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mikepalumbo's review
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
lori85's review against another edition
3.0
I first learned of this series in a post on /r/WeirdFiction asking for recommendations of books with imagery reminiscent of Zdzisław Beksiński's paintings. Harrison indeed evokes some striking pictures of decay and deep time and a medieval civilization grinding to slow death in the shadow of a lost technological past. Unfortunately, for all his original concepts, the plots are generally conventional fantasy, which doesn't appeal to me at all.
alexanderp's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Wanted to like this omnibus more than I actually did. For me *The Pastel City* was such a high point that everything after could not rise to the occasion. I'll more than likely return to these stories, because Harrison's prose is both so beautiful, but opaque.
nianyigexiaodu's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
theogb451's review
5.0
This isn't a book that rewards less than attentive reading. The text is dense and evocative, reminding me vaguely of Lovecraft, but here we have an author who can also paint characters and dialogue. The stories work together but within each the same characters pop up and are represented slightly differently, as if every story is the result of an unsound narrator. Definitely worth a read for anyone who likes sci-fi or fantasy.
tayvaan's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
outcolder's review
5.0
The weirder it got, the more I liked it. [b:The Pastel City|304253|The Pastel City|M. John Harrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1294861479s/304253.jpg|295293], from 1971, is lovely, a bit like a missing link from [a:Michael Moorcock|16939|Michael Moorcock|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1424079041p2/16939.jpg] to [a:China Miéville|33918|China Miéville|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1243988363p2/33918.jpg]. But each of the novels after that is less high fantasy and more just weird, until [b:In Viriconium|38323110|In Viriconium (Unicorn)|M. John Harrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1517512888s/38323110.jpg|1558008] which feels more like a lost modern novel, more Kafka or [a:Flann O'Brien|15248|Flann O'Brien|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1356027168p2/15248.jpg] than what usually gets called 'fantasy,' characters behaving more like Rimbaud than any of the thousand faces the hero supposedly normally wears. ... nine months after finishing this, I started on Camus' The Plague which also has an artist running around. I suspect that was also an influence in In Viriconium.
humdrum_ts's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
As a compilation, it’s an uneven read. The Pastel City is a decent, rather conventional epic (science) fantasy; A Storm of Wings its impressive-if-overwrought sequel; In Viriconium is a swerve to a completely different kind of novel and my favorite of the lot; and Viriconium Nights is an occasionally beautiful, often inscrutable batch of short stories. Looking back afterwards, however, I was struck by how well the whole batch cohered. By reducing the setting to its bare essentials - the city, the wastes, a series of recurring images and character archetypes - and outright abandoning (even deliberately attacking) the notion of continuity, the latter half of the book reframes the former: it’s less a sudden turn to the avant-garde and more a revelation of the subversive streak that was there all along. I'm willing to bet that reading the British edition would have enhanced the experience: there, Harrison has placed the short stories as links between the novels, rather than in a great lump at the end.
I didn’t necessarily love Viriconium, and it’s almost been more enjoyable as a post factum thought exercise than a read. Still, I think I’ll find my way back to Viriconium eventually: I can’t shake the feeling that on reappraisal I’ll find this initial rating insane.
jemmak's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
johnayliff's review
4.0
This is an omnibus edition of three novels and one short story collection. The original books are quite different from one another, and the collection does not feel like a unified work, even though in this edition the short stories are interspersed with the novels. Overall it was not an easy collection to read, but I'm glad I did.
THE PASTEL CITY is a fairly conventional fantasy quest novel, albeit an absolutely beautifully written one. The distant future setting is portrayed not as ruined so much as polluted, with vast swamps and deserts made of the industrial wastes of dead civilisations.
A STORM OF WINGS is also a fantasy quest story, in which the city must be defended from insect invaders, but the story is overwhelmed by one conceit, that reality is largely determined by perceptions, and the clash of perception between humans and insects causes reality to break down. The protagonists wander, barely sane, through grotesque, mutating landscapes, and it sometimes feels as if the author is using the reality-warping conceit as an excuse to delay explaining to the reader what is going on.
IN VIRICONIUM is the only novel set mainly inside the city, and its plot feels less important than the picture it paints of the setting.
The short stories vary in style and I'm not sure I understood all of them. For the most part they feel more similar to IN VIRICONIUM than to the other two novels.
THE PASTEL CITY is a fairly conventional fantasy quest novel, albeit an absolutely beautifully written one. The distant future setting is portrayed not as ruined so much as polluted, with vast swamps and deserts made of the industrial wastes of dead civilisations.
A STORM OF WINGS is also a fantasy quest story, in which the city must be defended from insect invaders, but the story is overwhelmed by one conceit, that reality is largely determined by perceptions, and the clash of perception between humans and insects causes reality to break down. The protagonists wander, barely sane, through grotesque, mutating landscapes, and it sometimes feels as if the author is using the reality-warping conceit as an excuse to delay explaining to the reader what is going on.
IN VIRICONIUM is the only novel set mainly inside the city, and its plot feels less important than the picture it paints of the setting.
The short stories vary in style and I'm not sure I understood all of them. For the most part they feel more similar to IN VIRICONIUM than to the other two novels.