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I bounced off this installment of the Viriconium Sequence strongly, I am really struggling to understand the glowing reviews I have read because this book just wasn't for me. There is no story here, banal purple prose about the decaying low city of Viriconium and the "plague" engulfing the artists quarter framed through the actions of an artist Ashlyme King and his love interest? Audsley King.

I kept asking myself what is the point of this? Who are the barley brothers and why do they roll around the city provoking mayhem and generally acting like a pair of neuro divergent orphans in desperate need of a home and a family? Why does any of this matter and how can these events be described as a story? Did I simply fail to understand this book?

I was bored to tears! Harrison has a dense, poetic and literary style so I was holding out for something to happen. Unfortunately nothing really happens and I just didn't care about any of the characters. Yes the omnipresent, omniversal city is here(the only thing I liked about this story); Viriconium in its ageing fragmented splendour, back streets and pavilions. However the story revolves around a cast of about 5 or 6 characters and the stakes are low, almost non-existent which makes the story feel small and which is at odds with the grand setting that the ancient metropolis Viriconium is .

The "plague" is abstract and amorphous no explanation is given for it's origin or purpose, it's a narrative device that seems completely useless on inspection. I ask why bother to write about a plague spreading across a city where there is no sense of urgency or panic about it's impact on the present or the future?

I am baffled about "In Viriconium" I am struggling to review it because I don't understand it at all, I really don't like books that waste my time and I am unhappy that the time lost reading this will never be recouped.