Byzantium Endures

[manmiles]

I'm currently 260 pages into this book and I'm enjoying every moment of it!


I have one simple question. Pyat claims in the book to have practically invented nearly all of the inventions and concepts of the 20th century and beyond (from the Airplane and Air Bomber to the Washing Machine, TV and the Laser Ray), is this the fictional Munchausian ramblings of Pyat who in his books tries to lay claim to being the greatest technological thinker of the early 20th century? Are we supposed to simply say 'this man simply desires to be something he is not' or praise his foreknowledge? In a way, even though Pyat and his exploits are fictional, is there a fiction within the fiction which portrays a Pyat who has created a web of lies in order to better himself in his own eyes and the eyes of other, like a young braggart of a man who will claim down the pub that he has bedded a large ammount of woman while in fact- a girl won't even touch him. Are we meant to take Pyat's exploits with a grain of salt in that what we see may only be the lies of a rather pathetic man or read the man as a genius who was doomed to see his ideas created by other people?

[Michael Moorcock]

He's maybe the ultimate self-deceiver, yes. But he also represents the kind of self-deceptions necessary to create the racist that he is. As the series progresses the level of his self-deception is revealed, I hope, and also some sense of why he is a self-deceiver (terror is one reason).
Glad you're enjoying it. In the fourth book he meets both Mussolini and Hitler. Natural pals ?

[RCraigRobinson]

Speaking of this topic, I've been wanting to pick up the Pyat series and have been having trouble finding them until recently. Rather than ordering them piecemeal, I believe I read somewhere on here that when Vengeance of Rome comes out, the first three books will also be available. Or have I completely lost my sanity?

As a sidenote, I was able to find Behold the Man and War Amongst the Angels and am quite looking forward to their arrival.

[L'Etranger]

In the fourth book he meets both Mussolini and Hitler. Natural pals ?

Gesundheit!

[Anonymous]

Just what genre do the Pyat books fall under?

[Michael Moorcock]

I know my publisher was outraged to discover them in the sf section of Waterstones but usually they are in the general fiction, if they're there at all. I know stocks are running down at Orion and they won't be reprinting because the reprint will come when the final volume is published next year. They can, I'm told, still be ordered. That's if you're in the UK. If you are elsewhere, the best bet is to get them either via Jayde Design, who advertise here, or via Amazon.

[Jagged]

I don't know where this fits in.... oh, well, I know. It doesn't. But...

I actually was a student of literature at a Univerwity once (formally, anyway), and I stuffed a copy of Byzantium Endures into the hands of a teacher whom I respect and like very much... present tense, like in still do. He has a vast knowledge on Adorno, for example, and consider his insights into Poe deeper than so many other academics'.

When I met him again a few days later, I naturally couldn't help asking him about it.

"Did you read the introduction?" I asked, hoping to share some obvious jokes in that.

"No, I don't need to," he snubbed.

"Oh... well, what do you think of it, then?"

He didn't like it.

"Look, even in the first few lines, he says that he was born on Jan. 1st 1900!" my learned friend exclaimed in anger. He had found a clichأ©!

I just looked at him. "Yes... but the point is, a few lines later, we already know that's a fiction. Pyat is inventing himself..."

"Hmmm..." said my learned friend and frowned... and that frown was the last of it.

As I said, don't know where this fits in, or where it leads to.......... Carry on! There're discussions on the board. Go on!