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Viriconium #4
Viriconium Nights
Within the structure of seven linked and interwoven stories, M. John Harrison invites us once more into the strange and haunting world that is Viriconium.
In this infinitely mutable world that is 'so old that the substance of reality no longer knows quite what it ought to be', we find a Viriconium that mutates through various manifestations—at one time Vriko; at another, Uroconium.
Characters come and go at will, in different guises, without regard for the constraints of Time: tegeus Cromis, minor prince of the city; Rotgob the dwarf; Egon Rhys, leading fighter of the Blue Anemone Ontological Association—all take their places in the decaying, violent, but ever-alluring world of Viriconium.
Through shifts in perception we view the City, with its courtyards and plazas, alleys and wastelands, through its haze of folk memory, ritual and myth; even through a mirror in the lavatory of the Merrie England cafe in Huddersfield: Viriconium is everywhere and nowhere, starkly realistic and utterly fantastical: the ultimate paradox.
M. John Harrison writes with truly remarkable imaginative power and individuality, with elegance and wit. Viriconium Nights is an extraordinary creation.
Contents:
The Lamia and Lord Cromis (1971).
Lamia Mutable (1972).
Viriconium Knights (1981).
Events Witnessed from a City (1975).
The Luck in the Head (1984).
The Lords of Misrule (1984).
In Viriconium (1984).
Strange Great Sins (1983).
In this infinitely mutable world that is 'so old that the substance of reality no longer knows quite what it ought to be', we find a Viriconium that mutates through various manifestations—at one time Vriko; at another, Uroconium.
Characters come and go at will, in different guises, without regard for the constraints of Time: tegeus Cromis, minor prince of the city; Rotgob the dwarf; Egon Rhys, leading fighter of the Blue Anemone Ontological Association—all take their places in the decaying, violent, but ever-alluring world of Viriconium.
Through shifts in perception we view the City, with its courtyards and plazas, alleys and wastelands, through its haze of folk memory, ritual and myth; even through a mirror in the lavatory of the Merrie England cafe in Huddersfield: Viriconium is everywhere and nowhere, starkly realistic and utterly fantastical: the ultimate paradox.
M. John Harrison writes with truly remarkable imaginative power and individuality, with elegance and wit. Viriconium Nights is an extraordinary creation.
Contents:
The Lamia and Lord Cromis (1971).
Lamia Mutable (1972).
Viriconium Knights (1981).
Events Witnessed from a City (1975).
The Luck in the Head (1984).
The Lords of Misrule (1984).
In Viriconium (1984).
Strange Great Sins (1983).
182 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1984
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502 people want to read
About the author
M. John Harrison
112Ìýbooks788Ìýfollowersaka Gabriel King (with Jane Johnson)
Michael John Harrison, known for publication purposes primarily as M. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic. His work includes the Viriconium sequence of novels and short stories, Climbers, and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, which consists of Light, Nova Swing and Empty Space.
Michael John Harrison, known for publication purposes primarily as M. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic. His work includes the Viriconium sequence of novels and short stories, Climbers, and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, which consists of Light, Nova Swing and Empty Space.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
March 16, 2020
This fourth and last volume of the sequence is not a novel, but rather a series of melancholy mood pieces--Schumann's "Night Pieces" come to mind--in which the ill-fated inhabitants of many versions of Viriconium engage in inconclusive quests and rescues while the city that sustains their imaginative existence sinks into inevitable decline.
Each of these stories is worth your while, since each is a representative example of Harrison's incomparable prose, but my two favorites are "The Lamia and Lord Cromis," a beast quest that approaches in tone the elegiac spirit of the first two novels, and "Viriconium Knights," a treasure hunt by the unscrupulous swordsman Ignace Retz, which takes place in a wasteland on the fringes of an extraordinarily degenerate Viriconium presided over by the crone-queen Mammy Vooley, who looks suspiciously like Margaret Thatcher.
October 23, 2021
Long live Viriconium, Jewel of the beach of the Western Sea! Long live Uroconium, liberated from the Analeptic Kings! Death to the broad Great Wastes of the south and east, which threaten to swallow up Viriconium! New empires are there to be carved out, new treasures dug up!
The Lamia and Lord Cromis is going to stick with me for a long time. tegeus-Cromis teaming up with Dissolution Kahn and the dwarf Morgante (ironically named after Pulci's giant) to hunt the strange Lamia through swampland. As will Strange Great Sins, with the sin-eater telling a story about Viriconium's decadent effect on his uncle, while the sin-eater attends the funeral of a young girl. The one with the duel where the punk fights on behalf of don't-call-her-Thatcher. The starving artist strapped to his bed in his fantasy garret. All of the stories have strange, beautiful language to recommend them.
The Lamia and Lord Cromis is going to stick with me for a long time. tegeus-Cromis teaming up with Dissolution Kahn and the dwarf Morgante (ironically named after Pulci's giant) to hunt the strange Lamia through swampland. As will Strange Great Sins, with the sin-eater telling a story about Viriconium's decadent effect on his uncle, while the sin-eater attends the funeral of a young girl. The one with the duel where the punk fights on behalf of don't-call-her-Thatcher. The starving artist strapped to his bed in his fantasy garret. All of the stories have strange, beautiful language to recommend them.
December 2, 2020
It's very hard to know what to make of these stories. Certainly I don't recommended reading these without first having read the three Viriconium novels, but even so it's difficult to put them into context. In a way they feel like drafts or test runs that Harrison used to kind of flesh out the the mood and background that would define his novels. The stories are disparate, though some connect peripherally, and feature characters from the novels in different phases and aspects of their lives. Like the novels, each reflects the pervasive decrepitude and failings of Viriconium, even in it's earlier forms. The last story, "A Young Man's Journey to Viriconium", is a departure and hints at what Viriconium may mean to Harrison, or to us. An alternate reality, an escape of sorts, but maybe not an inviting one. A world that is in some ways superimposed on our own, and our own on it, overlapping in shifting and unexpected ways.
March 22, 2012
3.5 stars
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT .
I was in Viriconium once. I was a much younger woman then. What a place that is for lovers! The Locust Winter carpets its streets with broken insects; at the corners they sweep them into strange-smelling drifts which glow for the space of a morning like heaps of gold before they fade away.
Viriconium Nights is the last book in M. John Harrison’s VIRICONIUM epic. It’s a collection of these seven short stories set in and around the city of Viriconium:
-- “The Lamia and Lord Cromis� � tegeus-Cromis, a dwarf, and a man named Dissolution Kahn travel to a poisonous bog to destroy a dangerous Lamia.
-- “Viriconium Knights� � Ignace Retz, a young swordsman and treasure seeker, discovers an old man who has a tapestry which shows Retz at different times in Viriconium’s history.
-- “The Luck in the Head� � In the Artists� Quarter, the poet Ardwick Crome has been having a recurring dream about a ceremony called “the Luck in the Head.� He wants these disturbing dreams to stop, so he goes looking for one of the women in the dream. (BTW, there’s a graphic novel based on this story.)
-- “Strange Great Sins� � A man from the country goes to Viriconium, falls in love with the ballerina Vera Ghillera, and wastes away. This story looks at the city of Viriconium from the perspective of outsiders who know that those who go there either are, or will become, decadent and self-absorbed.
-- “Lords of Misrule� � tegeus-Cromis visits an estate outside the city of Viriconium which is under threat of invasion and won’t survive if Viriconium won’t help.
-- “The Dancer From the Dance� � The ballerina Vera Ghillera from “Strange Great Sins� visits Allman's Heath where strange things are afoot.
-- “A Young Man’s Journey to Viriconium� � This final story, set in our world, explains that Viriconium is a real place and tells you exactly how to get there, in case you want to go. The doorway is a mirror in a bathroom in a café in England.
The stories in Viriconium Nights contain some of the characters we’ve met in the previous VIRICONIUM books (e.g., tegeus-Cromis, Ansel Verdigris, Audsley King, Paulinus Rack, Ashlyme) and include many allusions to recurring events and motifs: mechanical metal birds, tarot cards, locusts, the fish mask, big lizards, the Mari Lwyd, etc. Each story stands alone but focuses on the city of Viriconium and particularly the bohemian residents of the Artists� Quarter. All of Viriconium is decaying, but this part of the city feels especially bleak, probably because it’s peopled with brooding artistic types whose desperation results in freakish hedonistic behavior.
Though there are recurring characters in the VIRICONIUM works, we never get to know any of them very well. The haunting, weird, incomprehensible city is the main character. M. John Harrison has explained that he didn’t want Viriconium to be “tamed� or “controlled,� so he has confused and disoriented the reader by making it impossible to understand what it would be like to live in his world: “I made that world increasingly shifting and complex. You can not learn its rules. More importantly, Viriconium is never the same place twice.� I think this is more successful in the last three parts of VIRICONIUM � the first novel, The Pastel City, is almost a traditional quest fantasy.
VIRICONIUM is one of those works that I feel like I should give 5 stars just because it’s original and M. John Harrison’s prose is brilliant. Harrison is a master of style and his writing is superior to most of what’s offered on the SFF shelves.
However, the truth is that though I recognize Harrison’s genius, I can’t say that I enjoyed every moment of VIRICONIUM, which may be a reflection on me more than on the work itself. Spending so much time in a city that’s unknowable and decaying resulted, for me, in an overwhelming feeling of disorientation and hopelessness. The characters and the plot, which feel like they are there only to support the role of the city, don’t make up for this. A month from now, I probably won’t remember any of the plots in Viriconium Nights. But I will remember Viriconium.
If you decide to read VIRICONIUM, I highly recommend the audio version produced by Neil Gaiman Presents. Simon Vance's performance is excellent.
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT .
I was in Viriconium once. I was a much younger woman then. What a place that is for lovers! The Locust Winter carpets its streets with broken insects; at the corners they sweep them into strange-smelling drifts which glow for the space of a morning like heaps of gold before they fade away.
Viriconium Nights is the last book in M. John Harrison’s VIRICONIUM epic. It’s a collection of these seven short stories set in and around the city of Viriconium:
-- “The Lamia and Lord Cromis� � tegeus-Cromis, a dwarf, and a man named Dissolution Kahn travel to a poisonous bog to destroy a dangerous Lamia.
-- “Viriconium Knights� � Ignace Retz, a young swordsman and treasure seeker, discovers an old man who has a tapestry which shows Retz at different times in Viriconium’s history.
-- “The Luck in the Head� � In the Artists� Quarter, the poet Ardwick Crome has been having a recurring dream about a ceremony called “the Luck in the Head.� He wants these disturbing dreams to stop, so he goes looking for one of the women in the dream. (BTW, there’s a graphic novel based on this story.)
-- “Strange Great Sins� � A man from the country goes to Viriconium, falls in love with the ballerina Vera Ghillera, and wastes away. This story looks at the city of Viriconium from the perspective of outsiders who know that those who go there either are, or will become, decadent and self-absorbed.
-- “Lords of Misrule� � tegeus-Cromis visits an estate outside the city of Viriconium which is under threat of invasion and won’t survive if Viriconium won’t help.
-- “The Dancer From the Dance� � The ballerina Vera Ghillera from “Strange Great Sins� visits Allman's Heath where strange things are afoot.
-- “A Young Man’s Journey to Viriconium� � This final story, set in our world, explains that Viriconium is a real place and tells you exactly how to get there, in case you want to go. The doorway is a mirror in a bathroom in a café in England.
The stories in Viriconium Nights contain some of the characters we’ve met in the previous VIRICONIUM books (e.g., tegeus-Cromis, Ansel Verdigris, Audsley King, Paulinus Rack, Ashlyme) and include many allusions to recurring events and motifs: mechanical metal birds, tarot cards, locusts, the fish mask, big lizards, the Mari Lwyd, etc. Each story stands alone but focuses on the city of Viriconium and particularly the bohemian residents of the Artists� Quarter. All of Viriconium is decaying, but this part of the city feels especially bleak, probably because it’s peopled with brooding artistic types whose desperation results in freakish hedonistic behavior.
Though there are recurring characters in the VIRICONIUM works, we never get to know any of them very well. The haunting, weird, incomprehensible city is the main character. M. John Harrison has explained that he didn’t want Viriconium to be “tamed� or “controlled,� so he has confused and disoriented the reader by making it impossible to understand what it would be like to live in his world: “I made that world increasingly shifting and complex. You can not learn its rules. More importantly, Viriconium is never the same place twice.� I think this is more successful in the last three parts of VIRICONIUM � the first novel, The Pastel City, is almost a traditional quest fantasy.
VIRICONIUM is one of those works that I feel like I should give 5 stars just because it’s original and M. John Harrison’s prose is brilliant. Harrison is a master of style and his writing is superior to most of what’s offered on the SFF shelves.
However, the truth is that though I recognize Harrison’s genius, I can’t say that I enjoyed every moment of VIRICONIUM, which may be a reflection on me more than on the work itself. Spending so much time in a city that’s unknowable and decaying resulted, for me, in an overwhelming feeling of disorientation and hopelessness. The characters and the plot, which feel like they are there only to support the role of the city, don’t make up for this. A month from now, I probably won’t remember any of the plots in Viriconium Nights. But I will remember Viriconium.
If you decide to read VIRICONIUM, I highly recommend the audio version produced by Neil Gaiman Presents. Simon Vance's performance is excellent.
December 10, 2010
The final book of the Viriconium tetralogy consists of seven short stories that explore the deceptive and mutative nature of the Pastel City. Characters from the first three books weave their way into and out of these tales with details of their personal histories changed and reconfigured within the realms of memory, time, and space: heroes are now villains, old friends rivals, regal monarchs become terrifying crones; and the horse-skulled alien insects always present in furtive movements never captured from the corner of the eye, or a quiet thrumming that cannot quite be placed. All seven entail the grim and bitter process of loss and regret that an individual life consists of, the enduring exploration of contingency and repetition; of how identity ofttimes clutches desperately to symbols and totems that prove false or brittle in the end, of the mournful and melancholy passage of days that builds upon the soul like so much rust, the manner in which memory is like a handful of sand, leaking slowly away however strong and determined the effort to hold it - and subject to sudden and brutal gusts of wind that blast it away and leave the palms empty.
The linchpin to these stories is, of course, Viriconium (Uroconium, Vira Co, Low and High Cities) - though the city itself is as mutable as its denizen's lives: names change, neighborhoods shift, quarters arise and sink, rivers alter, buildings stand forth only to be misplaced or laid low by a process of time that rarely moves along a straightforward path, but loops and twists, bends back and suddenly cramps; in the end, the city might even disappear within itself, accessible only through the bathroom mirrors of small cafés or the casually discarded rubbish espied in a lonely gutter. There is little of happiness in these tales, little reprieve no matter the proffered rewards of a quest undertaken, only cold and grey death awaiting at the end of a gruesomely bright rainbow. Such is the world in which Viriconium - linked somehow to every metropolis that has been birthed and grown, a rippling shadow of our own urban conglomerations - stands forth as the slippery center of a liquid empire, ever alert to the contortions of her stern mistress Time: for the latter may forget, but she never forgives.
The linchpin to these stories is, of course, Viriconium (Uroconium, Vira Co, Low and High Cities) - though the city itself is as mutable as its denizen's lives: names change, neighborhoods shift, quarters arise and sink, rivers alter, buildings stand forth only to be misplaced or laid low by a process of time that rarely moves along a straightforward path, but loops and twists, bends back and suddenly cramps; in the end, the city might even disappear within itself, accessible only through the bathroom mirrors of small cafés or the casually discarded rubbish espied in a lonely gutter. There is little of happiness in these tales, little reprieve no matter the proffered rewards of a quest undertaken, only cold and grey death awaiting at the end of a gruesomely bright rainbow. Such is the world in which Viriconium - linked somehow to every metropolis that has been birthed and grown, a rippling shadow of our own urban conglomerations - stands forth as the slippery center of a liquid empire, ever alert to the contortions of her stern mistress Time: for the latter may forget, but she never forgives.
December 20, 2023
Of the three novels and the seven short stories that constitute the M. John Harrison’s sublime Viriconium sequence, none is more enigmatic or indeed more inscrutable than The Luck in the Head which is in this volume. This short story reconfigures elements of Viriconium‘s dark fantasy into a surreal and absurdist nightmare.
Two city poets, Ardwick Crome and Ansel Verdigris, are drawn into a plot to assassinate the old queen, Mamma Vooley. Beyond this, the rest of the story is asbtruse, awash in an arcane logic. The story’s distinction lies in the mood it generates, rich with anxiety and paranoia, invoked in the undercurrents, in what is not said, in what is not revealed.
The populace of Uriconium, a “city of worn-out enthusiasms�, are a superstitious lot, entertained with the violence on offer at the arena, blindly worshipping their old monarch. The Luck in the Head of the title is a bacchanalian spectacle of women, thumbs tied behind their backs, frenziedly chasing a ceremonial lamb, which is caught in their gnashing teeth. (A grim foreshadowing of Crome’s fate.) Indeed, the narrative overflows with accounts of weird pageants and processions, mid-summer festivals and rituals. It is through this superstitious world steeped in strange rites that Crome must navigate. He is the latest iteration of tegeus-Cromis, the warrior-poet of the earlier Viriconium stories, and rather than serving his queen, as in The Pastel City, here he is reluctantly manoeuvred into assassinating her. Various preparations to the assassination itself are treated like an arcane ritual, such as the handing over of the murder weapon, needing to be observed and verified. The fact that the conspiracy is veiled from the reader, the conspirators masked and unknown, add to an atmosphere rich in paranoia.
Mamma Vooley is a grotesque figurehead, old, insensible, in wig and doll makeup. In the procession to commemorate the liberation of Uriconium she appears more of an Old Guy, a stuffed icon, barking monarchical proclamations.
On reading The Luck in the Head in the 1980s, Neil Gaiman noted that it caught the atmosphere of London in the middle of the Thatcher years. He noted there is “something of the decaying brassiness of Thatcher herself in the rotting malevolence of Mammy Vooley�.
More Viriconium musings to be found at
Two city poets, Ardwick Crome and Ansel Verdigris, are drawn into a plot to assassinate the old queen, Mamma Vooley. Beyond this, the rest of the story is asbtruse, awash in an arcane logic. The story’s distinction lies in the mood it generates, rich with anxiety and paranoia, invoked in the undercurrents, in what is not said, in what is not revealed.
The populace of Uriconium, a “city of worn-out enthusiasms�, are a superstitious lot, entertained with the violence on offer at the arena, blindly worshipping their old monarch. The Luck in the Head of the title is a bacchanalian spectacle of women, thumbs tied behind their backs, frenziedly chasing a ceremonial lamb, which is caught in their gnashing teeth. (A grim foreshadowing of Crome’s fate.) Indeed, the narrative overflows with accounts of weird pageants and processions, mid-summer festivals and rituals. It is through this superstitious world steeped in strange rites that Crome must navigate. He is the latest iteration of tegeus-Cromis, the warrior-poet of the earlier Viriconium stories, and rather than serving his queen, as in The Pastel City, here he is reluctantly manoeuvred into assassinating her. Various preparations to the assassination itself are treated like an arcane ritual, such as the handing over of the murder weapon, needing to be observed and verified. The fact that the conspiracy is veiled from the reader, the conspirators masked and unknown, add to an atmosphere rich in paranoia.
Mamma Vooley is a grotesque figurehead, old, insensible, in wig and doll makeup. In the procession to commemorate the liberation of Uriconium she appears more of an Old Guy, a stuffed icon, barking monarchical proclamations.
On reading The Luck in the Head in the 1980s, Neil Gaiman noted that it caught the atmosphere of London in the middle of the Thatcher years. He noted there is “something of the decaying brassiness of Thatcher herself in the rotting malevolence of Mammy Vooley�.
More Viriconium musings to be found at
February 22, 2024
This collection was really hit and miss for me. Some of the pieces are great for one reason or another. Others, I hate to say, had me nodding off while I was reading them. But hey, overall, it's not bad.
June 4, 2019
These inebriated me when young; of the Viriconium set, aside from I liked the short stories, enormously. Even though it is cruel what he does with tegeus-Cromis from The Pastel City in 'The Lamia and Lord Cromis.' These are anti-romantic in the main, and yet, and yet... only against his own, and his world's, romanticism that billowed loose in the first novel. There is a tension.
At last, you might say, I understand what's going on in these stories more than I used to -- not that understanding matters, when their mood calibrated my young brain. These days, I appreciate the shamanistic elements he is fixated on, and that were just weird to me before. Now they remind me of belated and mutated cults, when old religions grapple with intrusion and breakdown, that I have read about in anthropology. I somehow think his Viriconium fictions are more than ever relevant.
One of the few authors where I savour every word. (Except that last story, set in the mundanity of the modern UK. A bit crap there, Harrison).
At last, you might say, I understand what's going on in these stories more than I used to -- not that understanding matters, when their mood calibrated my young brain. These days, I appreciate the shamanistic elements he is fixated on, and that were just weird to me before. Now they remind me of belated and mutated cults, when old religions grapple with intrusion and breakdown, that I have read about in anthropology. I somehow think his Viriconium fictions are more than ever relevant.
One of the few authors where I savour every word. (Except that last story, set in the mundanity of the modern UK. A bit crap there, Harrison).
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May 29, 2023past and future blend in a realm where the boundaries of right and wrong are blurred, stirring destinies and untold histories, truths mutate, fractured reflections of the consciousness creating a symphony of dissonance in a labyrinth of possibilities
April 4, 2017
A series of tales set in Harrison's wonderful and baroque Viriconium universe.
‘Viriconium Knights� is not set in the Viriconium that we know from ‘The Pastel City�. The young assassin, Ignace Retz, has an encounter with an old man and a tapestry which reveals disturbing visions of other Viriconiums. Like the novels these stories are packed with inventive and curious imagery and characters. The society is richly imagined, down to the smallest detail, and there are echoes of icons and symbols from elsewhere in the Viriconium canon, such as the old man’s metal eagle, reminiscent of the finely-crafted metal birds of Cellur.
Ignace Retz sees visions of himself in the tapestry, but he is identified in these visions as tegeus-Cromis.
‘Lords of Misrule� is a short tone-poem of a piece in which tegeus-Cromis (or a version of tegeus-Cromis, since the city here is called Uriconium) visits a strangely-shaped homestead lying in the path of an invasion. An ‘idiot-boy� keenly displays his Mari, an elaborately decorated horse’s skull with a hinged jaw, mounted on a pole which, again, is used for an undefined ritual purpose, its origins perhaps long forgotten to the Uriconians, but associated � as the title suggests � with ancient British Pagan practices.
The Mari reappears in ‘Strange Great Sins�, a tale told by a ‘sin-eater�, summoned to a house to eat the sins of a dead child (another ritual). He tells the story of his strange half-mad uncle. The sin-eater only begins to know and understand his uncle following his death and the young man’s move to Viriconium to take over his rooms, there discovering his lifelong obsession with a dancer and his secret (again ritualistic) shrine to her.
‘The Dancer From The Dance� is another tale set in what appears to be an alternate Viriconium. In the novel ‘In Viriconium� Harrison posits the idea that that the Earth is so old that reality itself has begun to break down. Here, the spaces within the city seem to have become fluid and unmeasurable as Crome (?) discovers when he is forced � by fate, circumstance or design � onto Allman’s Heath with a dancer and a dwarf clown, each of which have their own practised arts of bodily expression. The dancer is Vera Ghillera, with whom the narrator’s uncle fell in love in ‘Strange Great Sins�.
‘The Luck in The Head� again features the pagan rituals which are a recurring motif throughout the collected Viriconium works. An assassin is recruited by a mysterious woman through a dream of a sacrificial lamb to kill Mama Vooley.
It’s a dark and highly imaginative piece rich with textural detail. It was also converted into a graphic novel in collaboration with Ian Miller.
Characters appear and reappear within these tales, but one is never certain whether they are the same people or their potential selves in another incarnation of the city. This was device pioneered by Moorcock, most notably in his Jerry Cornelius series � to which Harrison contributed � although Harrison has here taken the concept to an extremely sophisticated level.
‘The Lamia and Lord Cromis� reintroduces tegeus-Cromis, of 'The Pastel City' on a seemingly fatal quest to kill the Lamia who is a curse upon his family. Five of his immediate male ancestors have died in the act of killing the Lamia. The Lamia has always returned to be killed by the next in line.
It’s a Spartan and disturbing tale and � like the other stories � not a little weird, but, one is easily seduced by the prose, the obsessive attention to detail and the smothering entropic atmosphere of stagnation and decay.
The last tale ‘A Young Man’s Journey to Viriconium� is the most enigmatic, being a story set in Manchester of the author’s attempts to find the way into Viriconium. The beauty of it is the captured surreal banality of conversation and characters, oddly echoing the characters of Viriconium, yet firmly rooted in our own society. The signs of burgeoning entropy are all around us, reflected in the redundant and often meaningless exchanges of words between those the narrator overhears.
Viriconium is accessible, he discovers, through reflective surfaces such as windows and mirrors, immediately suggesting that the City is ultimately a reflection of our own society, tied to its empty rituals and loth to embrace change.
‘Viriconium Knights� is not set in the Viriconium that we know from ‘The Pastel City�. The young assassin, Ignace Retz, has an encounter with an old man and a tapestry which reveals disturbing visions of other Viriconiums. Like the novels these stories are packed with inventive and curious imagery and characters. The society is richly imagined, down to the smallest detail, and there are echoes of icons and symbols from elsewhere in the Viriconium canon, such as the old man’s metal eagle, reminiscent of the finely-crafted metal birds of Cellur.
Ignace Retz sees visions of himself in the tapestry, but he is identified in these visions as tegeus-Cromis.
‘Lords of Misrule� is a short tone-poem of a piece in which tegeus-Cromis (or a version of tegeus-Cromis, since the city here is called Uriconium) visits a strangely-shaped homestead lying in the path of an invasion. An ‘idiot-boy� keenly displays his Mari, an elaborately decorated horse’s skull with a hinged jaw, mounted on a pole which, again, is used for an undefined ritual purpose, its origins perhaps long forgotten to the Uriconians, but associated � as the title suggests � with ancient British Pagan practices.
The Mari reappears in ‘Strange Great Sins�, a tale told by a ‘sin-eater�, summoned to a house to eat the sins of a dead child (another ritual). He tells the story of his strange half-mad uncle. The sin-eater only begins to know and understand his uncle following his death and the young man’s move to Viriconium to take over his rooms, there discovering his lifelong obsession with a dancer and his secret (again ritualistic) shrine to her.
‘The Dancer From The Dance� is another tale set in what appears to be an alternate Viriconium. In the novel ‘In Viriconium� Harrison posits the idea that that the Earth is so old that reality itself has begun to break down. Here, the spaces within the city seem to have become fluid and unmeasurable as Crome (?) discovers when he is forced � by fate, circumstance or design � onto Allman’s Heath with a dancer and a dwarf clown, each of which have their own practised arts of bodily expression. The dancer is Vera Ghillera, with whom the narrator’s uncle fell in love in ‘Strange Great Sins�.
‘The Luck in The Head� again features the pagan rituals which are a recurring motif throughout the collected Viriconium works. An assassin is recruited by a mysterious woman through a dream of a sacrificial lamb to kill Mama Vooley.
It’s a dark and highly imaginative piece rich with textural detail. It was also converted into a graphic novel in collaboration with Ian Miller.
Characters appear and reappear within these tales, but one is never certain whether they are the same people or their potential selves in another incarnation of the city. This was device pioneered by Moorcock, most notably in his Jerry Cornelius series � to which Harrison contributed � although Harrison has here taken the concept to an extremely sophisticated level.
‘The Lamia and Lord Cromis� reintroduces tegeus-Cromis, of 'The Pastel City' on a seemingly fatal quest to kill the Lamia who is a curse upon his family. Five of his immediate male ancestors have died in the act of killing the Lamia. The Lamia has always returned to be killed by the next in line.
It’s a Spartan and disturbing tale and � like the other stories � not a little weird, but, one is easily seduced by the prose, the obsessive attention to detail and the smothering entropic atmosphere of stagnation and decay.
The last tale ‘A Young Man’s Journey to Viriconium� is the most enigmatic, being a story set in Manchester of the author’s attempts to find the way into Viriconium. The beauty of it is the captured surreal banality of conversation and characters, oddly echoing the characters of Viriconium, yet firmly rooted in our own society. The signs of burgeoning entropy are all around us, reflected in the redundant and often meaningless exchanges of words between those the narrator overhears.
Viriconium is accessible, he discovers, through reflective surfaces such as windows and mirrors, immediately suggesting that the City is ultimately a reflection of our own society, tied to its empty rituals and loth to embrace change.
December 12, 2020
None of the Viriconium books have quite captivated me with their stories, their characters or writing. Yet, I kept coming back to them because of the world they take place in. Viriconium is fantasy set in the distant future, in the ruins of a civilization long forgotten; it is an ever-deteriorating world that has forgotten why it exists, a world that is never quite the same from tale to tale, like a shifting memory, always rearranging itself in slightly different ways whenever you try to recall it.
I don't see myself re-reading these stories anytime soon, possibly ever, but the world of Viriconium is certain to stay with me for a long time to come.
I don't see myself re-reading these stories anytime soon, possibly ever, but the world of Viriconium is certain to stay with me for a long time to come.
December 14, 2016
'Nocturnos de Viriconium' recoge algunos de los cuentos ambientados en esta ciudad. (En España se han publicado por separado, repartiéndose entre los volúmenes 'Caballeros de Viriconium', 'Tormenta de alas' y 'Nocturnos de Viriconium'; hay que añadir también que faltan dos cuentos que sà están incluidos en la edición americana de 'Viriconium Nights'.)
Estos cuentos son magnÃficos y dejan un grato sabor de boca. Además, en ellos nos reecontramos con algunos de los personajes que aparecen en las novelas, como es el caso de tegeus-Cromis. Pienso que podrÃa hablarse de fantasÃa crepuscular, haciendo una analogÃa con el western crepuscular, ya que ambos comparten esa estética melancólica, en la que se recuerdan momentos mucho mejores, y en la que se intuye que algo se está acabando para dar paso a otra época diferente. Como comenté en los anteriores libros de la secuencia de Viriconium, lo mejor de Harrison no son las historias que nos cuenta (que son excelentes), ni los personajes (que son memorables), sino las imágenes que logra crear en tu imaginación.
Estos son los siete relatos de la edición española:
- CABALLEROS DE VIRICONIUM. En las noches de la Ciudad Alta, hay un juego en el que se baten dos combatientes. Lo que no sabe Ignace Retz es lo que le deparará su lucha contra Osgerby Practal.
- SEÑORES DEL DESGOBIERNO. El Greba de Yule tiene por invitado a Cromis, al que le mostrará la región en la que vive, y al que intentará convencer de la necesidad de ayuda para su protección.
- GRANDES Y EXTRAÑOS PECADOS. Una niña ha muerto y el comepecados es reclamado a su lecho de muerte. Poco trabajo tiene con la pequeña, asà que les contará a los desdichados padres su historia.
- LA DANZARINA Y LA DANZA. Extraña historia esta, la de Egon Rhys, un asesino, y su enamorada Vera Ghillera, famosa bailarina, que junto al enano Morgante, se embarcan en la búsqueda de una extraña criatura por el inhóspito Breñal de Todos los Hombres.
- LA SUERTE EN LA CABEZA. A Ardwick Crome le persigue un extraño sueño del que no puede librarse. El encuentro con una misteriosa mujer con una máscara de insecto puede darle la solución a su problema.
- LA LAMIA Y LORD CROMIS. Por tradición familiar, tegeus-Cromis ha de acabar con la Lamia, que además está asesinando a gente de la comarca de Duirinish. Para ello contará con la ayuda del enano Morgante y de Disolución Khan.
- EL VIAJE DE UN JOVEN A VIRICONIUM. Este relato transcurre en nuestro mundo, más concretamente en York, donde el joven protagonista conoce al señor Ambrayses, que le habla de la existencia de otro mundo llamado Viriconium. Lo que en un principio parece una fantasÃa, puede convertirse en algo más al conocer al extraño doctor Petromax.
Estos cuentos son magnÃficos y dejan un grato sabor de boca. Además, en ellos nos reecontramos con algunos de los personajes que aparecen en las novelas, como es el caso de tegeus-Cromis. Pienso que podrÃa hablarse de fantasÃa crepuscular, haciendo una analogÃa con el western crepuscular, ya que ambos comparten esa estética melancólica, en la que se recuerdan momentos mucho mejores, y en la que se intuye que algo se está acabando para dar paso a otra época diferente. Como comenté en los anteriores libros de la secuencia de Viriconium, lo mejor de Harrison no son las historias que nos cuenta (que son excelentes), ni los personajes (que son memorables), sino las imágenes que logra crear en tu imaginación.
Estos son los siete relatos de la edición española:
- CABALLEROS DE VIRICONIUM. En las noches de la Ciudad Alta, hay un juego en el que se baten dos combatientes. Lo que no sabe Ignace Retz es lo que le deparará su lucha contra Osgerby Practal.
- SEÑORES DEL DESGOBIERNO. El Greba de Yule tiene por invitado a Cromis, al que le mostrará la región en la que vive, y al que intentará convencer de la necesidad de ayuda para su protección.
- GRANDES Y EXTRAÑOS PECADOS. Una niña ha muerto y el comepecados es reclamado a su lecho de muerte. Poco trabajo tiene con la pequeña, asà que les contará a los desdichados padres su historia.
- LA DANZARINA Y LA DANZA. Extraña historia esta, la de Egon Rhys, un asesino, y su enamorada Vera Ghillera, famosa bailarina, que junto al enano Morgante, se embarcan en la búsqueda de una extraña criatura por el inhóspito Breñal de Todos los Hombres.
- LA SUERTE EN LA CABEZA. A Ardwick Crome le persigue un extraño sueño del que no puede librarse. El encuentro con una misteriosa mujer con una máscara de insecto puede darle la solución a su problema.
- LA LAMIA Y LORD CROMIS. Por tradición familiar, tegeus-Cromis ha de acabar con la Lamia, que además está asesinando a gente de la comarca de Duirinish. Para ello contará con la ayuda del enano Morgante y de Disolución Khan.
- EL VIAJE DE UN JOVEN A VIRICONIUM. Este relato transcurre en nuestro mundo, más concretamente en York, donde el joven protagonista conoce al señor Ambrayses, que le habla de la existencia de otro mundo llamado Viriconium. Lo que en un principio parece una fantasÃa, puede convertirse en algo más al conocer al extraño doctor Petromax.
October 31, 2018
Not every story is at the level of the novels, but a few of them are even better. "Luck in the Head" might be my favorite work in the whole series.
June 30, 2021
It begins with an adventure in the wastes (everywhere is a waste in the world of Viriconium) and ends with a sin-eater’s meal of salt.
This is very similar to (and in the same world as, though the world is a shifting one) The Pastel City. If there’s a fault to it, it is that Harrison tries to hard to be poetic; but he has a way of trying too hard that doesn’t fall too short when he fails.
The stories take place after the events in the Pastel City, when the queen has been replaced by a more vulgar monarch, who gives the city a very New Orleans feel. There are masks everywhere, especially at night, and street processions, and low-rent mystics. There is much less of the ancient world’s technology, though it does appear occasionally—a vibro-weapon here, an observatory there, perhaps even a robot or two.
The highlight of the book is “In Viriconium�, which is also the longest of the stories. The plague zone has begun to grow, and is engulfing more of the city—including the home of one of the city’s greatest painters. One of the city’s lesser painters tries to save her, but the plague zone’s effect is less of plague than of enervation. She does not wish to leave and he does not have the will to encourage her. He and his one friend concoct silly schemes while the plague police methodically destroy people’s homes and accomplishments to keep the disease under control—which of course doesn’t work.
This is very similar to (and in the same world as, though the world is a shifting one) The Pastel City. If there’s a fault to it, it is that Harrison tries to hard to be poetic; but he has a way of trying too hard that doesn’t fall too short when he fails.
Strange old towers rose from a wooded slope clasped in a curved arm of the derelict pleasure canal. They were uninhabited now. About their feet clustered the peeling villas of a vanished middle class, all plaster moldings, tottering porticoes, and drains smelling of cats. Ashlyme trudged up the hill. A bell clanged high up in a house; a face moved at a window. The wind whirled the dust and dead leaves round him.
The stories take place after the events in the Pastel City, when the queen has been replaced by a more vulgar monarch, who gives the city a very New Orleans feel. There are masks everywhere, especially at night, and street processions, and low-rent mystics. There is much less of the ancient world’s technology, though it does appear occasionally—a vibro-weapon here, an observatory there, perhaps even a robot or two.
The highlight of the book is “In Viriconium�, which is also the longest of the stories. The plague zone has begun to grow, and is engulfing more of the city—including the home of one of the city’s greatest painters. One of the city’s lesser painters tries to save her, but the plague zone’s effect is less of plague than of enervation. She does not wish to leave and he does not have the will to encourage her. He and his one friend concoct silly schemes while the plague police methodically destroy people’s homes and accomplishments to keep the disease under control—which of course doesn’t work.
“My life is like a letter torn up twenty years ago,� she said in a low, anguished voice. “I have thought about it so often that the original sense is lost.�
April 10, 2022
Desigual, como me sucede siempre con todos los libros de relatos. Todos tristes, todos deprimentes, todos valleinclanescos, incluso aquellos que son pura y dura espada y brujerÃa.
Caballeros de Viriconium: la mala es Thatcher, jeje. Un relato muy alienÃgena, y un gran detalle colocarlo al principio porque fija el ritmo que van a llevar todas las historias y la saga en sÃ: el mundo es viejo, la humanidad no se recuerda a sà misma. Todo se repite con escasas variaciones, como un dejavu constante que no es tal, sino que aquella otra vez hiciste algo parecido sin prestar mucha atención. Los pasajes onÃricos son un gran acierto, las apariciones de otros personajes, un detalle de gran escritor.
Señores del desgobierno: Wow. TristÃsimo y desesperanzado. Metáfora de algo que no me atrevo a elelucubrar.
Grandes y extraños pecados: Otro tristÃsimo para el carrito. La confrontación del adulto contra el niño que fue es un puñetazo en to la boca.
La danzarina y la danza: me he reÃdo con el final, eso no se hace. Also: :(
La suerte en la cabeza: el más flojo igual, sin más.
La lamia y Lord Cromis: aquà se tercia un meme para describir en una lÃnea, al estilo de Tamsyn Muir, el recochineo que tiene Harrison contra su personaje y contra el género de espada y brujerÃa, pero no me sale.
El viaje de un joven a Viriconium: Viriconium es un páramo de mierda al que se accede por una trastienda de York. El mundo ya no existe y a nadie le importa. Harrison le dice adiós al vehÃculo de la fantasÃa *emojis tristes*
Le plantaria la quinta, pero creo que se echa de menos alguna secuencia de prosa loquÃsima y perturbadora como en Tormenta de Alas para que esto sea redondo de verdad.
Ojalá Harrison hubiese continuado aquÃ, haciendo historias cÃclicas y desesperantes. Ojalá otros doce volúmenes como éste.
Caballeros de Viriconium: la mala es Thatcher, jeje. Un relato muy alienÃgena, y un gran detalle colocarlo al principio porque fija el ritmo que van a llevar todas las historias y la saga en sÃ: el mundo es viejo, la humanidad no se recuerda a sà misma. Todo se repite con escasas variaciones, como un dejavu constante que no es tal, sino que aquella otra vez hiciste algo parecido sin prestar mucha atención. Los pasajes onÃricos son un gran acierto, las apariciones de otros personajes, un detalle de gran escritor.
Señores del desgobierno: Wow. TristÃsimo y desesperanzado. Metáfora de algo que no me atrevo a elelucubrar.
Grandes y extraños pecados: Otro tristÃsimo para el carrito. La confrontación del adulto contra el niño que fue es un puñetazo en to la boca.
La danzarina y la danza: me he reÃdo con el final, eso no se hace. Also: :(
La suerte en la cabeza: el más flojo igual, sin más.
La lamia y Lord Cromis: aquà se tercia un meme para describir en una lÃnea, al estilo de Tamsyn Muir, el recochineo que tiene Harrison contra su personaje y contra el género de espada y brujerÃa, pero no me sale.
El viaje de un joven a Viriconium: Viriconium es un páramo de mierda al que se accede por una trastienda de York. El mundo ya no existe y a nadie le importa. Harrison le dice adiós al vehÃculo de la fantasÃa *emojis tristes*
Le plantaria la quinta, pero creo que se echa de menos alguna secuencia de prosa loquÃsima y perturbadora como en Tormenta de Alas para que esto sea redondo de verdad.
Ojalá Harrison hubiese continuado aquÃ, haciendo historias cÃclicas y desesperantes. Ojalá otros doce volúmenes como éste.
June 8, 2023
(Spoilerish thoughts below.) This collection of interconnected stories gives some hints at what might be going on in Viriconium. Characters, images, places, and phrases reappear in different stories in different ways, like the cards frequently referenced in this series, and reminiscent of Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion stories. The effect also reminded me of certain video games with a limited number of character models, where many NPCs look the same while playing distinct roles.
The story “Viriconium Knights� seems like the strongest clue about the nature of the city and its inhabitants. My interpretation could be totally off base, and I need to re-read to better understand this series, but I like my theory. Cellur is an artificial man who has forgotten most of his experiences, and there are very lifelike mechanical birds. Cromis� name suggests metal, and he appears in different forms with varying names that seem disconnected with each other. To me this suggests that Cromis at least is like Cellur, and perhaps everyone else is too. Viriconium and it’s inhabitants may be the technological (rather than biological) remnants of past human civilization, endlessly playing out their lives with randomly reshuffling details, unable to remember their distant past. Unlike Moorcock’s Eternal Champion, this cycle doesn’t seem to serve some cosmic purpose. To use the video game comparison again, the people of Viriconium remind me of NPCs milling about in a virtual world, long after all the human players have abandoned it.
The story “Viriconium Knights� seems like the strongest clue about the nature of the city and its inhabitants. My interpretation could be totally off base, and I need to re-read to better understand this series, but I like my theory. Cellur is an artificial man who has forgotten most of his experiences, and there are very lifelike mechanical birds. Cromis� name suggests metal, and he appears in different forms with varying names that seem disconnected with each other. To me this suggests that Cromis at least is like Cellur, and perhaps everyone else is too. Viriconium and it’s inhabitants may be the technological (rather than biological) remnants of past human civilization, endlessly playing out their lives with randomly reshuffling details, unable to remember their distant past. Unlike Moorcock’s Eternal Champion, this cycle doesn’t seem to serve some cosmic purpose. To use the video game comparison again, the people of Viriconium remind me of NPCs milling about in a virtual world, long after all the human players have abandoned it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 7, 2023
(Spoilerish thoughts below.) This collection of interconnected stories gives some hints at what might be going on in Viriconium. Characters, images, places, and phrases reappear in different stories in different ways, like the cards frequently referenced in this series, and reminiscent of Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion stories. The effect also reminded me of certain video games with a limited number of character models, where many NPCs look the same while playing distinct roles.
The story “Viriconium Knights� seems like the strongest clue about the nature of the city and its inhabitants. My interpretation could be totally off base, and I need to re-read to better understand this series, but I like my theory. Cellur is an artificial man who has forgotten most of his experiences, and there are very lifelike mechanical birds. Cromis� name suggests metal, and he appears in different forms with varying names that seem disconnected with each other. To me this suggests that Cromis at least is like Cellur, and perhaps everyone else is too. Viriconium and it’s inhabitants may be the technological (rather than biological) remnants of past human civilization, endlessly playing out their lives with randomly reshuffling details, unable to remember their distant past. Unlike Moorcock’s Eternal Champion, this cycle doesn’t seem to serve some cosmic purpose. To use the video game comparison again, the people of Viriconium remind me of NPCs milling about in a virtual world, long after all the human players have abandoned it.
The story “Viriconium Knights� seems like the strongest clue about the nature of the city and its inhabitants. My interpretation could be totally off base, and I need to re-read to better understand this series, but I like my theory. Cellur is an artificial man who has forgotten most of his experiences, and there are very lifelike mechanical birds. Cromis� name suggests metal, and he appears in different forms with varying names that seem disconnected with each other. To me this suggests that Cromis at least is like Cellur, and perhaps everyone else is too. Viriconium and it’s inhabitants may be the technological (rather than biological) remnants of past human civilization, endlessly playing out their lives with randomly reshuffling details, unable to remember their distant past. Unlike Moorcock’s Eternal Champion, this cycle doesn’t seem to serve some cosmic purpose. To use the video game comparison again, the people of Viriconium remind me of NPCs milling about in a virtual world, long after all the human players have abandoned it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2024
A collection of short stories wraps up the Viriconium sequence; stories that reuse motifs and imagery familiar to those that have read the preceding novels-- insects, fish-head masks, depressed artists and of course, the once great, but now decaying city of Viriconium. Perhaps more than the novels themselves, the main theme running through these stories being that of the obfuscation of the past, that the passing of time erodes and obscures everything like nothing else, granting new meaning to old things.
Favorite in the collection is definitely The Lamia and Lord Cromis-- Harrison's take on a "St. George and the Dragon" type of narrative in which a distinguished Knight confronts a legendary beast. What follows is some of the most gorgeous, yet disorienting and grotesque imagery I've encountered in a story of this kind, and I absolutely loved it.
Favorite in the collection is definitely The Lamia and Lord Cromis-- Harrison's take on a "St. George and the Dragon" type of narrative in which a distinguished Knight confronts a legendary beast. What follows is some of the most gorgeous, yet disorienting and grotesque imagery I've encountered in a story of this kind, and I absolutely loved it.
April 4, 2025
The crazy thing about the Viriconium sequence is that each entry is better than the last, but each entry also makes the previous entries better by both illuminating certain aspects and throwing other aspects you thought you understood back into shadow, leaving Viriconium as a shifting, shimmering mirage.
November 23, 2024
Harrison strikes me as "your favorite author's favorite author" because i can rattle off like five books that were clearly written in the aftershock of reading Viriconium. Good lord! I'm gonna be rereading these books a bunch, aren't I
March 6, 2023
Gonna hit myself on the head with a mallet until I'm capable of writing shit like this.
November 28, 2024
started good, stayed good, ended good
January 1, 2016
Short stories set in Viriconium, a city so decadently Gothic that nobody quite seems to know where or how old it really is. I imagine it as Ankh-Morpork on absinthe, or some nineteenth-century metropolis riddled with dodgy architecture and obscure conspiracies. Although there are some reoccurring characters, like tigeur-Cromis and a melancholy dwarven jester, there is no overarching plot to tie these stories together. This combined with my ignorance of this series to confuse me, making me feel as though I was reading the footnotes without the main text.
Harrison’s prose is fantastic, effortlessly summoning a palette of black, brown and tan into my mind. The dank settings he conjures up reminded me of D. M. Cornish’s brilliant Monster Blood Tattoo, as an atmosphere of civilization decay is essential to both worlds. His dialogue feels emotionally authentic while describing completely absurd situations. Characters are subtly fleshed out, such as a hitman in love with a beautiful ballerina who cannot adjust to her social scene.
My main problem was that there was no sense that any event was important. I’d have appreciated a timeline of Viriconium events, or at least a map or something. But I suspect that would be to miss the point of the whole business. (I’ve also been hard at work this week, so that probably accounts for my lack of focus.)
My favourite story was the last, “A Young Man’s Journey to Viriconium�, about two Englishmen who try to journey to the great city. Bathroom mirrors are essential to the process. The combination of magic and urban misery made the tale seem like something out of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. If I were editing this book, I’d have placed the story at the start to acquaint the reader with the whole Viriconium thing.
I think it would be best to read Viriconium Nights after checking out Harrison’s earlier Viriconium novels. That way you’ll get the context � tiguer-Cromis has to be the protagonist of at least one book. This is exactly what I intend to do. If this book is representative of what fantasy has to offer, I’ll be paying a lot more attention to the genre.
Harrison’s prose is fantastic, effortlessly summoning a palette of black, brown and tan into my mind. The dank settings he conjures up reminded me of D. M. Cornish’s brilliant Monster Blood Tattoo, as an atmosphere of civilization decay is essential to both worlds. His dialogue feels emotionally authentic while describing completely absurd situations. Characters are subtly fleshed out, such as a hitman in love with a beautiful ballerina who cannot adjust to her social scene.
My main problem was that there was no sense that any event was important. I’d have appreciated a timeline of Viriconium events, or at least a map or something. But I suspect that would be to miss the point of the whole business. (I’ve also been hard at work this week, so that probably accounts for my lack of focus.)
My favourite story was the last, “A Young Man’s Journey to Viriconium�, about two Englishmen who try to journey to the great city. Bathroom mirrors are essential to the process. The combination of magic and urban misery made the tale seem like something out of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. If I were editing this book, I’d have placed the story at the start to acquaint the reader with the whole Viriconium thing.
I think it would be best to read Viriconium Nights after checking out Harrison’s earlier Viriconium novels. That way you’ll get the context � tiguer-Cromis has to be the protagonist of at least one book. This is exactly what I intend to do. If this book is representative of what fantasy has to offer, I’ll be paying a lot more attention to the genre.
March 17, 2014
The primary project here is to take Tolkien's hint and emphasise the textual nature of these stories. The characters are divided between those who seek the (dubious) reality behind symbols, and those who schizophrenically spout such symbols. Here is Robert Macfarlane on Mike Harrison: '[his books] explore confusion without dispelling it, have no ambitions to clarification, and are characterised in their telling by arrhythmia and imbalance'. Yes. There is a kind of moral drive towards confusion and bathos in these stories. But this drive is a kind of fundamentalism, so that, as Harold Bloom said of Borges, he 'can wound you, but always in the same way'. Here, Harrison lacks variety.
June 10, 2015
What I said about : 'I wanted to like it more than I did.' also goes for this book, but I did like it better.
There was more focus on the actual city, which has a weird vibe which I did like. The sometimes meandering or even lagging plot of the stories was a bit off putting sometimes, this certainly was no page turner.
As an influence on writers as Jeff Vandermeer and K.J. Bishop the importance can not be overstated, but I'd recommend this mostly to people wanting to dive into the roots of the New Weird genre.
There was more focus on the actual city, which has a weird vibe which I did like. The sometimes meandering or even lagging plot of the stories was a bit off putting sometimes, this certainly was no page turner.
As an influence on writers as Jeff Vandermeer and K.J. Bishop the importance can not be overstated, but I'd recommend this mostly to people wanting to dive into the roots of the New Weird genre.
April 6, 2012
None of the stories were especially good. The last one might be interesting if it was altered so as to be completely unrelated to Viriconium, as the attempt to make Viriconium out to be some parallel dimension utopia makes little sense in the context of the rest of the series.
August 14, 2011
Read as part of 'Viriconium' omnibus. See 'In Viriconium' entry for edition information.
Want to read
September 10, 2010*note to self. Copy from A. (different cover and edition, scan later when read)
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