M. John Harrison - The Viriconium Sequence

The Viriconium Sequence

Harrison's enduring fantasy sequence centring on the fictitious city of Viriconium consists of stories and novels written between 1971 and 1984. Viriconium is known as the Pastel City. Both universal and particular, the city has a shifting topography and history, and is sometimes known under names such as 'Uroconium' (though there seems no connection with old Roman town of Viroconium).

The Viriconium sequence, heavily influenced in its imagery by the poems of T.S. Eliot, consists of three novels and various short stories; a somewhat complete published version is the 2005 omnibus simply titled Viriconium (Millenium Books, Fantasy Masterworks Series) which includes all three connected novels and various of the short stories (though it excludes some stories such as "Lamia Mutable", "The Lamia and Lord Cromis", and "Events Witnessed from a City" which were in the Ace Books ed of Viriconium Nights). The 2005 Millenium omnibus is not to be confused with the earlier, identically-titled omnibus Viriconium published by Unwin Paperbacks(1988), with an introduction by Iain Banks; the Unwin omnibus consists only of the novel In Viriconium together with the stories of Viriconium Nights (the Gollancz 1985, not the Ace 1984 contents).

The graphic novel The Luck in the Head adapts one of his short works set in the sequence and is illustrated by Ian Miller.

The first book The Pastel City, presents a civilization in decline where medieval social patterns clash with the 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.

The second novel of the Viriconium sequence is A Storm of Wings. Fay Glass and Alstath Fulthor of the reborn 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 insectto show the extent of the disaster. Harrison brilliantly 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 (US title: The Floating Gods) was nominated for the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1982. 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. Yet his efforts are purposeless and his adventures misdirected. Where the previous books in the series held some sword and sorcery elements, In Viriconium goes beyond black humour into a coma of despair.

Harrison has frequently used the Tarot as a motif in his work, as in Viriconium Nights (which is divided into sections named after cards of an imaginary Tarot) and in his story The Horse of Iron (and How We Can Know It and Be Changed by It Forever). The collection Viriconium Nights consists of various stories (the number varies depending whether one considers the Ace 1984 edition or its variant, the Gollancz 1985 ed - see below). All are vignettes of night life in the Pastel City.

In "The Lamia and Lord Cromis", tegeus-Cromis (later the protagonist of The Pastel City), a dwarf, and a man named Dissolution Kahn travel to a poisonous bog to destroy a dangerous Lamia.

In the story "Viriconium Knights", the elderly swordsman Osgerby Practal is defeated in a duel by Ignace Retz, an unpopular servant of the Queen. Practal uses a power knife, a relic of previous times when high technology was used, but which is now ill understood; the badly-functioning power knife gives off floating motes which harm the wielder. (In this, Harrison invents his own variant of Moorcock's soul-draining magic swords in the Elric stories). The Queen is the grotesque Mammy Vooley, whose "body was like a long ivory pole about which they had draped the faded purple gown of her predessor. On it was supported a very small head which looked as if had been partly scalped, partly burned, and partly starved to death in a cage suspended above the Gabelline Gate. One of her eyes was missing. She sat on an old carved wooden throne with iron wheels, in the middle of a tall limewashed room that had five windows.". Retz has ambitions to seek treasure in the broad wastes south and west of Viriconium, and petitions the Queen to allow him to keep the power knife so he may defend himself against his enemies. When she refuses, he uses the knife to cut off her hand, and flees, hunted through the city by various factions of "aristocratic thugs" such as the Locust Clan and the Yellow Paper Men. Taking refuge in the house of an old man who shows him a strange tapestry, he beholds various visions of himself, seemingly at different periods in the city's history, before trying to steal a metal eagle from the old man's room. The metal eagle comes to life, attacking him, and Retz barely escapes. Later, he finds himself on a wasteland where some men are trying to bury a body with a fish-mask on its head. Retz steals the clothes and mask from the body and continues on his way.

In "The Luck in the Head", in the Artists' Quarter, the poet Ardwick Crome has been having a recurring dream about a ceremony called "the Luck in the Head." He wants these disturbing dreams to stop, so he goes looking for one of the women in the dream.

"Strange Great Sins" is the story of the weak and silly man Baladine Prinsep, who falls fatally in love with the ballet dancer Vera Ghillera and wastes away. The story is told at one remove through the memories of his nephew, an unnamed sin eater, and through those of his mother and of the singer Madame de Maupassant. In this story the motif of the Mari Lwyd is central. This story looks at the city of Viriconium from the perspective of outsiders who know that those who go there either are, or will become, decadent and self-absorbed.

In "The Dancer From the Dance" the ballerina Vera Ghillera from "Strange Great Sins" visits Allman's Heath where strange things are afoot.

"A Young Man's Journey to Viriconium", set in our world, explains that Viriconium is a real place and tells you exactly how to get there, in case you want to go. The doorway is a mirror in a bathroom in a café in England.

"Lords of Misrule", narrated in the first person by Harrison's continuing character Lord Cromis, deals with Cromis's visit to a country house where the Yule Greave, formerly a fighter with the Feverfew Anschluss faction of Viriconium, and his wife, live with their young servant Ringmer. An unidentified enemy is gradually encroaching on the country lands and Cromis appears to be surveying their progress. During his visit, he is shown one of the ancient and highly-decorated Mari - a version of the Mari Lwyd - used by the people in the 'mast horse ceremony', which Ringmer's father used to operate.