Professor Everywhere (SF): Nicholas Binge *****

This is a hugely intriguing piece of science fiction writing. You might think, given that the main setting of this novel is the University of Warwick, that it's a scientific equivalent of Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man, but it's not humour - it's something very different, and much more interesting.

Central character Chloe Chan has come from Hong Kong to Warwick expecting to find students excitedly seeking for knowledge, but instead they all seem to spend their time getting drunk and partying while doing hardly any work. In a way, this was the weakest aspect of the book - I don't know Warwick, but have recent experience of Bristol undergraduates, and they weren't at all like this. (Perhaps Chloe chose the wrong university.) Needing a job, she becomes an intern with the mysterious Professor Crannus, who seems more myth than reality.

This is the beginning of uncovering an incredible undercover experiment that the bombastic professor heads up, which will have a huge impact on the world. Meanwhile, Chloe is very slowly edging back into a relationship after a bad experience in Hong Kong.

What's really impressive is the way Nicholas Binge puts this together. Chloe is a linguist and often thinks about the meaning of words. Crannus is a polymath who, despite being an anthropologist, as a former friend of Feynman introduces her to some aspects of quantum physics, notably the many worlds interpretation. Chloe narrates the whole thing from a future viewpoint, after something catastrophic that happens in 2009, which we are gradually led up to. For me, the absolute pinnacle of Binge's writing skill is an event where Chloe is kidnapped and tortured. Rather than have her remember it, she tells us the plot of a film based on her experience, describing how the film maker portrayed what she experienced. This is brilliant.

There is one aspect of the book that verges on fantasy. Specifically, the university's social sciences building, which seems capable of physically reorganising its inner structure. This is never explained and just feels odd in what is otherwise a solidly scientifically-based plot. But this doesn't get in the way of Chloe's story, which is made particularly messy due to there being multiple factions all trying to control the science that the professor is working on with varying motives.

A complex and satisfyingly different venture into SF, doing the kind of thing only this genre can do.

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