The Committed Men

But gradually, I felt the book began to suffer under its own weight. Sometimes phrasing boarders the pretentious, and as the story progressed, it also started to show its seams: weirdness for the sake of the weird, so to say -- that generally disengages me as a reader. The writing and staging draws attention to itself rather than to the characters or the story. I'm aware this is Harrison's intention, but I started to lose interest because of it.

In its choices about the particulars of weird it's also clearly dated, and I've noticed before I have a harder time these days to read primarily through a historical, forgiving lens. I don't want to be a speculative fiction scholar, I want to be immersed first and foremost.

Harrison could probably distill 40 pages of brilliant flash fiction from this book. As it stands now, I don't think The Committed Men will appeal to many contemporary readers. It does make me curious about Viriconium, a fantasy series considered to be classic, as it still gets high ratings. Its first book, The Pastel City, was also published in 1971. But if I'm honest, I'm way more interested in what Harrison -- 79 nowadays -- will publish later this year. In 2025, the future is clearly already here.

Full review on Weighing A Pig