The Shape of Today

On the nightstand, part the third

Yesterday I began reading M. John Harrison's The Pastel City, which I recall Neil Gaiman recommending in The View from the Cheap Seats. This slim novel was written in 1971 and looks every bit of it, from the figure of a knight on the cover to the title's font that screams '70's. The protagonist, Lord tegus-Cromis, is already known to me from a short story by the author called "The Lamia and Lord Cromis" which I read many years ago. Harrison's hero is moody and his world bizarre...a fantasy civilization that has grown over the rubble of a prior technologically advanced one. And the writing is beautiful, which brings this world up nearly to Lovecraftian fever dream levels. It is a delight.

Among my irons in the writing fire is one that I've been mulling over for a few days; an article on Weird Tales which seems to be dead again. Others have already written about the Unique Magazine's last incarnation and how it went sideways, but I fear it will get lost if someone doesn't try to resurrect it one more time. I don't entirely understand what happened there (someone of Marvin Kaye's caliber certainly should have been able to make the magazine thrive), but it would be a pity for it to slip into obscurity so close to its centennial. So I may dig into that.

In the meantime, the workday beckons...