#31. THE CENTAURI DEVICE By M John Harrison

Published : 1975
Pages : 205
Overall Mark : 7/10

John Truck was to outward appearance just another lowlife spaceship captain. He peddled drugs when they were available, carried cargo when they weren't. But he was also the last of the Centaurans - or at least, half of him was - which meant that he was the only person who could operate the Centauri Device, a sentient bomb which might hold the key to settling a vicious space war.

M. JOHN HARRISON (1945-)
M. John Harrison's first story appeared in 1966, and he subsequently became closely involved in the magazine New Worlds. His classic Viriconium sequence is available in the Fantasy Masterworks series. His other novels include Climbers, The Course Of The Heart and Signs Of Life.

VERDICT
This everyman story is effective in its mission to create a character who seems ordinary but in fact holds the power of destruction itself in his very DNA. Harrison tries to make the book fun with its misremembered history and its protagonsit of ill repute, but this is more or less a poor mans version of The Stars My Destination with a slightly less irredeemable lead.