Eclipse
A novel by John Shirley

You have to feel sorry for John Shirley. After all, when the word "cyberpunk" gets bandied around by the trendy literati, it is inevitably linked with names like William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Neil Stephenson -- rarely is Shirley's name invoked, even though he's the guy responsible for sending those other sci fi pioneers on their merry way. He never received even a hint of the accolades afforded his counterparts, though his abilities surpassed them all. Shirley is cyberpunk's own Patient Zero, as a number of his insane novels were seeing publication back in the middle seventies, a time when he alternated his writing day job with his nightly position as the frontman for a variety of underground Los Angeles punk bands. At the time, there was no handy name for his brand of fiction, no hook, and he was mostly ignored. Had these same tomes seen publication today, people's eyes would be open, and they'd see that his work is far beyond cyberpunk.

Eclipse (subtitled A Song Called Youth: Book 1), was given limited publication by Warner Bros.' Questar imprint in early 1985, and it almost immediately went out of print. I first came across an excerpt of it in Mirrorshades, Bruce Sterling's essential science fiction anthology, and then I spent several years trying to track down the book in its entirety, which I finally acquired in 1994 from an online acquaintance in Australia. Now, Babbage Press has finally gotten around to releasing a revised version, with word that the other two novels in the series, Eclipse Penumbra and Eclipse Corona are forthcoming. Dammit, it's about time!

The storyline of Eclipse is quite prophetic. A limited nuclear strike has wasted major chunks of near-future Europe, bringing the remaining nation-cities under control of the Second Alliance, a frighteningly fundamentalist international security corporation that secretly has designs on world domination. A determined band of freedom fighters and misfits has formed the New Resistance in the hopes of defeating an impending fascist world government. Sure, it's got all the basic tenets of the average post-apocalyptic throwaway, but Shirley has done his homework. Characters toss around political ideologies as randomly as grenades, alliances are forged, strategic power plays are unfolded, and Shirley's world becomes as vibrantly real as those created by classic writers of the genre such as Clarke, Heinlein, and Haldeman. The characters, which run the gamut between roving toughguy scholars, right-wing zealots, and itinerant retro-rock stars (complete with Lou Reed's sense of style) are all infused with an urgent sense of humanity. These are characters that, for once, act exactly in the ways that people indeed would in the given situations. The settings in which they're placed possess equal depth. They cruise through the eerie ruins of deserted Amsterdam as easily as they make political machinations in sprawling underwater cityplexes. But for all the politicking, there are just as many visceral thrills -- Shirley's action sequences are almost balletically written. His sense of violence is vivid but not overblown. Realizing that there is a time and place for gunplay, Shirley builds tension by slowly aligning his characters on an inevitable collision course that can only result in bloody conflict.

All of which is bloody good in a book that makes Neuromancer look like a practice exercise in cyberspace opera. If you don't know John Shirley's name, memorize it now, and then go out and find everything the man has written (and while you're at it, go watch The Crow, as Shirley is the man who adapted the comic into the industrial noir film it became). It'll take some time. Many of his books are still out of print, but your support of the Eclipse novels could very well change that. And trust me when I say that it will be worth it -- this latest re-release marks Eclipse as both the best novel of 1985 and 2000. How often does that sort of thing happen?

RE-READ FACTOR: A plethora of plotlines, poetic prose, and some heavy politicking demand an immediate re-read. There's stuff in here that's so dense it'd make Thomas Pychon crazy with jealousy (unlike Pynchon's work, however, the plot actually makes sense).

SEQUEL FACTOR: Well, it's called Book One, isn't it? The storyline is sprawling and intense, and you really need three books just to tie everything together (let's just hope Babbage Press doesn't flake out by not reprinting the second and third books).

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: Ellen Mae Crandall, sister of the leader of the aforementioned right-wing fundamentalist group, dominates every scene she's in, providing an enigmatic power figure. Just don't call her Ellie Mae.

-- David Rosiak

Eclipse: A Song Called Youth, Book One, published by Babbage Press, is currently available in trade paperback.

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