Presenting a series of imaginary book covers. In this post, I'm imagining an alternative reality where the publishing industry imposes no genre distinctions, where fantasy novels are seen on a par with the literary mainstream. It goes without saying that M. John Harrison's Viriconium is a modern classic and in this alternative world, Penguin publishes… Continue reading Viriconium, Midjourney and Penguin Modern Classics
M. John Harrison is one of my favourite contemporary writers and 2023 has been a notable year for him. His 'anti-memoir' Wish I Was Here is one of the biggest selling books of his career. This follows on from being a Booker Prize judge last year. (It can be no coincidence that Alan Garner appeared… Continue reading M. John Harrison Novels – Ranked
Of the three novels and the seven short stories that constitute the M. John Harrison's sublime Viriconium sequence, none is more enigmatic or indeed more inscrutable than The Luck in the Head. This short story reconfigures elements of Viriconium's dark fantasy into a surreal and absurdist nightmare. Two city poets, Ardwick Crome and Ansel Verdigris,… Continue reading M John Harrison’s The Luck in the Head
It is a poor empire I have… Everywhere the death of the landscape. In miniature, the end of the world. 1971 saw the publication of M. John Harrison’s first two novels. The first, The Committed Men, is out of print today, and the second, The Pastel City, would go on to become the foundation to… Continue reading The Pastel City – M John Harrison Review
The Course of The Heart is one of my all time favourite books, and arguably the greatest weird fiction novel. It is a poetic novel of luminous moments briefly experienced, fleetingly glimpsed before the despairing shadow of the quotidian world interjects. The consequences of a failed occult ritual to access a metaphysical realm called the… Continue reading The Course of the Heart – A Weird Fiction Masterpiece
Light Iain Banks, master of the modern space opera, apparently once said to M. John Harrison while discussing SF over a drink or two, “Mike, your problem is that you don’t know how to have fun.” Light is the exuberant riposte to Banks’ blithe remark, proving without doubt that Harrison not only knows how to… Continue reading M John Harrison’s The Kefahuchi Tract Trilogy
The underlying feeling that all is not well with the self-satisfied English middle class milieu of second homes on the Cornish coast pervades this masterful short story. A visit to that archetype of English heritage, the manor house, (built with sugar plantation and slave trade money) offers no relief.This excellent short story is imbued with… Continue reading English Heritage – M John Harrison
The literary event of the year! A brilliant new novel by my favourite author. In The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again, M. John Harrison taps into the weird and the uncanny in post-Brexit Britain. His relentless realist’s eye delineates the essence of this transformational contemporary moment; ungrounded, no centre, the collapse of certainty. His… Continue reading M. John Harrison’s Sunken Land
M. John Harrison's latest collection of short stories, You Should Come With Me Now continues his perennial theme of the dissatisfaction with the humdrum of the quotidian, the necessity for escape and the persistent failure to do so. Unlike his previous collections, where the impossibitity of escape was played out against a backdrop of liminal urban edgelands,… Continue reading M. John Harrison You Should Come With Me Now Review
M. John Harrison - The Machine In Shaft Ten (originally published in 1975) A mock-up book cover design.
KULCHUR KAT 