She, for that to happen, must leave the Low City - but she does not wish to. All across the High City, Viriconium’s wealthy district, patrons are itching to invest in something featuring King’s creations. Even as the plague pares away the substance and people of the city, her agent, Paulinus Spack, is hoping to produce a new play with sets designed by her. Hidden away in her rooms above the Rue Serpolet, Audsley King remains the most famous and sought after artist in Viriconium.

All projects dragged out indefinitely and in the end came to nothing.ĭay by day it is spreading, restricting travel in and out of a growing portion of the Low City. The very buildings fell apart and began to look unkempt, ill-kept. Within it people aged quickly, or succumbed to debilitating illnesses - phthisis, influenza, galloping consumption. It was a kind of thinness, a transparency. It was not a plague in the ordinary sense of the word. The Low City, the poorer section of Viriconium and the one most given over to decay, has been struck by a strange malady: Some build on the earlier stories while others seem to deconstruct and reconfigure them. Woven through the novel are characters and clues that tie it to the previous two, The Pastel City and A Storm of Wings (reviewed at the links). Ashlyme’s effort to rescue another artist, the reclusive Audsley King, from a plague outbreak is set against the antics of two manic deities. For In Viriconium (1982) Harrison drops almost all elements of heroic fantasy in presenting the story of the artist Ashlyme. John Harrison’s trilogy of novels set in the far, far future of our world.

Viriconium by M. John Harrison