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 Escapement by Lavie Tidhar – A Review
Lavie Tidhar’s The Escapement starts quietly enough: A man who has been sitting with his very ill son in a hospital room steps out for some fresh air and notices a small red flower by the sidewalk. Then we see that flower through the eyes of the Stranger in a surreal, barren landscape. We are […]
Creative Surgery by Clelia Farris
I am embarrassed to admit that I started reading Clelia Farris’s brilliant story collection Creative Surgery thinking I was in the middle of a different book. That can happen with Kindle. Everything looks the same. There are no beautiful covers, unique typefaces, pages to turn down. You just open and there is the text. I […]
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany: Poet in Dystopia
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany seems to have many detractors as a work of science fiction but I find it a powerful portrait of a fractured mind, of a poet in dystopia, of a city broken the way its main narrator feels he might be breaking. Known mostly as the Kid, because he has forgotten […]
