This is a difficult book to review without spoilers. Everything, from the plots to the prose, begs for virgin eyes and ears and minds. The less you know the more you'll receive, I think. It's not often that I would consider even a description of an author's style to be a spoiler... but it's really so unique that I hesitate at every turn. And here lies my dilemma: I want to sell it to you, but I honestly think you'll have more fun if you wander into the waste and look around for yourself. That being said, Viriconium is consistently macabre, colorful, and turbulent; lonely, beautiful, and fleeting; hopeless, magical, and transcendent. And while it is consistently all these things, it is consistent in almost nothing else. The world is always changing and unchanged, the characters are new and old every time you meet them, and the stories themselves are only rarely what they seem. I had no idea what I was getting into when I picked up this book, and my discovering was half the fun. It's easily the best book(s) I've read all year. I can't believe that it took so long for Viriconium to reach publication in the US (The Pastel City was published in '74).

I began this collection in my frequent visits to Barnes and Noble, reading a chapter or two whenever I had time in the store to do so. Perhaps it's because I'm American, but many of the words themselves were new to me... some seemed to be made up entirely, like "empurpled" or "citronized". I wasn't sure at first, that this was a book for me. In fact, I think it took about 10 chapters to really sink in. In all honesty, the writing is wonderful, but Viriconium is not an easy read; it's often confusing and intentionally disorientating. I've come to enjoy describing it as a painting done upside down - only when the painter flips the canvas can the audience truly appreciate the masterpiece. But once that battle armor came to life and Harrison launched into combat scenes, I was sold.

The first two novels are fantastic and epic! Once they were over, I found myself in a very different sort of story. Harrison turns from the epic to the personal, and a world that I'd spent decades in seemed to decay and dissolve to its spine. To this regard, Viriconium belongs somewhere in the horror spectrum, I think... but also to sci-fi and fantasy, and perhaps even poetry (at times, it is that beautiful). The wanton decay and dreamlike sicknesses that often afflict V___ are unforgettable. The meaning to be found in each page and line (and sometimes the individual word) is spectacularly facilitated. Harrison seems to realize more than most authors, that reading is often about the reader, and nothing more. These are stories for people with a strong internal dialogue, I think. It's surely a book for logophiles and bibliophiles, of which I am both. Imagine my rejoicing at the discovery of two additional stories, within Viriconium, that are to be published this month! After 15 years away from the city!

This brings me to my final point, and the final story in the book (A Young Man's Journey to Viriconium) which stands in stark contrast to the rest of the collection... I'm not so sure that Viricon, or Vriko, or Uriconium, or whatever it is, is actually just a city or even always a place - it's a non-place, as I believe I've heard Harrison describe it. I think it may be far more than a "setting", and perhaps less too. V is somewhere much closer than I'd often like to believe. It's here on earth, and yet entirely separate. It's haunting.

Go read it for yourself, if you've got the bravado.