I admire a book that is bold and imaginative -- one where the only taboo is taboo itself. I admire a book like Elizabeth Lynn's "A Different Light", which is all of those things and more. This isn't my usual everyday taste in reading material. At 183 pages, it was a little slim for my liking; normally I prefer my books to be meatier, Stephen King-esque tomes. Still, I bought it, in one of my half-crazed, fugue-like book buying sprees. I bought it, in fact, for the sole reason that I liked the multi-colored, cyclonic, interstellar cover. No more, no less. At its core, "A Different Light" is a story about choice and courage, morality and mortality. In a world where disease has virtually been conquered, where immortality is fact rather than fiction, Jimson Alleca has incurable cancer. At age 30, he is already contemplating his own death, while the lives of those around him are just beginning to blossom. While facing his own mortality, Jimson, famed for his art, is growing stagnant, robbed of the choices and adventure that are an accepted part of life for the rest of the population. While cancer is killing his body, stagnation is killing his soul, and his art. Jim longs to see the stars, to renew his sense of wonder, to view the world in "A Different Light". After receiving a visicube, an image without words of his old friend, Russell, Jim decides that he does have a choice after all. Though it will come at great mental and physical discomfort, and will eventually shorten his already threatened life, Jim decides to venture off-world, and into "The Hype: -- a place where pirates abound, a place many only dream about. Above all, Jimson wants to find his old friend, Russell, known now to most as "Pirate". And what Jimson finds is beyond all imagination. The world Elizabeth Lynn has created is a colorful, edgy world, populated with intriguing people and situations. Lynn takes us deep into the underbelly of this alien world, and nothing is taboo -- not piracy, not homosexuality, not mortality. Though perhaps a tad short on plot (what plot there is is thoroughly linear), "A Different Light" is full of imagination and heart. This is undoubtedly a character-driven novel, and Lynn's characters are fully fleshed out, moving, talking, existing in three dimensions. For such a slim book, Elizabeth Lynn's "A Different Light" is a book of remarkable clarity and depth. This is a book that will engross your senses and your sensibility. Life and Death... Elizabeth Lynn has chosen a daunting albeit age-old theme for her book. And Elizabeth Lynn does not flinch. This is a book that has the potential to swallow you whole. More than else, "A Different Light" by Elizabeth Lynn is a remarkably human novel. Characters who have never seen the light of earth's sun -- and we, the reader, along with them -- learn just what it means to be human. To feel. To desire. To live. To die. I have to admire a book like that. |
