The city goes from slum to place of wonder to plague zone. Harrison is far more interested in subverting fantasy norms, hero becomes degenerate assassin and then ineffectual artist.

“Viriconium” seems weird because if you go in expecting fantasy, you'll be disappointed. It might as well be a Dying Earth novel, although the grotesqueness of its characters is far beyond the level still generally accepted by Vance. Instead of hordes of demons, an invasion of cyborgs from the past, instead of a wise wizard, a scientist who became immortal. In essence, the story here is nothing more than a dark-toned, sword-and-sorcery adventure novel presented with an extremely sophisticated literary style, in which magical elements are replaced by forgotten science. “Viriconium” is the last empire on Earth, a decadent city that thrives on its own past. “The Pastel City” is a work from the early 1970s, and I think you can clearly recognize the style of Moorcock, Leiber, but above all Jack Vance. But as in the classics of fantasy, I don't see in it the idea that would make it truly permanent.īeyond that, the four parts of the collection cannot be discussed together, because there are huge differences between them. His prose is impressive, I'll admit that - with the added bonus that it's already a pain in the ass. The Severian tetralogy), and even his linguistic inventions colour the world, I do not find originality in Harrison's universe. But while Wolfe makes perfect use of his bizarre imagination in “The Book of the New Sun” (a.k.a.

“Viriconium” is a series of stories in an endlessly baroque style, which can perhaps be described most simply as starting from Mervyn Peake and leading to Gene Wolfe.