As much as I love a long walk through quiet fields in the country, nothing makes me feel more alive than moving through a city, zooming underground in its metros or pushing my way forward in markets bursting with people and lights and goods of all kinds. There’s a mixture of culture and technology and history on every block and intersection, and layers of stories to be unearthed in the haphazard alleys of unplanned neighbourhoods. When all these things collide, there’s magic to be witnessed—and the city doesn’t even have to be real for that to happen, as in the following examples:
“The City of the Tree” by Marie Brennan
The city of Cahuei lives under a cypress incomprehensible in size. The Jenevein and their army are gone now, returning Cahuei to the native Issli clans. But they also left the tree dying. Danger and death literally hangs over the city, as the cypress drops its leaves and branches. The city’s ruling council comes together to gather half-lost knowledge, in the hopes of summoning an archon that will restore life to the tree. But the clan leaders do not have all the information. Will they succeed in their summoning? And will the new archon be capable of taking up the responsibility that was once held by someone eons older?
“The Tragic Fate of the City of O-Rashad” by P H Lee
Full of looming towers and elevators that touched the sky, the City of O-Rashad was the most prosperous centre of trade there ever was, attracting goods and people from all around the universe. Who would attack such a mighty city? Even the LORD agreed, although the LORD also required that O-Rashad spend no more than 4 percent—and no less than 2 percent—of the GDP on the military. But this was ignored…which turned out to not be a good idea. This is the story of what happened next.
“Waystation City” by A.T. Greenblatt
Waystation City is a place made up of people and places from different times. The medieval and the modern mix here, as people keep finding themselves transported to this place. The nineteen-seventies twins, Claude and Daphne, have been here for a while, and like many others before them, have decided they want to disappear, leave the city. It’s a big decision, and Gerty, our journalist narrator, along with the others, wants to make sure they truly want to go ahead with this decision. The twins are determined, and need Gerty’s help. She agrees, but will take her payment as usual: the twins’ story, which she will write about for the citizens of the Waystation City, who lap up stories of those who disappear while waiting for their own turn to be directed back home. For Waystation City is a city of change—and not everyone wants that.
Victoriocity
This list was at least partly an excuse to tell everyone about Victoriocity, a delightfully strange and hilarious detective podcast set in the alternate 1880s. Grumpy inspector Archibald Fleet, accompanied by the frustratingly (for him) enthusiastic journalist Clara Entwhistle, is investigating a murder, something that’s no small task in Even Greater London—which encompasses southern England and is ruled by a cyborg version of Queen Victoria.
But there’s much more going on behind the scenes than simple murders (if you can call them that). Fleet and Clara will have to navigate the breadths, depths, and even the heights of Even Greater London to find answers—and intervene in time.
“Doorway, Smile, Kiss, Fox” by Jeremy Packert Burke
Themis is the latest in a long line of mnemosynes—human archives storing the memories of the greatest artists, writers, scientists, doctors, and other geniuses of the kingdom who could be consulted to offer brilliant solutions when needed. Except, these memories—collected through blood and obscure alchemic methods—are just as prone to loss as any ordinary person’s.
As his city struggles to survive in what can be called a cancerous mushrooming of towers, doors, windows, and other architectural components, Themis considers his fate—he has been failing his role as the mnemosyne since none of the solutions he’s offered so far has prevented the city from sprouting new buildings randomly. He will be replaced soon by another, for his king doesn’t care what happens to Themis—or, really, the city.
But Themis cares, both for the city and the people in it, whose memories are his—so much so that he doesn’t know where his own fit in among them. With his death certain in the near future, what can he do for this place, to keep it alive even as it continues to transform?