I’m always excited to get a new book from Pyr, because as of yet, they haven’t let me down. I’ve stumbled up against a couple of books lately that have utterly failed BOOKGASM’s 100-page test – that is, I made myself read the first 100 pages, but the quality just wasn’t there. John Meaney’s TO HOLD INFINITY – originally published overseas in the late ’90s – is the antithesis of this.

Once you get past the fairly horrible cover (more on that later), TO HOLD INFINITY is an snapshot of a stunningly well-realized future that grabs hold and doesn’t let go.

At its core, the book is the story of a family. Broken by death, loss, and shattered expectations, Meaney’s novel revolves around a mother and a son and the journeys they undertake on Fulgor, a world far from Earth on which the upper class have cybernetic enhancements that alters their fundamental perceptions, creating a world of wonder that the non-enhanced can only dream of.

The mother, Yoshiko Sunadomari, arrives on Fulgor to say goodbye to her son, Tetsuo. Unfortunately, Tetsuo is missing and both are wrapped in an alien web of politics, lies and conspiracy. Add into the mix an insane aristocrat addicted to feeding of the souls he extracts from others, and there’s plenty of plot to keep this rather hefty book going.

Meaney’s prose is tight and descriptive, and he avoids many of the pitfalls involved in getting ideas out of his head and into readers’. I’m no scientist, but the technology involved – though far-flung from today’s tech – never becomes so inexplicable that it might as well be magic, with a basis in networking and computer science.

TO HOLD INFINITY is a rather stunning book of ideas and imagination, and it holds up remarkably well despite the tragedy of its eight-year wait to be published in the U.S. Memo to publishers: Can we maybe print, like, five fewer of the crappy licensed books that are choking our science-fiction shelves and maybe put a little bit more effort into localizing books like this in a timely fashion? So far, you haven’t been able to get your act together, and Pyr is eating your lunch.

Now before the folks at Pyr get all weepy and break out the champagne in celebration of another great review, I have to say that the cover for TO HOLD INFINITY just blows. This cover is not going to take SF to the next level of popular acceptance, and it sure as hell won’t interest anyone who doesn’t know the book already. I’m not saying I could do better, but … as a matter of fact, I just might. So feel free to print out this new and improved cover at left and rubber cement it on after you buy your copy. I try to be humble, but I have to admit: It’s pretty awesome. –Ryun Patterson

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