Michael John Harrison

An omnibus volume contains all the Viriconium stories, originally published in four books: The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, and Viriconium Nights. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.

Viriconium

M. John Harrison

A magnificent city existing on the ringes of the past, and on the brink of destruction, Viriconium • With a foreword by Neil Gaiman Available to American readers for the first time, this landmark collection gathers four groundbreaking fantasy classics from the acclaimed author of Light. Set in the imagined city of Viriconium, here are the masterworks that revolutionized a genre and enthralled a generation of readers: The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, and Viriconium Nights. Back in print after a long absence, these singular tales of a timeless realm and its enigmatic inhabitants are now reborn and compiled to captivate a whole new generation. Praise for M. John Harrison’s Viriconium “The world that Harrison depicts is intricate and authentic, peopled with a multitude of strange yet lifelike characters—a combination which serves to make his richly imagined empire of Viriconium feel very real indeed. . . . This omnibus collection from the author of Light is canon-reading for those who wish to know the genre's roots, as well as the heights, to which it can aspire.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Brilliant, beautiful, and absolutely essential reading. The breadth of vision and imagination alone in these books is unparalleled. It is truly one of a kind and will continue to haunt you in the best possible way for years.”—Jonathan Carroll, author of White Apples “Harrison’s Viriconium sequence is the jewel in the crown of 20th-century fantasy, a work that proves irrefutably that fantastic literature can be Art with a capital A, holding its own alongside the very finest writing of our time, or any other.”—Elizabeth Hand, author of Mortal Love “M. John Harrison is a true master of English prose. He possesses the eye of a painter, the ear of a bard, and a rigorous and playful intellect. The Viriconium novels and stories are infused with a haunting genius that never falters.”—K.J. Bishop, author of The Etched City

Bryan Alexander

It's hard to write about Viriconium without being infected by its style. 

This is a collection of three short novels and some short stories about Harrison's imagined city of Viriconium. 

The first two novels, Pastel City and Storm of Wings, are recognizable as fantasies. They offer heroes, monsters, queens, epic battles. Pastel City might be the most traditional, with an Elric vibe. The third novel, In Viriconium, changes course, presenting the lives of artists and criminals without much fantastic or epic content. The short stories follow the third novel in theme and content, except for the last one.

Harrison presents a fairly consistent world with this city. Characters, locations, and some history recur from story to story. Lord Cromis, for example, appears frequently, as do certain cafes. Images and themes persist, like horseheads, dwarves, mirrors, locusts, paintings.

Viriconium occurs in a dying Earth setting. Early on we're told things take place following the "Afternoon cultures". Entropy rules Viriconium, ravaging buildings and people with decay. Melancholy and futility seep from nearly every page, despite the occasional energies of some rare, manic characters. Villains (bad guys, alien insects, a robot plague) fade from view over the course of the book. Technology is a thing of the past, either present as a background ruin (quiet, useless machines as part of the landscape) or available as bad archaeology (weapons of the past dug up to ill effect, usually working poorly). Harrison loves addressing the physical, tactile details of this saddening everyday life: old clothes, malfunctioning weapons, abandoned buildings, sour smells. Most of these details are non-fantastic, easily recognizable, especially in the book's second half. I'm reminded of Phil Dick's love of kibble and junk, or maybe Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun without its energetic, explanatory protagonist.

The effect is hypnotic, elegiac. Plots are quiet, incremental, allusive after Pastel City. I slowed down my reading to dwell in each paragraph, listening hard to the often cryptic dialog, poetry, and songs. I admired the linguistic precision in descriptions, the way each sentence densely and quickly sketches settings and backgrounds, gesturing to plots that probably don't progress. The earlier stories read a bit like Clark Ashton Smith with impressive, sonorous vocabulary, while the later ones return to the 20th century. Ultimately all of Viriconium but the last story feels like a text escaped from that other world, lacking any interface with or concessions to our own. Yes, like an anthology from Tlön. Like Delany's Dhalgren it refuses our familiarity. And naturally draws us back to savor, reread, and read aloud.

A tower once stood here in the shadow of the estuarine cliffs, made too long ago for anyone to remember, in a way no one left can understand, from a single obsidian monolith fully two hundred feet in length. For ten thousand years wind and water scoured its southern face, finding no weakness; and at night a yellow light might be discerned in its topmost window, coming and going as if someone there passed before a flame. Who brought it to this rainy country, where in winter the gales drive the white water up the Minch and fishermen from Lendalfoot shun the inshore ground, and for what purpose, is unclear. Now it lies in five pieces.
The effect can be alienating and distancing, unsettling and, famously, weird.

The exception is the book's final story, "A Young Man's Journey to Viriconium". It takes place in our world (specifically the British city of York), and concerns several people obsessed with Viriconium. They seek clues in this world, and some apparently travel to the other through a cafe bathroom's mirror. Our world is even more decrepit and sad than Viriconium at its most entropic, which helps explain the desire to escape.

Where does Viriconium sit in a reader's mind? You can see the full span of the New Weird movement in this book, from dark adventure stories to the surrealism of Ambergris. The second half of the volume fits Bruce Sterling's "slipstream" idea very well. There are connections to magical realism, and naturally to surrealism. 

Read this book. It's urgent to do so if you're in America, since we barely see any traces of M. John Harrison here. Viriconium is an alternative view to most of current sf and mainstream fiction, an alien artifact you need to install within your mental armature. Consider it an upgrade, a book of dreams you don't remember upon wakening, but which Harrison has returned to you.