Viriconium – M. John Harrison (1971–1985)

The Viriconium cycle isn’t a series — it’s a shifting dream about a decaying city that never tells the same story twice.

Harrison takes sword-and-sorcery tropes and dismantles them into something strange, sad, and self-aware. Characters forget their pasts, the world rewrites itself, and meaning melts like candle wax.

It’s fantasy for philosophers — bleak, dazzling, and way ahead of its time.