A Man of Shadows by Jeff Noon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I stumbled upon Jeff Noon’s Vurt at a local library when I was living in Houston. Intrigued by the cyberpunk world, I read it, and its second, Pollen.
I wasn’t super impressed.
So, I didn’t bother with the 3rd book, Automated Alice, and promptly forgot about Jeff Noon and his books.
Then, I got a book from my “wish list” on Netgalley.com, called The Body Library, and I immediately started reading it. Something told me that this was a second, so I did some digging, and yep, it’s the second of the “John Nyquist” books by Jeff Noon.
Long story longer, I bought this one, and tried to power through it quickly so I could get to the other. Worth it.
A Man of Shadows carries Noon’s signature weirdness when it comes to world building: Dayzone–where it’s never night, Nocturna–where it’s never day, and the ever-encroaching Dusk–which according to the stories, is full of monsters, demons, and mist. The year is 1959, and the time? Depends on who you ask and which timeline they’re following, because there’s a ton of them. Experts are predicting a time crash, people are getting time sick, and amidst it all, there’s a serial killer on the loose, named Quicksilver, who somehow murders without being seen.
Confused yet?
It takes a while for the story to get going, and ends up being a sci-fi-crime noir-dystopian-fantasy unlike anything I’ve read. The main guy, Nyquist, is a broken PI, and his character isn’t fully-fleshed out, but you get more of a sense of why is is who he is towards the end.
So read this for the trippy world-building and the twisty-turny mystery, not the rich and storied people in it.
Algul Siento 