparse, less experimental prose than one expects from Noon. This setting, especially in the dreamlike final section, is exactly the sort of place in which I can see the old Noon making a real fever dream. But he seems to have left most of his linguistic playfulness on the shelf this time out. Yes, I can understand that he perhaps doesn’t want to repeat himself, and also that this is a pastiche – but what of that drawled noir idiom with its own crazy imagery? ‘She had legs that didn’t know when to quit and a smile could make the Pope turn to gin’, stuff like that? I’d have loved to see what a Jeff Noon take on that read like. Instead, it’s mostly lifeless, clipped stuff, with two uses of the term ‘cheap plaster’ - a description my wife rates as second only to ’simple necklace’ for making her likely to abandon a book.

*Though weirdly, the numbers now suggest that 2012’s Channel Sk1n was in fact 200-odd pages long, when I could have sworn it was more of a novella. Still, it was I think the first new book I ever read as an ebook, so maybe I was just less good at gauging that then.

(Netgalley ARC)

A former professor of mine was fond of saying that great art is not merely engaged with, but surrendered to. That particular quality of experience – the willing submission of the viewer to the mastery of the art object itself – is hard to nail down in words; so then, is the absence of that quality. This, in a nutshell, is the ambition of the critic – to find the words to relate that experience, or lack thereof (or the gray in between) to other potential consumers of said object.
Jeff Noon’s A Man of Shadows is undeniably a work of art, and an engaging one. Expressionistic in style, though post-modern in flavor, it often feels more like a painting than a novel: confined to its subjective space but bleeding out from its boundaries and edges, willing you to look for more than it can display. Like all art objects it asks for your surrender; like many it falls just short of obtaining it.
Though Noon is not usually associated with the movement known as the New Weird, A Man of Shadows, with its hybridized genres and skewed realities, fits the mold. The novel is set in some (future? Sideways?) version of our world, where the city of Dayzone exists in the perpetual light of an artificial neon sky, and the nearby city of Nocturna is shrouded in permanent darkness. Because the natural criteria for measuring time (the earth’s rotation and orbit around the sun) has essentially been banished from the two cities, everyone basically lives in their own personal timeline. In between the two cities is the shadowy (and gradually expanding) land known as Dusk, where strange people with terrifying abilities reside.
The story follows private detective John Nyquist, hired to find a young runaway heiress named Eleanor Bale. Eleanor’s case appears to be connected to a serial killer known as Quicksilver, who can somehow commit his murders is plain view of spectators without being seen. Nyquist becomes obsessed with protecting (or possibly killing) Eleanor, and with unmasking the enigmatic, and probably Dusk-born, Quicksilver. In the canon of fictional detectives, Nyquist is more Hammer than Holmes (or, more persistent than clever), and as a mystery it is one of those novels that plays coy with its biggest secrets until the villain is unmasked and willingly spills the beans.
Nearly every aspect of the book is immersed in Nyquist’s emotional reality. It is even suggested at one point that Dusk itself is “conjured from his own inner landscape.” I found it curious that, despite the highly subjective emotional expressionism shrouding Nyquist, I never really connected with him on a personal level. His motivations spring from a murky web of unconscious drives and pseudo-Freudian anxieties rather than anything tangibly associated with the quest he is set on.
If the world of the novel really is just an exegesis of Nyquist’s own mind, this would be the most intellectually honest rabbit hole for the author to tumble down, and as a result the book is way more head than heart. So, while it may have gotten into my skull, it never got under my skin. A Man of Shadows is still an art piece worthy of admiration, if not exhalation.
Thanks to Netgalley and Angry Robot for providing me with this ARC.

I really will never look at time passing in the same way again.

Sometimes a book comes along that just ticks every box in the “things I love about reading” stakes – A Man of Shadows is such a novel, so incredibly immersive, such brilliantly incisive descriptive prose and a set of fascinating, beautifully imagined characters – that you just dive into it with abandon and leave the real world behind.

A Man of Shadows has a decisively built world, a world of literal light dark and shade, where time is of the essence and the residents live with a kind of permanent jetlag as they jump between one timepiece and another. Into this strangely authentic place we find John Nvquist, Private Eye, damaged individual, hunting for a missing teenager and becoming entangled in a dark and dangerous web.

He is quintessentially of the 1940’s, the wonderful noir feel the author brings to proceedings is quite simply incredible considering the scifi setting and the increasingly bizarre yet compelling narrative – the dialogue is of another age yet sparkles against the advanced backdrop, all the way through this strange beauty echoes in your mind, you do live it and breathe it.

A Man of Shadows is a heady mix of science fiction, old school detective noir, horror and thriller – I was almost literally holding my breath as the final moments unfolded and I have no doubt there are some surreal dusk fuelled dreams awaiting me when I sleep tonight – I almost welcome them, so much did I enjoy this one that despite the dark nature of it I’d love to return. Oh look – this is John Nvquist 1 apparently – so I guess I should be careful what I wish for.

Surreal, dazzling, unusual and extraordinary – A Man Of Shadows will haunt you for a long time after turning that last page.

“You can walk away from events but not from your own darkness”

Highly Recommended.

This story was visually stunning. It would make a beautiful movie. I'd love to see Guillermo Del Toro take it on! It has this incredible science-fiction world building, combined with a hard-boiled detective story and a super-eerie sort of otherworldly horror. Engrossing.

One of the oldest metaphors around is light and darkness standing in for good and evil. God separated “light from darkness” in Genesis, Shakespeare’s love-besotted Romeo compared Juliet to the sun, and a Scottish prayer asks for protection from “things that go bump in the night.” In A Man of Shadows, author Jeff Noon’s electric prose and stylized imagery blur this simple idea into a fever dream of a tale about light, darkness, family, loss and time.

This review is based on an Advance Reading Copy (ARC) received through NetGalley. The book is scheduled for release on August 1, 2017.

Time plays an important role in the story — after all, isn’t day turning to night followed by a return to day simply a visible reminder of time’s passage? Time is a commodity in Dayzone, where a walk to the corner tavern can involve adjusting your watch several times, and you’ll go thirsty if you and the barkeep don’t agree it’s past opening time.

Dayzone is the city where private detective John Nyquist has his office. Called the City of Light, Dayzone is covered by millions of light fixtures of all types, creating perpetual daytime by blocking out the sky. Burned-out bulbs are replaced around the clock by ‘bulb monkeys,’ workers who climb and swing through the jungle of wires and fixtures to prevent any spot of darkness. In one of my favorite passages, Nyquist takes to the stairs of his office building, going floor by floor in hopes of catching a glimpse of the actual sky above the layer of fixtures.

Nyquist is working the case of a teenage runaway, a girl whose family said she had become afraid of the dark. Like many of the folks who work in Dayzone, including Nyquist, the girl’s home is in Nocturna, a suburb shrouded in perpetual darkness. The bulbs in the artificial firmament over Nocturna are nearly all burned out; the few still lit are viewed by residents as faux stars. Eliminating the visible passage of time hasn’t made either city wholly good or wholly evil. For example: Quicksilver, a serial killer who has never been seen, strikes victims surrounded by crowds of potential witnesses under the bright lights of Dayzone.

Between the cities of light and dark is in an area called Dusk. More so than Nocturna, Dusk serves as the boogeyman or creature under the bed in this tale. Nyquist has a personal connection to this mist-shrouded off-limits zone, and it is at the very edge of Dusk that he’ll begin to unravel his runaway case. The answers he finds are unsettling enough that Nyquist begins to wonder if he’s falling under the spell of
chronostasis, a sickness residents of these contrived cities contract when they become unmoored in time.

I can’t say much more specifically about the plot without spoiling it for future readers, but hopefully I’ve given you a taste of this noir tale. To me, A Man of Shadows is more Urban Fantasy than Sci-Fi, but it was a very enjoyable read. The setting is unique and imaginative, the story layered and the prose vivid. I had no previous experience with the author’s work but now plan on taking a look at earlier books. I’m pleased to also note a series set in this sandbox is planned, with the next entry due in 2018. Sign me up for another round.

Sharply written, intense sci-fi mystery with a well-crafted world, and an interesting protagonist. Reminded me a bit of Leviathan Wakes in all the best ways. Jeff Noon has an unsettling, delicious way with words. Highly recommend for anyone who likes keen writing, layered sci-fi, and/or moving mysteries. I don't think I'll ever look at time that same way again.

Jeff Noon is one of our leading literary sci/fi authors. We always buy him for our library.