From the beginning of M. John Harrison’s A Storm of Wings (1980), you know you’re entering a shattered world with a diminishing human presence, but it is also a dazzling world captured in densely brilliant and beautiful prose. This second novel of the Viriconium series caught me by surprise. The first, The Pastel City (1971), […]
The Pastel City, a Novel of Viriconium by M. John Harrison – A Review
The Pastel City (1971) is the first story by M. John Harrison in his Viriconium fantasy sequence. This short novel drew me in immediately with its luminous prose and its ability to depict a world in ruins and a world of hope with just a few brilliant visual strokes. Though it begins with a prologue […]
The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison #WyrdAndWonder
The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison is a brilliant but perplexing book, straddling the line between fantasy and literary fiction. It’s sort of proto-fantasy in which two principal characters, Shaw and Victoria, play out their lives, as if stuck to a purpose that no longer fits them, hardly able to […]
