- Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Dorchester Publishing (1 Jan 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 084396197X
- ISBN-13: 978-0843961973
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.6 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 405,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
In his second novel, 'Marcher', Chris Beckett returns to some of the themes and characters of his earlier short stories. The novel is set in a near future world in which members of the underclass are forced to live in special `inclusion zones'. Although they receive welfare benefits they are disenfranchised and in some cases prohibited from leaving their home estates. This characteristic of the Marcher universe forces us to examine the comparable (if less regimented) class dynamics of our own society. (I was reminded of the rather similar near future world of John Christopher's underrated 'The Guardians'.)
Marcher's narrator, Charles, is an immigration officer who is responsible for dealing with `shifters', people who use an illegal drug known as `slip' to move from one universe to another. Those who possess the drug are able to commit terrible crimes knowing that they can easily escape to another world and completely escape punishment. Many shifters worship the Norse gods, apparently because they have been influenced by a remote alternate universe in which Christianity never took hold in Britain.
Beckett addresses large questions and problems in this novel. Charles is forced to realize that if he found what he longed for he still would be no happier and must decide whether it is weaker to run away from his responsibilities or remain where he is, avoiding the risks which might transform his life.
Beckett's emphasis on mirrors, on doubles, on the permeable boundaries between both worlds and people, and his use of a rather cool and detached outsider figure as a narrator put me in mind of several of Christopher Priest's novels, in particular 'The Glamour' and 'The Extremes'. Thoroughly recommended.
Marcher's narrator, Charles, is an immigration officer who is responsible for dealing with `shifters', people who use an illegal drug known as `slip' to move from one universe to another. Those who possess the drug are able to commit terrible crimes knowing that they can easily escape to another world and completely escape punishment. Many shifters worship the Norse gods, apparently because they have been influenced by a remote alternate universe in which Christianity never took hold in Britain.
Beckett addresses large questions and problems in this novel. Charles is forced to realize that if he found what he longed for he still would be no happier and must decide whether it is weaker to run away from his responsibilities or remain where he is, avoiding the risks which might transform his life.
Beckett's emphasis on mirrors, on doubles, on the permeable boundaries between both worlds and people, and his use of a rather cool and detached outsider figure as a narrator put me in mind of several of Christopher Priest's novels, in particular 'The Glamour' and 'The Extremes'. Thoroughly recommended.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Chris Beckett's intelligent second novel is concerned with borders and transgressions. The novel's narrator, Charles Bowen, is an immigration officer, but the migrants he pursues are `shifters', able to move between infinite universes by means of the drug `slip'. Then shifters begin to murder in the name of the Norse gods, taking slip to evade the consequences of their actions.
The novel's setting is an Earth similar to our own but with certain significant differences, not least the `inclusion zones' into which the British underclass has been segregated, paid welfare money but disenfranchised - a clever idea which lets the novel explore the enduring class boundaries of contemporary Britain. Charles's hesitancy in his relationship with girlfriend Jaz poignantly illustrates the psychological boundaries that people erect in self-protection. A thoughtful and inventive novel.
The novel's setting is an Earth similar to our own but with certain significant differences, not least the `inclusion zones' into which the British underclass has been segregated, paid welfare money but disenfranchised - a clever idea which lets the novel explore the enduring class boundaries of contemporary Britain. Charles's hesitancy in his relationship with girlfriend Jaz poignantly illustrates the psychological boundaries that people erect in self-protection. A thoughtful and inventive novel.
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Much of modern SF, despite it's Galaxy spanning outlook, futuristic technology, big bangs and 'raygoons' is pretty toneless, grey and single-voiced as far as characterisation goes. I'd just read a stretch of books where, despite it's Galaxy spanning etc., it was just one voice and one character - undifferentiated miasma. Chris Beckett rains on that parade of pap and leaves a clear, sparkling fresh outlook. Discrete and complex characters inhabit a detailed believable world which has a disconcerting familiarity. The story and set up is reminiscent of the High 'C's of classic SF - Cowper, Clarke, Cooper, Coney, Compton, and dare one say it, of Big John Brunner - but it is a modern world coloured richly by the writer's background.
HOWEVER the whole experience is destroyed by the lack of text editing - sentences nonsense ; guess the 'world' competitions; is that man extra letter; is hat a letter short? I gave up recording the copy blunders after about a hundred pages. HOW did this get to press? It's a shame.
Although it is an interesting read with some unique, funny and intense moments I recommend you wait to see if it is ever published again and the publisher puts "Special corrected proof edition" on the cover.
HOWEVER the whole experience is destroyed by the lack of text editing - sentences nonsense ; guess the 'world' competitions; is that man extra letter; is hat a letter short? I gave up recording the copy blunders after about a hundred pages. HOW did this get to press? It's a shame.
Although it is an interesting read with some unique, funny and intense moments I recommend you wait to see if it is ever published again and the publisher puts "Special corrected proof edition" on the cover.
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