Viriconium Nights
By M. John Harrison, Ace Books, 1984
As Peter documents, this has a certain amount of overlap with the short stories included in 2005’s Viriconium, but there are some interesting differences; for example, Viriconium Nights’ story “The Lamia and Lord Cromis” and Viriconium‘s “The Lamia & Lord Cromis” are related yet different stories. It’s an interesting exercise reading both of them and seeing how the vision changed — or contemplating that perhaps the vision didn’t change at all. With so much in Viriconium, similar places or events may really be parallels in place or the cycles of history, or contrariwise, the differences may be entirely illusory.
What else can I say except that this is more Viriconium, which is a weak, pathetic summation of something very complex and subtle!
(Just catching up here… It’s been nine months since I read this).