The Malacia Tapestry

It's a long time since I read this and I found it a little hard to get into but it's a rather wonderful book and I suspect that further reading will reveal more. Set in an alternative reality in a City State based (I think) on Renaissance Venice, (and the etchings and paintings of Tiepolo), where mankind is co-exists with (and is descended from) ancestral beasts (dinosaurs) it tells of the romantic and political adventures of young Perian DeChirolo. However it's so much more than that, a tour de force of imagination, and with a great underlying theme of progress vs decay and how art plays out as a force for change. I won't leave it so long between re-readings in future.

All the fine things others have said about this tale are true, and it makes excellent reading on several levels. But the true philosophical sting in the tail comes in the superficially light banter of the protagonists at the very end of the tale, which leave the thoughtful reader pondering time and timelessness.

One of the best sf novels I've ever read. It takes place in Malacia, a city that is an alternate 18th-century Italy where most inhabitants feel protected by their rulers' rejection of social and political change. The story follows Perian, a broke actor, as he cuts across all levels of society as part of a company that is presenting a play using a new process, mercurization, aka photography. This is sf's Candide and a neglected classic. If that isn't enough for you, there is also a dinosaur hunt.

Perian de Chirolo, a rogue actor in the eternally unchanging, decadent Renaissance-style city of Malacia, where a magical curse forbids change; Perian seeks status by wooing a rich merchant's daughter, but gets entangled in illegal experiments by a progressive inventor, forcing him to confront the city's stagnant system, his own shallow desires, and the blurring lines between his life, theatre, and reality, ultimately becoming a pawn in a larger struggle for change against the oppressive Supreme Council.

Baroque fiction from a science fiction master. My favourite from one of the most literate of the genre writers. The almost grandiloquent prose suits the story of the roguish Perian as he attempts to wend his way up the social ladder of Malacian Society. But it is the magical and timeless city of Malacia, so affectionately detailed and so wonderfully imagined, where Aldiss' writing shines. It is beautifully written.

The Malacia Tapestry can be read as social commentary, but it stands as minor masterpiece solely on the strength of the prose.

This was a rather strange read. It's ostensibly a fantasy, but reads like a romance (one of those rare from-the-perspective-of-the-callow-youth romances, the pining swain all moody for his unobtainable woman). It happens to be set in an environment that we recognize as fantastic by its dissimilarity to actual places (a vaguely Venetian baroque setting, some unusual fauna, a race of winged-people, and an unusual interlude later on). But until about 2/3 of the way through, the fantastic elements are just window-dressing and the plot could With Great Ease be told as an episode of, say, Gossip Girl.

And I'd prefer if the plots of my fantasies had some aspect that necessitated their being a fantasy, otherwise it seems kind of pointless. Take show more Harry Potter, remove all the magic, just leave the bits about who he'll ask to the dance, etc., and it's not the same experience!

The writing is often beautiful, so a star for that, but I'm not sure I was able to appreciate what the writer was trying to accomplish here. Much was made (not in the way of plot, but as background) of the fact that in this fantasy world humans were descended from dinosaurs, essentially, who still exist and are plentiful, but this fact had no effect on anything. I'm puzzled.

(And eventual the book builds up to a stunningly unsurprising reveal which I can only imagine the author intended to be stunningly unsurprising, because it's that obvious.)

(Note: 5 stars = rare and amazing, 4 = quite good book, 3 = a decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. There are a lot of 4s and 3s in the world!) show less

Perhaps his finest novel. This picaresque is on of the finest fantasies I've read, even though Aldiss is better known for his SF.