Customer Reviews

The Pastel City

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I pull this book out a couple of times a year and let it take me for a spin. I've been doing that for about 30 years now and I still get a thrill every time. This is very fine work indeed.

Mr. Harrison will have you visualizing his landscapes and characters as few other authors could ever hope to do. These are real people in unreal settings, and that makes for the greatest of storytelling.

This is a tale of a far future land where technology has mostly been forgotten and rusted away. A power struggle between two queens has erupted in the post-Arthurian city of Viriconium and a handful of loyal old knights gather together to protect the young queen and restore her to the throne. Some of my favorite characters in fiction live in this book. I consider it an absolutely must read for sci-fi and fantasy fans alike.

Every year or two I take this book off the shelf for sheer
reading pleasure. Many authors would have padded this
volume out to make a trilogy (or worse), but the brevity of the
tale and the beauty of the writing make this a wonderful
experience. More is not necessarily better - this book just
leaves the reader wanting more. A great adventure story,
a quest, with memorable characters, plot, and a startling
denouement. Scour your pre-owned bookstores for this one. (I buy every copy I can find and pass them on to friends.)

This a short novel that's set in the same world as the Viriconium short stories from the same author. It tells of how Viriconium, where the remains of an extinct technological civilization are exploited by a sort of medieval kingdom under a young queen, is defended by a small band of warriors against the invasion from the north by the enemy queen, who has resurrected an army of brain-eating androids. The book is a good read for anyone who enjoyed the oblique, surreal world in Viriconium Nights..

There was a lot I liked about this book, and a handful of things I didn't.

What I liked: very interesting characters in a rich setting, all written very skillfully. The protagonist is a brooding killer of men who only ever wanted to be a poet. Maybe that's a cliche, I don't know. If it is, it's a cool one. The history of Viriconium seems much like Wolfe's Torturer books: a new low-tech civilization has grown up from the ashes of a series of fallen high-tech empires. The people of the new civilization use, but rarely comprehend the technology they unearth. There are light-sabers, air-ships, artificial life, body armor and energy-cannons. All rare and fun things.

What I didn't like: The scope of the story was huge -- an empire fighting against invasion, but Harrison squeezed it all into a sub-250 page book. Incidents that should have been given more thought were wrapped up with a quick coincidence. Coincidence can keep a story moving, but stretches credibility. The primary antagonist could have used a lot more attention. Worse than this, Harrison made the whole outcome of a war between two empires seem to hinge upon one battle, and the battle to hinge upon one group of heroes. That vexes me. A whole empire full of men and women, and these four guys (and one young girl) are going to make a difference? Bleh. But that's what heroic fantasy is, I guess. I'm glad I read it, and I'm happy to have it on my shelf, which can only be said for about 30% of the books I own.

Recommended.

M. John Harrison, The Pastel City (Doubleday, 1971)

That The Pastel City, now long out of print, has been considered a classic by so many for so long may be, in fact, the book's greatest failing. As I've perused reviews of it, the one thing I notice in the negative reviews is disappointment; they didn't get the be-all and end-all of fantasy they thought they were going to. Ay, but here's the rub; a book can be a classic for more than one reason.

The Pastel City is, from the plot standpoint, your typical epic fantasy. If you've read Moorcock, Leiber, etc., you have a basic idea of what's going to go on here. Love, death, betrayal, lots of nonhuman baddies, lots of human baddies, a brooding hero-type and his overly sanguine friend, maybe a crazy dwarf or two, and lots of stuff blowing up. This is nothing out of the ordinary, and to be expected from epic fantasy. Those who read it looking for a classic of plot, I assume, are the ones most disappointed by the book.

What elevates it from its peers is its sense of style. This is a fantasy as written by a true lexiphile, Elric through the lens of John Dryden, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser as written by Chaucer. As with most true prose stylists (Cormac McCarthy comes to mind), Harrison's subtle blend of archaic "it's not a fantasy novel unless you do this" diction, contemporary British phrasing, and little stylistic tricks that pull the whole in an entirely new direction takes a little getting used to at first. But once you've got the rhythm of it down, you can get pulled along for the ride with consummate ease.

So let me make this clear: The Pastel City is a good book. A fine book, and one worth reading. The typical fantasy fan should probably not expect too much. The fantasy fan who is more attuned to the details of writing will get the most out of it. Word lovers, fantasy fans or not, are going to get a kick out of this. *** ½

The Pastel City, set in the world of Viriconium, is an early novel from M. John Harrison. It's a sword and sorcery story, basically, but with the sorcery replaced by ruins of ancient high technology. Queen Jane of Viriconium tries to defend her kingdom against the forces of ruin and destruction, with the help of old warriors, methvens. Their enemy is armed with mysterious and dangerous forces, and ruin seems inevitable.

Yet there's a strange metallic bird, with a strange message, offering a chance to survive. In the middle of a lost war, curious events unfold. Viriconium is an interesting world, unlike any other. While the story isn't that remarkable, the setting is interesting and this short book is worth reading for that alone. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)

By all rights, M. John Harrison's science fantasy The Pastel City ought not to work as well as it does. Almost all of the elements in the trope-laden epic have appeared in far better-known works. The plot reads like something Tolkien might've whipped up for an early draft of The Lord of the Rings. The barren, blasted setting recalls the desert world Arrakis from Dune. And, like Star Wars, it gives a prominent place to exotic energy weapons that that are like swords only awesomer. But Harrison's first novel in the Viriconium series succeeds largely because of elegant diction and incredible action, which form a whole exponentially more fun than the sum of its derivative parts.

Viriconium, that metropolis whose multicolored spires bear ancient glyphs none know how to read, stands at a bridge in time. The kingdoms that dwelled in the Afternoon of Earth's history have faltered, and now only Viriconium remains as humanity enters its Evening. But the Northmen do not care that all flesh may be approaching its end. Nursing generations-old grievances, their leader Canna Moidart, embittered niece of the legendary ruler Methven Nian, would see Viriconium's Proton Circuit and the Bistro Californium burn if she cannot rule. The only hope for the true queen lies with tegeus-Cromis, the best swordsman in the land and former member of an elite soldiering corps. Charged with gathering his old comrades and routing the Moidart's approaching armies, he heads north -- only to learn of a second threat. While crossing the Cruachan Ridge, he is accosted by an odd messenger, a croaking, clockwork vulture that warns him to fear the getit chemosit, a creature of which no one in the land seems to have heard.

Style is not substance, and yet what lends The Pastel City much of its panache is Harrison's stately prose. Where epic fantasy tends to grow garrulous and overlong, he keeps the proceedings punchy. Instead of situating the action in the typical pseudo-medieval locale, he plunks it into a post-apocalyptic milieu reminiscent of Michael Moorcock or John Christopher. And rather than resort to bland description, he fills passages with explosive color, making both ancient royal dwellings and blasted industrial wastelands burst with exotic hues. Such embellishments cause the story to feel fresh even when it wanders through well-worn territory.

Then there is the combat. To be blunt, I have yet to read another novel that infuses its fight scenes with so much ferocity and terror. Exalted and awful, agonizing and magnificent, Harrison's clashes on and off the battlefield have you one moment pressing your nose to the page so as not to miss a jot or tittle and the next recoiling in horror. Tolkien's Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers (the closest genre analog I can think of to The Pastel City's hip-and-thigh slaughter in the Great Brown Waste) pales in comparison. These are interludes that spike your heart rate, speed your eyes across the page and keep you awake well into the wee hours.

Given that the novel is first in a series, this review deserves a short postscript. Although all of the Viriconium books and short stories have been collected in a single volume, few of them would draw any except the most stalwart readers. Pretentious to the point of being impenetrable, they seem almost a repudiation of the idea that genre fiction should delight. Instead, seek out a used copy of The Pastel City from AbeBooks or alibris.

From an old paperback edition of this title: "Far in the future gallant knights in armor battle the wild forces of a dying technology"

This book is, in my opinion, a benchmark that all heroic fantasy will be measured against. Harrison is able to portray the true reality of conflict - those that profess to live for it are truly dead inside, regardless of what side they fight for. This is a truism that is absent in most books of this type.

The plot is standard fare: in the late afternoon of earth the remnants of humanity rut in the ruins of the past, technology is lost and society is a mixture of atomic cannons drawn by horses, airships battling for kingdoms and man facing oblivion. Two Queens vie for the same throne, a war begins, one side employees an alien relic of the past- giants that are nearly indestructible. The giants are uncontrollable and turn on their masters, a quest is begun to find the method of destroying the giants.

As a plot this would be a routine fantasy saga; what raises this above all others [of the type] is Harrison's use of language and some of the most refreshing characters in a fantasy novel in a long, long time. A great book a must re-read someday.

Tight and well paced science fantasy. I've been searching for more stories of Virconium ever since reading this, and i'd have to disagree with some of the other reviews here - i think the books berevity adds to the story. I love good stories that can be told in one book. Look for this at your favourite used book store it's worth the effort.

Two Queens too many.


A pretty average science fantasy, or that is what it becomes, afterwords, anyway.

An inter-generational conflict over power develops, and three of the old stalwarts are caught in the middle.

Things look bad until some of the old technology produces reinforcements thanks to a Giant Brain.