Suicide Coast is written in the same sharp, cold prose style that Harrison is now (in)famous for. It is then a very strange conjunction, because the story itself deals with human passion, specifically pursuits like extreme sports, one of the few pursuits which can be said to be free from any utilitarian motive. What motive could be there for something like mountain climbing, except for the thrill of the exertion and the sound of all your muscles screaming out loud against you, in your head? Where a single wrong move could mean the end of your life, Harrison's short story silently, and in an apparently dispassionate manner, champions one of the last vestiges of human temerity and spirit, in the face of world given to seeking these pleasures vicariously, at the expense of skill. I read it in a Gardner Dozois collection, and it seemed like an odd one out amidst stories which were explicitly estranging. Harrison here is practicing Mundane SF (to use Geoff Ryman's term): SF with the slightest hint of speculation, SF that won't seem out of place with our present reality. In its very ordinariness lies a satisfaction that is as rewarding as Harrison's crystal clear, and cool, prose.
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