A great setting can make a novel unforgettable. And there have been some great cities in novels that inspire our imagination, make us want to pack our bags, or run away screaming.
What’s your favorite city in fiction?
I’d have to go with the wildly inventive Besźel/Ul Qoma from China Mieville’s The City and the City.
What about you?
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Art: Rue de Paris, temps de pluie by Gustav Caillebotte
Hogsmeade. It’s a village, does that count? I want my butter beer.
Castle Mount, on Robert Silverberg’s Majipoor. Amazing world-building, and the interactions between the very different inhabitants really fleshed it out. I expect any day NASA will report they found a large, lightweight planet somewhere out there that appears to have LIFE!
I’m going with “place” because I don’t think it’s fair to handicap us with a word like “city” when discussing fiction, Nathan. My husband immediately chose Arrakis (an entire planet) from Dune. But mine has to be somewhere in Middle Earth, and if you’re going to insist on a city, I’ll say Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings.
Ankh-Morpork. Thank you, Mr. Pratchett!
Coruscant.
Disneyworld! All of them. They’re both real AND fictional.
I thought of The City and the City first also. Gondor maybe or Gondolin also.