BRIAN ALDISS
The Malacia Tapestry
HarperVoyager an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This ebook edition first published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2015
First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape 1976
Portions of this novel appeared in a different form in Orbit 12, copyright © Damon Knight 1973
Copyright © Brian Aldiss 2015
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Brian Aldiss asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007482368
Ebook Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 9780007482375
Version: 2015-08-28
For Margaret
time under prisms
dawn and pollen clouds afloat
presaging changes
you are the glimpsed light
in my smokey existence
frail but enduring
You sing of the old gods easily
In the days when you are young,
When love and trust seem not at odds;
But I know there are gods behind the gods,
Gods that are best unsung.
K. G. St Chentero
(XVI Mil.)
Contents
Mountebanks in an Urban Landscape
Woman With Mandoline in Sunlight
Castle Interior With Penitents
A note on the original text published by Jonathan Cape in 1976:
Malacia is one of my great fantastical territories. I was moved to make Malacia in imitation of England, which had become boring at that time, just when I had returned from exotic tropical climes. I inserted the odd dinosaur to liven matters up a bit. Oxford lacked dinosaurs. I submitted my finished novel to my publisher at Jonathan Cape – very pleasant people. And just to cheer up that wodge of manuscript, I inserted between its pages some reproductions of etchings by G.B. Tiepolo – crazy, lovely things that even Italian art critics could not comprehend. Off went the manuscript. It happened that my publisher was about to visit the German book exhibition in Frankfurt; a thoughtful man, he took my manuscript with him. He read it while flying back to London. And he liked it so much that he hung on to the Tiepolos, to use them here and there throughout the original book.
Brian W. Aldiss
Oxford, 2015