Of the major British writers associated with the magazine New Worlds in the 1960s and 1970s, M. John Harrison is one of the most consistently underrated. Part of the problem lies in the fact that much of his best work has been of shorter length, and critical reputations are generally founded upon novelistic production. In a career of more than three decades (his first story appeared in 1966), Harrison has published eight solo novels, a rather paltry number compared to the vast outpourings of New Wave contemporaries Brian W. Aldiss, J. G. Ballard, and Michael Moorcock during the same period; post-New Wave writers such as Ian Watson and Iain M. Banks have easily eclipsed this total in considerably less time, which in part accounts for the greater critical visibility of their writing. Harrison has admitted in interviews that he finds novel-writing a difficult business, preferring the density and conciseness...