The Malacia Tapestry (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Brian W. Aldiss
- First Published: 1976
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Fantasy—closed universe
- Time of Work: A quasi-High Renaissance era
- Setting: Unspecified, perhaps somewhere in Europe
- Genres: Long fiction, Fantasy
- Subjects: Europe or Europeans, Art or artists, Reality, Renaissance, Totalitarianism, Plays or playwrights
- Locales: Europe
The Plot
Perian de Chirolo, an unemployed actor in the decaying city- state of Malacia, is unaware of the distinction between art and reality and between artifice and genuine creativity. He is also a superficial picaresque hero, swashbuckling his way from bar to bed. In the land of Malacia, which resembles or seems to be based upon a three-dimensional living (but unchanging and always unchanged) G. B. Tiepolo etching, Perian must come to terms with his life, the city in which he lives, and the profession—art—that he practices.
The “original curse” of this...
[The entire page is 892 words long]
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