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johnayliff 's review for:
Viriconium
by M. John Harrison
This is an omnibus edition of three novels and one short story collection. The original books are quite different from one another, and the collection does not feel like a unified work, even though in this edition the short stories are interspersed with the novels. Overall it was not an easy collection to read, but I'm glad I did.
THE PASTEL CITY is a fairly conventional fantasy quest novel, albeit an absolutely beautifully written one. The distant future setting is portrayed not as ruined so much as polluted, with vast swamps and deserts made of the industrial wastes of dead civilisations.
A STORM OF WINGS is also a fantasy quest story, in which the city must be defended from insect invaders, but the story is overwhelmed by one conceit, that reality is largely determined by perceptions, and the clash of perception between humans and insects causes reality to break down. The protagonists wander, barely sane, through grotesque, mutating landscapes, and it sometimes feels as if the author is using the reality-warping conceit as an excuse to delay explaining to the reader what is going on.
IN VIRICONIUM is the only novel set mainly inside the city, and its plot feels less important than the picture it paints of the setting.
The short stories vary in style and I'm not sure I understood all of them. For the most part they feel more similar to IN VIRICONIUM than to the other two novels.
THE PASTEL CITY is a fairly conventional fantasy quest novel, albeit an absolutely beautifully written one. The distant future setting is portrayed not as ruined so much as polluted, with vast swamps and deserts made of the industrial wastes of dead civilisations.
A STORM OF WINGS is also a fantasy quest story, in which the city must be defended from insect invaders, but the story is overwhelmed by one conceit, that reality is largely determined by perceptions, and the clash of perception between humans and insects causes reality to break down. The protagonists wander, barely sane, through grotesque, mutating landscapes, and it sometimes feels as if the author is using the reality-warping conceit as an excuse to delay explaining to the reader what is going on.
IN VIRICONIUM is the only novel set mainly inside the city, and its plot feels less important than the picture it paints of the setting.
The short stories vary in style and I'm not sure I understood all of them. For the most part they feel more similar to IN VIRICONIUM than to the other two novels.