Encountering Fantastic Worlds, Part 2 continued

Yesterday I began looking at some of my favourite worlds in adult fantasy fiction, here—a post that followed on from last week's look at fantastic worlds in Kids/YA fantasy lit, here.

But the trouble was, even by adding lots of refining criteria as explained yesterday, I found it impossible to narrow my list to just three or four worlds. Although perhaps that isn't a trouble at all, as it means I get to do another post—in fact, maybe it's the stuff of celebration! 'Anyways', I am doing another post, and including a few honourable mentions as well!

So yesterday I looked at Middle Earth (how not?), The City & The City's Beszel and Ul Qoma, and the historical, magic-realist New York of Winter's Tale. And here, still in alphabetical order by world name, is what I have for you today:

[image error]P is for Palimpsest, from Catherynne M Valente's novel of the same name

I said at the conclusion of yesterday's post that I'd noticed that two of the three favourite worlds listed were cities—and promised more. That more is Palimpsest—and like Mieville's Beszel and Ul Qoma there is a sense in which it overlaps with our world. There are definitely portals between the two, but they can only crossed by contracting what is effectively a sexually transmitted disease and then having intercourse with another individual who is similarly cursed—or blessed. (But never, if I recall correctly, the same person twice.)

Palimpsest, as I have mentioned, is a city: of mechanical insects and hieratical streets; of houses that may be sentient and trains that may be alive; of legends and lovers; of an ongoing war and the wounded who have been cured—or cursed—with the heads of beasts. It is a chaotic, sensual, bestial, cruel, and beautiful world—one of the most original I have encountered in fantasy and with a compelling sense of place. Like the passage those who would emigrate there must take, however, Palimpsest, may not be for everybody. But if you do make the journey, stick with it: the world, I believe, is well worth the effort.

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R is for the Rain Wild River in Robin Hobb's Liveship Trilogy—and now the Rain Wild Chronicles

Robin Hobb's Rain Wild river is another of those worlds that seized my imagination from the first moment I encountered it. Imagine a vast, navigable river through a world of dense rainforest—where the water is so corrosive that it will eat through any vessel except the famous Liveships, those made from the wizardwood that has its secret source in the Rain Wild environment. The ground adjoining the river is corrosive, too, eating away at pilings and building foundations so that the Rain Wilders live in Trehaug, a city built in the trees.

The Rain Wild world is one of trade and trading families—but there is also a  price to be paid for the vast wealth generated by the Rain Wild river: all those who live there mutate, so that many infants are born deformed and those who survive develop scales and protuberant growths on their skin. For this reason most Rain Wild traders wear veils when outside their own society, even when dealing with non-Rain Wild, trader kin.

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T is for The Tree in Mary Victoria's Chronicles of the Tree trilogy

Robin Hobb's Rain Wilds feature a treehouse city in a deadly rainforest—but imagine a world that is all tree, a Tree as vast as the Himalaya mountain ranges where the sub canopies are the equivalent of continents. This is the world of Mary Victoria's Tree, where cities are built from bark on the vast branches, and dirigibles powered by tree ether navigate the leaf thickets between sub-canopies, or risk crossing the empty Gap. The religions of the Tree's various cultures revere the life-giving properties of the Sap and the metaphysical Tree of Being is an important spiritual concept. And there really are no other Trees, just the sub-canopies of the one World Tree—and although there may be Loam and Roots beneath these canopies, all that is known is the seething, cloud-filled void known as the Storm.

I believe there are few worlds in adult fantasy as carefully realised as this one, where every aspect of life and society is a physical, technological, or metaphysical derivative of The Tree.

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So there you are—six fabulous worlds of adult fantasy, both older and new, but also, I hope, with a few inclusions that are outside the usual square. But it was a hard task getting the list down to six, so here, without further ado, are my own personal honourable mentions:

The Honourable Mentions:

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E is for Europa – the alternate 19th century Europe of Phil and Kaja Foglio's steampunk, graphic novel series, Girl Genius Online: Adventure–Romance–Mad Science; aka Sparks, Clanks and Jager-monsters—I just love it!

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K is for Kelewan — the world of the Tsurani Empire in Raymond E Feist and Junny Wurts Daughter of the Empire trilogy—an elaborately structured, medieval Korean-style world of politics and intrigue. And of those of you who read my Heroines series know, I think Mara of the Acoma rocks.

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M is for the many worlds of Steven Erikson's Malazan series—Genabackis, Darujhistan, the Seven Kingdoms, the Tiste Edur Lands—to name just a few. And then there's all the alternate 'realms', such as the Azath …

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N is for Neverwhere, the alternate London, or world below London, of Neil Gaiman's tale of the same name. A longstanding favourite of mine and for inventiveness and style leaves most urban fantasy imaginings for dead (just inho, she adds hastily!)

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S is for Sky and Shadow, the magically elevated city of NK Jemison's Inheritance trilogy. I know, I know, another city—but it really is very cool and cleverly imagined.

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W is for Westeros in George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. I al-most wasn't going to include Westeros at all, simply because I already had Middle Earth for the medieval European, pre-industrial worlds, with the Malazan worlds as an alternate take on that theme. But then another genre-loving buddy said: 'you-just-can't-not-have-Westeros!" And I thought–you're right, I can't. Besides, there's that fabulous wall of ice (and as you know, I love Walls! ) … and moreover, Winter is coming!

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And that's it—for this week. But I will be back next week with the final instalment of my "Encountering Fantastic Worlds" series, when I delve into the multi 'verses of SciFi—another enduring love.