I'm into the last third of KJ Bishop's The Etched City and things are finally making me sit up and pay attention. If this had happened about a hundred pages ago, I might not be so vaguely dissatisfied with this book.

My problem, I think, is that everyone I read in this steam-punk-fantasy sort of sub-genre - China Mieville, Mary Gentle, and now KJ Bishop - just seems to be reworking the vision of M John Harrison. Who did that himself, providing multiple facets of his own One True City in different stories. So really, there's no need for me to go to outside sources; I can just re-read Viriconium. Except that I forced Jojo to borrow it. Sshh.

Of course, I'm a fantasy reader. Why should the recycling of themes and tropes trouble me?

Pursuing that line of inquiry brings me back to considering the fundamentals of what I want out of a good story, or the iniquitous "Why do I read fantasy anyway?" question. The answer, I think - but this is liable to change at any moment, naturally - is that I like non-Mundane characters in non-Mundane situations in BIG stories (where the value of BIGness can involve, but is not limited to, the fate of the world and/or reality as we know it).

I like Guy Gavriel Kay. I like Georgie-boy Martin. I adored Jennifer Fallon's Second Son trilogy, which hordes of people including the readers for the Aurealis Awards try to tell me isn't fantasy at all.

I tried to read Perdido Street Station (because, you know, I like to be able to heap vitriolic abuse upon something from a position of knowledge) and failed, because the characters were everyday boring people and I didn't give a fuck. I got the idea I should be boggling at the shiny grungy (but secretly shiny) details of his world, the stunning new sentient fantasy creatures, the "scope" of his "vision" (or whatever the buzzwords are), but frankly, I just did not give a fuck.

Or perhaps my problem is merely that that brand of fantasy is frequently aiming (whether wankfully or with admirable sincerity) at a more "literary" state of storytelling, and as much as I try, I just seem to get bored with "literature". Probably because, it seems to me (correctly or not) that in literature, one is not allowed to deeply and passionately care about the characters. They must instead be Realistic and Flawed. (I adore flawed characters. Yet somehow "literary" characters just make me break out in hives. For hives, read: "spontaneous fits of book-hurling".)

I think I've just swallowed my own tail (and possibly even tale), so this seems to be a good place to conclude this meander into Dee's brain.