"M. John Harrison - Viriconium 1 - The Pastel City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison John M)

The Pastel City
by M. John Harrison (1971)

Version 1.1




Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Prologue
On the Empire of Viriconium
Some seventeen notable empires rose in the
Middle Period of Earth. These were the
Afternoon Cultures. All but one are unimportant
to this narrative, and there is little need to speak
of them save to say that none of them lasted for
less than a millennium, none for more than ten;
that each extracted such secrets and obtained such
comforts as its nature (and the nature of the
Universe) enabled it to find; and that each fell
back from the Universe in confusion, dwindled,
and died.
The last of them left its name written in the
stars, but no one who came later could read it.
More important, perhaps, it built enduringly
despite its failing strength тАФ leaving certain
technologies that, for good or ill, retained their
properties of operation for well over a thousand
years. And more important still, it was the last of
the Afternoon Cultures, and was followed by
Evening, and by Viriconium.
For five hundred years or more after the final
collapse of the Middle Period, Viriconium (it had
not that name, yet) was a primitive huddle of
communities bounded by the sea in the West and
South, by the unexplored lands in the East, and