I think Wolfe and Harrison occasionally overlap stylistically at times, but they come from two very different schools of thought.

That would be fine and understandable, but is maybe to the detriment of the books in the longer term? Whereas BotNS just feels timeless and not connected with particular movement or trend in US SF, say, it's so much bigger than that. I wondered if he was trying to show his arse a little with Viriconium, like it was written (at least in part) as a response to the sort of formulaic SF and Fantasy that was gathering steam around that time.

One point of comparison, though - MJH is fairly well known as a critic of generic, world-building SF from his time as literary editor of New Worlds magazine in the 70s (where he had to read acres of shite). But a direct comparison of BotNS with Viriconium doesn't feel like apples to apples - they're just on a different scale of ambition and structure. They both have that rare quality of handling arcane language with skill, so it feels fluent and supple in the text, and they're both masters of that elegiac, dream-like atmosphere that pervades both Viriconium and Nessus (the author I did immediately think of on reading was China Mieville, and I see that he's a big fan of MJH and considers him a major influence). Made me think if I was an aspiring writer that I'd find these books a little scary - like to be this demonstrably good at writing, and still turn out something non-excellent, is a sobering thought.īoth MJH and GW excel at some of the same things that are hard to do well, so you might find common ground with their writing, but I found the feeling of their styles quite different - don't know why. Loved the short stories, but found the two longer books a bit of a chore tbh. I won't detain anyone with a review, but I broadly agreed with what most people seems to find with these stories - really great writing, good immersive atmosphere, original voice, but really lacking in the nuts and bolts of character and story-telling.

I've heard Viriconium mentioned a few times as a reference point to BotNS-type novels - just recently got round to reading the collected stories in the fantasy masterworks edition and wondered what Wolfe fans made of it?

Viriconium book