Beyond the Edges of the Map: Strange Settings

The Wyrd & Wonder theme this year is maritime fantasy. Which had me thinking about ships, and then maps (why DO we all love maps in books so much??? I know I do, but I can’t articulate why), which got me thinking about here be dragons – the edges of the maps, where the world is Different and Strange and Anything Is Possible.
So here is a list of some of the most fantastical settings I’ve seen in Fantasy!

Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC, secondary sapphic characters, minor nonbinary character, minor trans character, queernorm setting
Published on: 17th June 2025
Goodreads
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A talented heretic must decide between the pursuit of forbidden magic, or the ecstasy of forbidden love—either way, her choice will upend the world, in the start of a sweeping, romantic epic fantasy trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Tessa Gratton.
Can an empire trip and fall on a mere strand of silk?
Iriset is a prodigy and an outlaw. The daughter of a powerful criminal, she dons her alter ego Silk to create magical disguises for those in her father’s organization, but she longs to do more with her talent: to enhance what it means to be human by giving people wings, night-sight, and other abilities; to unlock the possibilities of gender and parenthood; to cure disease and even to end mortality itself.
Everything changes when her father is captured and sentenced to death. To save him, Iriset must infiltrate the palace and the empire’s fanatical ruling family. There, she realizes she has a chance—and an obligation—to bring down the entire corrupt system. She'll have to entangle herself in the lives of the emperor and his sister, getting them to trust and even to love her. But love is a two-way street, and Iriset’s own heart holds the most mysterious and impenetrable magic of all.
We get glimpses of several settings within this world – flying cloud-palaces and an archipelago that worships very eldritch demons (not the Christian kind) – but I think the strangest and best is the main one, Moonshadow City. Built in the crater made when one of the moons fell to earth, this is a place where architecture (as in buildings, not magic; ‘architecture’ is also the term for a kind of magic in this world) regularly disregards the laws of physics, birds with skulls for faces feed on energy, magical graffiti functions as both news service and advertising – and most forms of healing are banned as blasphemy. The worst criminals get unmade from reality; the head of the faith gives her god an orgasm every morning; people wear masks to prevent their faces being stolen; and the moon overhead never moves, hence the city’s name. ‘Strange’ doesn’t BEGIN to cover it!

Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Portal Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Japanese MC, bi/pansexual MCs
Goodreads
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In the Cities of Coin and Spice and In the Night Garden introduced readers to the unique and intoxicating imagination of Catherynne M. Valente. Now she weaves a lyrically erotic spell of a place where the grotesque and the beautiful reside and the passport to our most secret fantasies begins with a stranger’s kiss.…
Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse—a voyage permitted only to those who’ve always believed there’s another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night.
To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four travelers: Oleg, a New York locksmith; the beekeeper November; Ludovico, a binder of rare books; and a young Japanese woman named Sei. They’ve each lost something important—a wife, a lover, a sister, a direction in life—and what they will find in Palimpsest is more than they could ever imagine.
I mean, even getting to the city of Palimpsest is extremely strange; it can only be reached by having sex with a person who’s been there! Once you arrive, you’ll find houses that are grown like flowers; canals of cloth traversed by velvet gondolas; chariot races on tracks of pearls; narwhal-horned saints; maps that are baked like pies before they fly themselves away. It’s very dream-like, and every part of it you’ll see is packed with impossibilities – most beautiful, some disturbing, all deeply, deeply strange.

Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads
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A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before.
When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.
Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer. Rats erupt from beneath the earth, fleeing that which comes. Crops fail. Hunger looms. And none stand ready to face the Beast, stirring beneath the poisoned soil.
The fate of all who live in the palace hangs on narrow shoulders. The too-young Mother of Grey House sets out to fix the seasons. The unnamed apprentice of the deceased Grey Guardian goes to warn Black Tower. Both their paths cross the West Passage, the ancient byway of the Beast. On their journeys they will meet schoolteachers and beekeepers, miracles and monsters, and very, very big Ladies. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for the world is about to change.
The eldritch Ladies who rule the towers are unknowable: some of them have castles for heads, or birds, or fire. Their – queendom? – contains bee hives who prance around with the bodies of donkeys; frogs whose eggs contain furniture; and genders determined by careers, not bodies. The sketched outline of this realm might be vaguely Medieval, but it’s a Medieval world on acid!

Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, amputee MC, secondary sapphic character
Goodreads
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In a world where lightning sustained the Roman Empire, and Egypt's vampiric god-kings spread their influence through medicine and good weather, tiny Prytennia's fortunes are rising with the ships that have made her undisputed ruler of the air.
But the peace of recent decades is under threat. Rome's automaton-driven wealth is waning along with the New Republic's supply of power crystals, while Sweden uses fear of Rome to add to her Protectorates. And Prytennia is under attack from the wind itself. Relentless daily blasts destroy crops, buildings, and lives, and neither the weather vampires nor Prytennia's Trifold Goddess have been able to find a way to stop them.
With events so grand scouring the horizon, the deaths of Eiliff and Aedric Tenning raise little interest. The official verdict is accident: two careless automaton makers, killed by their own construct.
The Tenning children and Aedric's sister, Arianne, know this cannot be true. Nothing will stop their search for what really happened.
Not even if, to follow the first clue, Aunt Arianne must sell herself to a vampire.
A world where gods are objectively, tangibly real, tied to the nations of humanity, and which god you declare for determines which afterlife you go to; where ancient Egyptian vampires control the weather of the world; and Roman crystals power pre-Industrial Age machinery. England is ruled by a trio of queens who stand for the country’s dragons, and who send starry hares racing through the night sky when they they’re seeking secrets. Horned snakes guard sacred sites that lie outside of time. And don’t get me started on this world’s France!

Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC, secondary F/F
Goodreads
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"Eerie, lovely, and surreal."—Ann Leckie on The Border Keeper
We choose our own gods here.
Karys Eska is a deathspeaker, locked into an irrevocable compact with Sabaster, a terrifying eldritch entity—three-faced, hundred-winged, unforgiving—who has granted her the ability to communicate with the newly departed. She pays the rent by using her abilities to investigate suspicious deaths around the troubled city she calls home. When a job goes sideways and connects her to a dying stranger with dangerous secrets, her entire world is upended.
Ferain is willing to pay a ludicrous sum of money for her help. To save him, Karys inadvertently binds him to her shadow, an act that may doom them both. If they want to survive, they will need to learn to trust one another. Together, they journey to the heart of a faded empire, all the while haunted by arcane horrors and the unquiet ghosts of their pasts.
And all too soon, Karys knows her debts will come due.
Listen. LISTEN. This is probably the one I agonised over the most, because ALL of Hall’s books feature strange (and incredible) settings – Star Eater is set on a flying island run by cannibal nuns, and the Mkalis Cycle takes place in MULTIPLE deeply bizarre ‘kingdoms’ within what is kind of an afterlife realm…except for all the people born there, for whom the ‘normal’ world is the afterlife!
But in the end I had to pick Asunder, because I don’t think anything can top living furry taxis, miraculous flowers taking the place of the postal service, and hands-down the BEST alternative to trains/long-distance coaches I have EVER seen!



Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown bisexual MC, queernorm world
Goodreads
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A legendary serial killer stalks the streets of a fantastical city in The Helm of Midnight, the stunning first novel in a new trilogy from acclaimed author Marina Lostetter.
In a daring and deadly heist, thieves have made away with an artifact of terrible power--the death mask of Louis Charbon. Made by a master craftsman, it is imbued with the spirit of a monster from history, a serial murderer who terrorized the city with a series of gruesome murders.
Now Charbon is loose once more, killing from beyond the grave. But these murders are different from before, not simply random but the work of a deliberate mind probing for answers to a sinister question.
It is up to Krona Hirvath and her fellow Regulators to enter the mind of madness to stop this insatiable killer while facing the terrible truths left in his wake.
The world Lostetter’s created is one where time is taxed, only twins can hold the highest political office, emotions can be drained out of a person and planted into gemstones (which can then be worn by anyone wanting a boost of that emotion!), and experts in their fields are made into masks so after their deaths, someone else can wear them and have the use of their skills or knowledge…assuming the mask-spirit doesn’t end up possessing you.
My review of Helm of Midnight!
My review of Cage of Dark Hours!



Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown bisexual MC of fictional minority; F/F; extremely minor nonbinary character
Goodreads
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It’s been six years since Zaya Shearwater lost her wife and her dragon in the most dangerous race in Yemareir. She’s retired from the dragon-racing circuit, supporting her family as a security guard on long-haul trade expeditions… until she comes back one night to discover that her newly adopted daughter, Vanako, has been dealing for a mob boss. Worse, she owes him a sky-high sum of money for lost product. And there’s not much he wouldn’t do – to Vanako, to Zaya, or to anyone in their family – to get it back.
Zaya doesn’t want to go back to the racing circuit. She doesn’t have a trained dragon, she doesn’t have anyone to ride with, and she thought she’d put those memories of pain and loss away. But even if she does ride again… after six years away from the scene, can she win what she needs in time to pay what she owes?
Windburn Whiplash is the first full-length novel in the Streets of Flame Quartet. Start with Brimstone Slipstream, the novella that opens the series, and keep an eye out for Heatstroke Heartbeat and Wildfire Riptide, forthcoming!
How about a Central/South American-inspired setting with feathered dragons? The city of Yemareir revolves around dragons; each district is built around the nesting area for a different dragon breed, and when that breed shows up, the entire district up and moves to another. You and your besties can form a House together and legally become a new family, with the same surname and everything; empaths guide animals like gorillas and elephants to help out on construction sites; and a significant minority of people are walking around with baby demons attached to them.
My review of Brimstone Slipstream!
My review of Windburn Whiplash!
My review of Heatstroke Heartbeat!


Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC, secondary nonbinary character, queernorm setting
Goodreads
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Power always wins.
Imagine Camelot but in Gotham: a city where knights are the celebrities of the day, riding on motorbikes instead of horses and competing in televised fights for fame and money.
Imagine a city where a young, magic-touched bastard astonishes everyone by becoming king - albeit with extreme reluctance - and a girl with a secret past trains to become a knight for the sole purpose of vengeance.
Imagine a city where magic is illegal but everywhere, in its underground bars, its back-alley soothsayers - and in the people who have to hide what they are for fear of being tattooed and persecuted.
Imagine a city where electricity is money, power the only game worth playing, and violence the most fervently worshipped religion.
Welcome to a dark, chaotic, alluring place with a tumultuous history, where dreams come true if you want them hard enough - and are prepared to do some very, very bad things to get them . . .
"A riveting tragedy of blood and desire - and the coolest thing you'll read this year" ― Samantha Shannon, author of The Bone Season and The Priory of the Orange Tree
"The boldest, smartest, most adventurous fantasy I've read in ages - and it's really f**ing fun" ― Krystal Sutherland, author of Our Chemical Hearts
"Arthurian legend meets urban fantasy in a brilliant, bloody wild ride" ― Jay Kristoff, No.1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author
This alternate London is its own kingdom, with its own monarch, within an England very different to our own. In London, knights ride motorbikes rather than horses, and are the only ones who can legally carry guns. Knights are rockstars, competing in stadiums before thousands of fans – and their fights settle legal disputes. Magic exists but is illegal, and people born with it are tattooed and registered. And if someone kills someone you love, it’s perfectly legal for you to kill them…
My review of Blackheart Knights!



Genres: Adult, Fantasy, High Fantasy
Representation: Central Asian-inspired cast and setting
Goodreads
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A powerful new fantasy from Hugo award–winning author Elizabeth Bear, Range of Ghosts creates a world both deep and broad, where a sorcerer-prince seeks world domination for the glory of his God.
Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather's throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin.
Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards.
These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power.
The Eternal Sky Trilogy
#1 Range of Ghosts
#2 Shattered Pillars
#3 Steles of the Sky
In the world of this trilogy, the sky is determined by the ruling power on the ground – so, when you cross a border into another kingdom, you step out under a different sky than the one behind you. Different skies are different colours, with different stars, but also with different numbers of suns and moons, all of which follow their own unique laws – for example, in the Khan’s realm, there’s a moon for every one of his hundreds of grandsons, and if a prince dies, his moon disappears. Sometimes the skies don’t reflect the official king or emperor down below, but instead the dominant religion – and a god’s territory extends only across their own sky, and no further. Travel abroad, and you go beyond the reach of your gods.
Makes vacations a much chancier business…



Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC, queernorm world
Goodreads
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An ambitious tale of magic, war, and parallel worlds that pushes the boundaries of epic fantasy—from a two-time Hugo Award winner
On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past . . . while a world goes to war with itself.
In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin. At the heart of this war lie the pacifistic Dhai people, once enslaved by the Saiduan and now courted by their former masters to provide aid against the encroaching enemy.
As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler is tasked with holding together a country fractured by civil war; a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family to save his skin; and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father's people or loyalty to her alien Empress. Through tense alliances and devastating betrayal, the Dhai and their allies attempt to hold against a seemingly unstoppable force as enemy nations prepare for a coming together of worlds as old as the universe itself. In the end, one world will rise—and many will perish.
Stretching from desolate tundras to steamy, semi-tropical climes seething with sentient plant life, this is an epic tale of blood mages and mercenaries, emperors and priestly assassins, who must unite to save a world on the brink of ruin.
File Under: Fantasy [ Orphaned Child | World at War | Blood Magic | The Fluidity of Gender]
The Worldbreaker Saga takes place across several worlds – which are all alternates of each other within the same multiverse. The cultures, therefore, are wildly different – we have cannibal pacifists who are big on group marriage and another that’s a violent matriarchy, for starters – but the physical setting/s are more or less the same. They all have carnivorous, occasionally AMBULATORY plants more than capable of eating humans; none of them have horses (dogs and bears are the most common replacements); and they all have star magic. Mages in these worlds can draw power from one of several satellites (so I guess not really stars); each satellite’s power is good for different things, and each satellite is in ascendance at different times – one satellite might be in the sky for a decade, then it changes over to another, and when it changes, the mages of the first satellite become much, much weaker until it comes around again. Because magic is so important for so many things, satellites changing position can have a huge affect on a society who depend on its magic, not just the mages who use it.
What are some of the strangest settings YOU’VE ever seen?
The post Beyond the Edges of the Map: Strange Settings appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.