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Viriconium
Viriconium is a series of novels and stories written by English author M. John Harrison between 1971 and 1984, set in and around the fictional city of the same name.
In the first novel in the series, the city of Viriconium exists in a future Earth littered with the technological detritus of millennia (partly inspired by Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series and the poems of T. S. Eliot).[citation needed] However, variations of the city appear throughout the series (most frequently as Uriconium and Vriko), in an attempt by Harrison to subvert the concept of thoroughly mapped secondary worlds featured in certain works of fantasy, particularly those by J. R. R. Tolkien and his host of successors.
Both universal and in particular, the city has a shifting topography and history, and is sometimes known by names such as 'Uroconium' (though there does not seem to be any association with the old Roman town of Viroconium).
The first Viriconium novel, The Pastel City (1971), presents a civilization in decline where medieval social patterns clash with advanced technology and superscience energy weapons that the citizens of the city know how to use but have forgotten how to engineer. Harrison's leading character, Lord tegeus-Cromis, fancies himself a better poet than swordsman; yet he leads the battle to save Viriconium, the Pastel City, from the brain-stealing automatons known as the geteit chemosit from Earth's past.
The decadence Harrison describes is reminiscent of Michael Moorcock's vision of the far future in The End of All Songs. David Pringle wrote of the novel: "This is a sword-and-sorcery tale, yet it borders on sf by virtue of its distant future setting and the conceit that most of the 'magic' is in fact ancient, little-understood science. Despite its obvious debts to Jack Vance and Michael Moorcock, it's a very moody and stylish entertainment." Reviewing the novel for Delap's F & SF, Michael Bishop opined that "my own gut feeling is that M. John Harrison is wasting his time and his gift with this sort of material" but that "if you like elegantly crafted, elegantly written sword and sorcery, this book is all you could ask for."
The more complex second novel of the Viriconium sequence, which is also borderline science fiction, is A Storm of Wings (1980). It is set eighty years later than The Pastel City and stylistically it is far denser and more elaborate than the first novel. Fay Glass and Alstath Fulthor of the Reborn Men, awoken from their long sleep, try to alert the powers of Viriconium that the northern highlands are overrun by insectile armies. A race of intelligent insects is invading Earth as human interest in survival wanes. Fay brings the severed head of an invading locust-like giant insect to show the extent of the disaster. The story is told through both human and alien points of view and perceptions. The main characters are a resurrected man, an assassin, a magician, a madwoman, and Tomb, the Iron Dwarf. Harrison depicts the workings of civilization on the verge of collapse and the heroic efforts of individuals to help it sustain itself a little longer.
The novel In Viriconium (1982) (US title: The Floating Gods) was nominated for the Guardian Fiction Prize during 1982. Savoy Books catalogs referred to it as "Pre-Raphaelite sword and sorcery". It is a moody portrait of Viriconium beset by a mysterious plague. As artist Audsley King slowly dies from the plague, her friend Ashlyme tries to save her. It is a desperate, misconceived enterprise which draws Ashlyme into unwilling alliance with the sinister dwarf The Grand Cairo, and which goes bizarrely wrong. Yet out of the shambles comes the clue to lifting the plague, which symbolises a paralysis of will.
Where the previous books in the series held some sword and sorcery elements, In Viriconium goes beyond black humour into a coma of despair. The novel parodies Arthurian motifs. The novel is divided into sections named after cards of an imaginary Tarot. Resonances in the text include the art of Aubrey Beardsley, post-Impressionist art, Mervyn Peake and Wyndham Lewis.
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Viriconium
Viriconium is a series of novels and stories written by English author M. John Harrison between 1971 and 1984, set in and around the fictional city of the same name.
In the first novel in the series, the city of Viriconium exists in a future Earth littered with the technological detritus of millennia (partly inspired by Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series and the poems of T. S. Eliot).[citation needed] However, variations of the city appear throughout the series (most frequently as Uriconium and Vriko), in an attempt by Harrison to subvert the concept of thoroughly mapped secondary worlds featured in certain works of fantasy, particularly those by J. R. R. Tolkien and his host of successors.
Both universal and in particular, the city has a shifting topography and history, and is sometimes known by names such as 'Uroconium' (though there does not seem to be any association with the old Roman town of Viroconium).
The first Viriconium novel, The Pastel City (1971), presents a civilization in decline where medieval social patterns clash with advanced technology and superscience energy weapons that the citizens of the city know how to use but have forgotten how to engineer. Harrison's leading character, Lord tegeus-Cromis, fancies himself a better poet than swordsman; yet he leads the battle to save Viriconium, the Pastel City, from the brain-stealing automatons known as the geteit chemosit from Earth's past.
The decadence Harrison describes is reminiscent of Michael Moorcock's vision of the far future in The End of All Songs. David Pringle wrote of the novel: "This is a sword-and-sorcery tale, yet it borders on sf by virtue of its distant future setting and the conceit that most of the 'magic' is in fact ancient, little-understood science. Despite its obvious debts to Jack Vance and Michael Moorcock, it's a very moody and stylish entertainment." Reviewing the novel for Delap's F & SF, Michael Bishop opined that "my own gut feeling is that M. John Harrison is wasting his time and his gift with this sort of material" but that "if you like elegantly crafted, elegantly written sword and sorcery, this book is all you could ask for."
The more complex second novel of the Viriconium sequence, which is also borderline science fiction, is A Storm of Wings (1980). It is set eighty years later than The Pastel City and stylistically it is far denser and more elaborate than the first novel. Fay Glass and Alstath Fulthor of the Reborn Men, awoken from their long sleep, try to alert the powers of Viriconium that the northern highlands are overrun by insectile armies. A race of intelligent insects is invading Earth as human interest in survival wanes. Fay brings the severed head of an invading locust-like giant insect to show the extent of the disaster. The story is told through both human and alien points of view and perceptions. The main characters are a resurrected man, an assassin, a magician, a madwoman, and Tomb, the Iron Dwarf. Harrison depicts the workings of civilization on the verge of collapse and the heroic efforts of individuals to help it sustain itself a little longer.
The novel In Viriconium (1982) (US title: The Floating Gods) was nominated for the Guardian Fiction Prize during 1982. Savoy Books catalogs referred to it as "Pre-Raphaelite sword and sorcery". It is a moody portrait of Viriconium beset by a mysterious plague. As artist Audsley King slowly dies from the plague, her friend Ashlyme tries to save her. It is a desperate, misconceived enterprise which draws Ashlyme into unwilling alliance with the sinister dwarf The Grand Cairo, and which goes bizarrely wrong. Yet out of the shambles comes the clue to lifting the plague, which symbolises a paralysis of will.
Where the previous books in the series held some sword and sorcery elements, In Viriconium goes beyond black humour into a coma of despair. The novel parodies Arthurian motifs. The novel is divided into sections named after cards of an imaginary Tarot. Resonances in the text include the art of Aubrey Beardsley, post-Impressionist art, Mervyn Peake and Wyndham Lewis.