Captain Truck, son of Annie Truck, is the last of the Centaurans; a humanoid race whom humanity mostly exterminated during a terrible war. What was left of the race fled into the galaxy and intermingled, sometimes breeding with humans.It was thought during the final stages of the war that the Centaurans had invented a Doomsday device. Now, it seems, that device has been discovered, but it can only be operated by a Centauran, and Truck is the only one left.In this somewhat baroque future where Truck's ship's engineer is a Chromian dwarf called Fixx, and his best friend is a somewhat dim individual but brilliant guitar player, earth is split between the Arabs and Israelis and an endless war is in its prime.Truck is pursued by the Arab and Israeli military, an anarchist artist magician and the religious faction represented by the Openers, whose followers believe that the way to enlightenment is via installing windows in their bodies to expose their inner organs to the world and the galaxy.It's a rollercoaster ride through a Dystopian future which very much symbolises the stylistic SF of the 1970s. It's interesting to note that the Chromian dwarf possibly links this novel with the Viriconium series. Harrison perhaps borrowed Moorcock's ubiquitous idea of the multiverse - in which the world is duplicated and distorted through infinity - to use in his Viriconium series since some of the stories of the city seem to be set in an alternate version of that world. Maybe TCD is set in an earlier version of one of these universes, or maybe not.The Seventies was a time when SF occasionally put on the Glam Rock drag of fantasy, and certainly this novel has its fantasy trappings, from the hats and cloaks to the baroque magician - who produces green carnations from behind the ears of unsuspecting gawpers.There are the caricatured grotesques such as General Alice Gaw of the Israeli military, the hermaphrodite whore, Grishkin the Opener Priest, Fixx the psychotic dwarf and Truck's paranoid and slightly disturbed wife.It is an important novel of The Seventies, a signpost showing where we were and where we were going.
The Centauri Device is the third novel by English author M. John Harrison.I got halfway through this book and lost interest.The main protagonist, John Truck, flops his way around the universe before being dragged into a conflict between the Earth's superpowers, Anarchists, a religious cult and several other groups. Written in the mid 1970s Truck comes across as the archetypical hippie. Drugs and mentioned throughout and this becomes extremely tiresome.I'll not spoil the reason why all these groups want a piece of John but the clue is in the title of the book. The majority of the text is about John evading capture from one set of individuals while falling into the hands of another evil bunch. Villains conveniently appear and push John into the next chapter. Why? Because the author wants the book to progress, none of it seems natural and it's all very contrived.I was first attracted to the novel as I like space operas but here the prose is too flowery (why use a short, punchy word when seventeen long words can be used instead?), the characters aren't particularly well fleshed out and the plot is really non-existent; it's just a series of plodding encounters over time. Personally, I like protagonists who are complex, multi-layered and have a well thought through backstory, whereas John is just a passive character. I think the book is making the point that ideologies can be warped and distorted until they ultimately become self-defeating and destructive. However, perhaps I'm wrong as because I just lost the will to keep on reading.I guess it says something about the novel that perhaps the most significant detractor of the book is M. John Harrison himself who, in a 2001 interview with SF Site, described it as:"the crappiest thing I ever wrote."In summary, a stale, hollow and ultimately a joyless read.
What do You think about The Centauri Device (2000)?
Intergalactic anarchists, mysterious alien technology, pitched space battles, corrupt superpowers, planetary genocide, crazy cultists, flawed heroes, endless parties, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll: The Centauri Device has got it all in spades. It's hard not to enjoy crashing, staggering and vomiting with John Truck through one of the dirtiest galaxies you'll ever imagine. Yet for all that it doesn't take itself too seriously, the abuse and suffering that you'll find there remains almost painfully real. A real stand-out from it's time, it's like The Stooges to Gibson's Cyberpunk.
—Chris Baker
"Die Centauri-Maschine" ist ein frühes Beispiel, ein intellektuelles dazu, der neuen britischen Space Operas eines Iain Banks, eines Peter F. Hamiltons oder eines Alastair Reynolds und ein Gegenstück zu deren strahlenden und glänzenden Meisterwerken.Das Weltall dieses Romans ist schmutzig, die Planeten noch schmutziger. Bei ihrer Expansion in die Galaxis sind die Menschen auf andere Intelligenzen gestoßen und haben diese ausgelöscht. Der Genozid an den Centauri hat ein einzelnes Artefakt hinterlassen, besagte Centauri-Maschine. An ihr sind nun die Israelische Weltregierung, die Vereinigten Arabischen Sozialistischen Republiken und die religiöse Sekte der Öffner brennend interessiert.Aber nur der abgehalfterte Raumschiffkapitän John Truck besitzt als Centauri-Nachfahre die notwendigen Gene zur Bedienung der Maschine. Ob sich dahinter eine Waffe oder ein göttliches Instrument verbirgt, weiß jedoch niemand...Der Unterhaltungswert von "Die Centauri-Maschine" ist gering, die Figuren wenig glaubwürdig und die Beschreibungen der Öffner, die Sichtfenster in ihre Körper einbauen, reine Satire. John Truck ist eine gescheiterte Persönlichkeit, die herumgeschubst wird und mit der sich die Leser noch nicht einmal zu identifizieren vermögen.Interssant ist alleine Harrisons Übernahme des israelisch-arabischen Konflikts der sechziger und siebziger Jahre des 20. Jahrhunderts, warum Harrison dies gemacht hat erklärt er im Epilog am Ende des Romans. "Oder war er nur angewidert vom Wirklichkeitsverlust der damaligen Politik?"...
—Reinhold
I was looking forward to reading this considering the esteem it is held in by some SF circles. However I was rather disappointed. The underlying plot and the concept of the main character being a passenger, swept up by events, created the potential for the novel to be superb. However the book was severely let down in the following areas and hence the reason I gave it 2 stars and will not recommend it to my friends:-1.) The writing style is a big drag on the plot. Too much metaphor and meandering language to describe nothing important can cause the reader to lose the pace of the plot, and become bogged down in reading nonsensical passages. A good example of this is whenever Ben Barka appears, Harrison indulges in garbage about 'sand dunes' in his eyes etc, and consequently the reader loses pathos with the character and gains no new information despite half a page of text. 2.) The names of the various locations become a blur, to such an extent that you give up trying to remember what is where. I read the whole book not knowing or caring where Avernus was.3.) Lack of emotional investment in the characters. Characters come and go and as a reader you don't really care. I think this links to point 1.) but also is due to Harrison neglecting to build any context for the characters. It even goes as far as John Truck, who by the end I didnt care what happened to him I just wanted the novel to end.
—Andy
