In Viriconium

Published in the US as The Floating Gods (1983).

British Fantasy Award nominee 1983, Philip K. Dick Award nominee 1984.

Street by street, a plague of despair and lethargy is slowly consuming the city of Viriconium. Neither cause nor cure is obvious. Is it the art dealer Paulinus Rack, warping the artists of the Low City into sentimental hacks for the rich of the High City? Is it the Barley Brothers, the two drunken idiots who may or may not be gods? Or is it the murderous little dwarf, "from the north or the sky," remaking a small quarter of the city for his own hidden reasons?