Cities, and Cities
April 18th, 2010 at 10:54Reading the interview with Felix Gilman in a recent Locus, I was gratified to hear someone else talking about cities in fantasy, and how awesome it is to have them (they are, after all, far superior to bogs, marshes, steppes and castles).
I promptly decided to write a blog post about awesome cities in fantasy, but it’s been a long week and all I could come up with was the Emerald City, Ankh Morpork & Lankhmar, in that order.
Oh okay and maybe Gotham City. Which I’m pretty sure counts.
So help me out – what are your favourite fantasy cities? Or haven’t they been written yet? What aspects of a fantasy city most interests you?
Tags: fantasy, fantasy cities
Posted by tansyrr,
in Crossposted
April 18th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
the city of Lucescere, in Rionnagan, Eileanan – great location, smashing waterfall, nice architecture, fascinating history…
Carbuncle, on Tiamat (oh, is that fantasy or SF? the locals think they’re using magic, but the reader learns that it’s advanced tech. hmm, probly doesn’t qualify. great city, though), under the Snow Queen’s rule.
Pfarb Durim, in the land of the True Game. the socio-political background, the inhabitants, the decorations, the soup…
Henas’amef, principal city of Amafel – it’s well warded, particularly the Zeide, nice stone buildings, steep windy streets, can’t remember if it has a library, but it has plenty of markets, craftspeople, scary religious places, etc
and I’m sorry I can’t remember the names, and I don’t have any of the books (shame!) only borrowed them from local libraries, but Tamora Pierce has lots of different fab cities in her Circle of Magic books. the Middle Eastern kind of one, with all the flat stone rooves and carpets hanging on walls; the sea-port one, with the cobbled quay, and the stone courtyards in teh great houses; and the teaching city, where the kids are learning from the adepts.
oh, and the Weyrs of Pern – cities inside mountains – that’s cool.
and Belisaere in teh Old Kingdom – specially the lake under the city.
April 18th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
New Crobuzon, from China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station (and the other Bas-Lag books).
Castle Gormenghast (I’ve not yet read the books, but I loved the BBC miniseries) My impression was that it was more a minor city state than a mere building.
But yes, New Crobuzon in particular has in common with Ankh Morpork that it’s home to a rich tapestry of fractious subcultures mired in varying degrees of squalor, failing to deal particularly well with any of overpopulation, racial diversity or different stages of industrialisation. They read to me as if the author has drawn heavily on Victorian London for inspiration, and they also feature universities that are home to both fabulously useful equipment and obstructive academic hierarchs.
And I just love the implied architecture – they all sound like such visually amazing places.
April 18th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
New Crobuzon in “Perdido Street Station”, although dark and grotesque it was the perfect backdrop for steampunky weirdness
The minneapolis of Emma Bull’s “War For the Oaks” with the fairy world spilling in and out of the cracks of reality
Similarly loved the London of Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere”. Dark and weird and right in people’s faces, if they looked close enough, if they dared.
Glenda Larke’s Scarcleft City — so much apart of an entire world and so dependant on it.
April 18th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, Camorr – canals, a murky Dickensian underworld with flaps in the doors through to shark infested waters, AND then a towering castle made by long gone aliens…. I was humbled by the breadth of ideas he skimmed over to keep the story going. A MUST read if you want sexy cities.
No wonder you could think of Majipoor after such a full on weekend… It just rocks, Majipoor does. If you like Majipoor, Scott Lynch reals it up a notch or seven, throughs it through the gutter, a street fight or three and takes the niceness out the back – where it belongs.
Mary Gentle’s Golden Witchbreed – all sorts of cities and camps with alien magic and technology lingering in the background.
April 18th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Gotham totally counts!
Alan Campbell’s city of Deepgate is pretty cool with its giant chains holding it over a great abyss.
And Jeff Vandermeer’s Ambergris, not to mention Kirsten Bishop’s Ashamoil – I “lived” in that city for a year so I’m biased – and Brian Aldiss’ Malacia. And the cities in Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet are beautifully drawn.
And I loved what a certain person did to a certain Tasmanian capital.
There’s so many when you start thinking about them. Cities are always magical places to me, I guess that comes from growing up in a very small country town. Cities have streets you can’t see the ends of, and faces you don’t recognise, and varied foods, and their own kind of weather, or the weather makes its own kind of mark and sound upon them. Rain in the city sounds different to rain in a town. They’re contained and they’re vast, and the sky is smaller and further away. Even silence in a city is different, it means different things.
They really are narratively fabulous.
April 20th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Menzoberranzan, in R.A. Salvatore’s fluff stuff
London, in the Bartimaeus trilogy
Paula Volsky’s Venice was pretty good too, I think.
Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities inspire me but the book disappoints me every time I read it. I don’t get that.
I love architecture and politics and catacombs. They’re densely packed with all kinds of locations, people, and plots.