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City of the Iron Fish
Simon Ings - City of the Iron Fish
(This is a repost from LJ)
The City - with no other name - is a pseudo-British one with technology similar to that briefly after the Industrial Revolution - and therefore in the grips of rationalism - is the center of its own existence. It's renewed by the complex ritual of the Fish every twenty years thought the magic (not of the fireball kind) has reputedly dimmed. And like the majority of modern fantasy cities, it's at least nominally decadent in so many ways.
The City is a harbour town in a middle of a never-ending desert. It's been built over two hills that are connected by a bridge over the river made of black marble. The only significant industry - if you can call it that - are various forms of art from bohemian poetry and paintings to opulent opera and live sex shows. Its residents dream - and write and paint - of images none of them could ever have experienced. Even the seagulls of the city are confused and have to be specifically fed because they don't know what to do without a sea. Despite of this the City has fishers and menus full of seafood.
Local scholars debate on whether there is the larger outside world or not - though few of them actually bother to go outside the city, even to the surrounding countryside, and look. And when Tom and his painter friend Blythe Maravell eventually do so, they find out the painful truth that their reality really has strict limits.
After this painful discovery, they try to go on with their separate lives. Tom tries to escape to sexual passions and first ends up as a live-in-lover of his former lecturer C.L.S. and eventually as a performer in sex shows. (The book has three very detailed sex scenes).
At the same time, over the years, crowds of black-clad women begin to attack artists, destroy their works and burn the galleries. The stagnation has lead to decadence and violent frustration. And the time of the next ritual of the Fish begins to approach.
(This is a repost from LJ)
The City - with no other name - is a pseudo-British one with technology similar to that briefly after the Industrial Revolution - and therefore in the grips of rationalism - is the center of its own existence. It's renewed by the complex ritual of the Fish every twenty years thought the magic (not of the fireball kind) has reputedly dimmed. And like the majority of modern fantasy cities, it's at least nominally decadent in so many ways.
The City is a harbour town in a middle of a never-ending desert. It's been built over two hills that are connected by a bridge over the river made of black marble. The only significant industry - if you can call it that - are various forms of art from bohemian poetry and paintings to opulent opera and live sex shows. Its residents dream - and write and paint - of images none of them could ever have experienced. Even the seagulls of the city are confused and have to be specifically fed because they don't know what to do without a sea. Despite of this the City has fishers and menus full of seafood.
Local scholars debate on whether there is the larger outside world or not - though few of them actually bother to go outside the city, even to the surrounding countryside, and look. And when Tom and his painter friend Blythe Maravell eventually do so, they find out the painful truth that their reality really has strict limits.
After this painful discovery, they try to go on with their separate lives. Tom tries to escape to sexual passions and first ends up as a live-in-lover of his former lecturer C.L.S. and eventually as a performer in sex shows. (The book has three very detailed sex scenes).
At the same time, over the years, crowds of black-clad women begin to attack artists, destroy their works and burn the galleries. The stagnation has lead to decadence and violent frustration. And the time of the next ritual of the Fish begins to approach.