Oddly, I got a hold of The Malacia Tapestry too, and read it over the weekend. It certainly is a well-written book, and a rather lusty one at that. At times I was baffled as to why Aldiss focussed on the trivial loves of a wayward young man in the mdist of the artistic and social turmoil brewing in Malacia. All in all, I have to say that his choice of point of view ultimately did make sense to me - great upheavals are not always participated in by fervent idealists, ordinary people who may have had no further aspiration than a good place in the old order often find themselves at pivotal moments that result in their joining a larger cause. De Chirolo is at such a point at the end here, I think. The parallel between the picture-play and the events in the book are quite clear, and this adds another level of commentary to the book, I think. All that aside, it was fun - a baroque, bawdy romp through a world just a few degrees askew of our own.
I am continuing apace on Justina Robson's Mappa Mundi - a tense, well-paced sf thriller packed with big concept and engaging characters.
