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How much you enjoy Viriconium will most likely depend on why you read fantasy. Actually, scratch that: how much you enjoy Viriconium relies on what you expect out of your reading, period.

If you see books as comfort food, you are probably going to hate Viriconium because this collection is the stark opposite of that. If you read fantastic literature for complex plots, strong character development and clear, lucid writing, then you are also probably going to hate Viriconium. Not because the novel lacks any of these things but because it refuses to gratify. The plot never quite coheres, most of the characters are unlikable and/or broken and the writing, while heart-stoppingly gorgeous, can be difficult to wrangle. I think Viriconium is a great book and everyone should read it at least once, but having fought my way through the thing over the course of a month I can see how some might detest the book. That said, if you can roll with the fact that the haziness of the plot, the deeply strange cast and the borderline hallucinogenic writing are all deliberate and by all means succeeding in keeping you off balance, then you might very well love this book.

Viriconium operates in far murkier waters than much of fantasy and science fiction, even the very best of it. The first part of the book is a relatively conventional, but unusually downbeat, take on sword and sorcery science fantasy. What follows spirals further and further down into surreality, beginning with one of the strangest and most memorable takes on an alien invasion story I've seen and ending with a story collection, presumably depicting the death throes of a fantastic city spinning its own tale into obsolescence. Characters reappear (or do they?), archetypes reoccur (and are subverted) and standard catharsis is sidestepped for something far more painful and interesting. There is a sense that the cast of Viriconium are lost in a grand tapestry whose significance they know nothing of, wandering between events of grand significance that they at times actively avoid. This would be very frustrating if Harrison wasn't already playing a deeper game here, telling stories of flawed, mundane people whose lives are insignificant and petty but also weirdly meaningful.

Interleaving all of this is a terrific sense of bleakness that sets in from the very first story, and only intensifies throughout the collection. The first story in the collection has (relatively) clearly defined heroes and villains, but from the second story on there are no heroes and no villains, only victims. Everyone is simply trying to get by, whether they be men, women, dwarfs or terrors from beyond, and conflict isn't so much resolved by "saving Viriconium" as it is by resetting its equilibrium. It's worth noting that in every case, the city changes with each telling despite the efforts of the cast to keep their lives and home intact. Everything in Viriconium is constantly changing or disintegrating, from the characters to the history of the city to the city's name, to the very premise of the stories themselves. It's very much like our own world in that way, although some might find it too close to our own world for comfort.

It comes down to this: if you read fantasy to catch a glimpse of something that lies outside the bonds of the familiar, then you should read Viriconium. It's sad, frustrating, beautifully written, bitterly human and probably without peer in what it sets out to do. It's not an easy read, but if you're up for the challenge I'd recommend taking a crack at it. It's not easy to love, but it's a book I respect quite a bit.