Wow. There's thinking outside the box and there's 'What's a box and why would I need one?' Tricia Sullivan's imagination is delightfully unbridled. If you can jump in and not worry about falling and just trust that everything will work out, you're in for a great time with 'Occupy Me'

You know those science fiction books that are about inter-planetary wars with human colonies spread out through space, travelling through the endless void in thin vulnerable metal boxes that they still insist on using to try to kill one another? Well, this isn't one of those books. 'Occupy Me' makes those books seem like they're a lazy translation of late seventeenth century pirates dressed in space suits and armed with mythical 'energy weapons', taking no account of how big the universe is or how it really works.

'Occupy Me' takes a different, more numbers-based view of life, the universe and the nature of causality. No, it's not one of those 'Look! Physics can be fun' nerdy books or one of those 'Let's science the shit out of this' uber-competent male scientist books. 'Occupy Me' does something unique, in my experience. It gets across the vastness of space and time, our limited, overly-linear view of causality and our inability truly to think in geological timeframes while building a compelling action-packed thriller filled with relatable people.

What made the book work for me was that although the core of the plot involved concepts that stretched my imagination - chains of events that are aeons long, a view of reality as essentially malleable if you can only read the code it's written in, and the difficulty of sustaining a sense of purpose and identity in the face of entropy - it was made accessible and engaging by the nature of Pearl, the main protagonist in the story.

Pearl doesn't know who she is, what she is or why she's here. She does know that she has an instinct-deep need to fix broken things, including people, and that part of her, an important part, is not just missing but has been stolen from her. Pearl is a delight. Her curiosity-driven journey from ignorance to mind-blowing comprehension as she tries to get her component back and go home powers the book. Pearl works her way from squatting in a junkyard where she throws cars around to keep in shape, to working as an agent of the Resistance (although she's not clear what they are resisting) to falling in love with her Resistance handler, destroying a passenger jet in mid-flight while working as a flight attendant, to becoming a wanted terrorist engaged in a covert struggle with a ruthless billionaire and the equally ruthless oil company that he used to work for and which is now trying to track him down. Did I mention that she also has wings (although they're not always physically present), an affinity with Doberman guard dogs that makes them behave like puppies and the ability to alter people's thoughts and moods?

Yeah, well, this isn't an easy book to summarise. And I haven't even talked about the guy who stole the component that Pearl is searching for or why he stole it or how there seems to be more than one of him using the same body or that the component is in a briefcase that isn't a briefcase but some kind of portal which, amongst other things, occasionally releases a not very happy dinosaur upon his enemies.

I had a wonderful time with this book. I liked Pearl. The ideas, especially the scale of the ideas, were intoxicating. The story was exciting.

But - like anything really original - to get the most out of it, you have to put your assumptions and preconceptions to one side and give yourself up to the experience.

I think that's easier to do if you listen to the audiobook version of 'Occupy Me'. It has two narrators, one for Pearl and one for the man who stole from her. Penelope Rawlins gives an outstanding performance as Pearl who, for reasons I never really understood, has a strong Long Island accent. Dugald Bruce-Lockhart counterbalances Pearl's extravagance with a more sober performance for his character ( )

Chaos theory and causality; time travel and Hilbert space. And a pterosaur. You really have to pay attention to this one! ( )

a psychedelic adventure story that starts with a briefcase and maintains a manic pace, owes a lot to chaos theory, extends from the beginning of time to the far future, involves a lot of tinkering with creation by a lot of entities who really shouldn't, and is told in a mixture of first, second, and third person voice. it's not what you'd call a shallow read, if that's what you look for, but it has some great characters, a lot of riotously original ideas, and i kind of loved it. you might compare it to Charles Stross's Laundry Files, or Rudy Rucker's Ware series, but it's really its own thing. rave on, Tricia Sullivan. ( )

I picked this up in the fabulous London Lonely Planet bookstore. Sullivan was writing about a girl who has wings in an alternate reality. I write about a girl who has wings in an alternate reality. I felt quite unoriginal.
However, I’m relieved to see we’ve both followed our own divergent paths. Tricia Sullivan and I like similar music; she posted about a wonderful song featuring Elizabeth Fraser from the Cocteau Twins. But we do not think in a similar fashion.
Her writing emits from a fresh, intense place in her soul. The plot, such as it is, isn’t a surprise. People and entities battle for control of the universe. But there isn’t any contrivance in the unfolding of events, though there is coincidence. Conceptually, the novel is a lofty mixture of physics, which she is now studying, and poetry. I don’t always follow what Sullivan means, but I’m convinced she knows.
The story, described simply, is about an angel from another dimension, who is working for a group called The Resistance, which tries to make life better in small ways. But the Resistance aren’t who they seem to be, and Pearl, the angel, is an enigma in her own right, a huge, compassionate entity who doesn’t know her own origin.
The more you read about the main characters in this book, a doctor who is possessed by a murderous entity that may actually be trying to save the world, and an angel who was created out of “extinct animals and nano-libraries”, the less you actually know them. You can observe and anticipate their behavior, but understanding who is part of what is a complex and non-rational process.
This short excerpt can prepare you “I didn’t recognize myself. Never again the same. In my brain a thicket of dendrites were standing on end in dark and terrible welcome.”
Read it, and your dendrite will hop to attention as well.

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