|
|
| 
Things That Never Happen
In
addition to the stories, China Miéville's (one of many writers influenced by Harrison) introduction
provides as cogent and comprehensible an explanation of Harrison's inexplicable fiction as you'll
find. The author provides story notes and an illuminating introduction of his maturation as a
writer. ("I stopped being scared of what I am and started rather to revel in it.") Beyond the
content, Things That Never Happen, has greater significance. As Miéville points out, Harrison -- by
altering the ultimate anti-fantasy story, "A Young Man's Journey to Virconium," to "A Young Man's
Journey to London" -- has "forgiven" fantasy. Considering Harrison's return to science fiction with
his latest novel, Light, perhaps he has made complete peace with genre.
Harrison has always used
genre elements, including horror, as an artist uses different colors. Sometimes the canvas would be
heavier with the shades of one more than another; other works would combine so many hues that
unexpected new colors would result. Now he seems comfortably unworried about what labels can be
attached to the final product. Things That Never Happen, with its chronological arrangement of
stories, also displays Harrison's personal evolution as a writer. (No disparagement meant to the
stories that come between the milestones mentioned.) "Settling the World" and "Running Down" (from
1975) are a cut above most fantasy-used-as-societal metaphor, but they are obvious in comparison to
"The Ice Monkey" (1980), a stark observation of the attempt to escape the everyday. "Engaro" (1981)
is breathtaking. It seems effortless, but is utterly disorienting and (you think) can't be topped
-- until you get to "Gifco" (1992 and 1997). The emotional depth of "Gifco" is unfathomable, its
interpretations so paradoxical and complex, you realize -- somewhere in the chaos of unease wherein
you find yourself -- that Harrison is so far ahead of what most writers are capable of that the
rest of the pack might as well be pressing styluses into clay and prosifying in cuneiform.
Incredibly, his prose grows tighter, terser, even truer to the people (you can hardly refer to them
as characters) of whom he writes. By the end, with "Black Houses"(1997) and "Science & the
Arts"(1998), there's nothing left to say. There's a great deal to feel. You know you are in the
rare presence of awesome genius. M. John Harrison is incomparable.("Waves of Fear," Cemetery Dance #43)
Copyright © 2003 Paula Guran. All Rights Reserved. |
One of the stand-out collections of 2000 was M. John Harrison's Travel Arrangements (Orion
Fiction ISBN: 0575068310; now available in paperback: Orion Fiction; ISBN: 0575068329).
Two-and-a-half years later, it's still not been published in the United States. Never fear! Night
Shade Books has performed the greatest of services by publishing Things That Never Happen, a
collection that includes not only all the stories from Travel Arrangements, but a "A Young Man's
Journey to Virconium" (significantly retitled with "London" substituted for "Virconium" and
slightly altered); "Isobel Avens Returns to Stepney in the Spring" (first published in Ellen
Datlow's anthology Little Deaths); and "The Great God Pan" (from the Douglas Winter anthology Prime
Evil.) Unless you consider R.L. Stine a challenging read, this is a guaranteed "must buy."