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Intensely local reading
Feb. 13th, 2012 04:03 pmI've developed an interest in stories about where I live.
I always liked the fantasy written about Ottawa (Charles de Lint writes about the fair folk in one of Ottawa's older neighbourhoods, GGKay set Fionavar at the U of T), but on the whole, books set in either Toronto or Ottawa are rare.
Not so London. I've just posted a list of fiction and non-fiction about London on the Thamesreach website. I think any visitors would get more out of their trip if they'd already read Neverwhere, or Rutherfurd's London, and reading in advance is a cheap addition to your holiday.
Quite by chance, I found myself reading three books in a row about Edinburgh and environs, just before visiting for Dance Moot:
Rule 34 by Charles Stross,
The Night Sessions, by Ken MacLeod, (link to KMacL's blog, where delightfully I find a quote from my friend GS featured prominently to explain its title). Both are police procedurals set in the near-ish future, with similar-but-not-the-same assumptions about the future. The Night Sessions is, I think, futher out and darker, but makes the more challenging assumptions.
The Burry Man's Day, a Dandy Gilver mystery, set in Queensferry in the early 1920s; Queensferry is exactly where Dance Moot was held, and I could pick out the church it was held in on the little town map. This series shows great promise, at least to someone who likes whodunnits but is tired of the churn of genre historical mysteries.
I've also been following Jim Kelly's mysteries, set in Ely, King's Lynn and environs in East Anglia, and Phil Rickman's books about the diocesan exorcist on the Welsh borders; you don't have to believe in ghosts, or exorcists, to appreciate the stories.
What I liked about all these books is that the setting, and the time, played a part in the stories. It's more than throwing in local street names and favourite pubs. The stories wouldn't have worked in other cities or towns, because they wouldn't have happened the same way elsewhere; some aspect of the town or city, or its history, mattered to the story.
Lots of fiction is 'regional' because you have to put your characters somewhere - but for many books, you could transplant them from one location to another with no change to the plot. In all the books I've mentioned, the authors know the regions intimately, and both love them, and grump about them, by turns.
I always liked the fantasy written about Ottawa (Charles de Lint writes about the fair folk in one of Ottawa's older neighbourhoods, GGKay set Fionavar at the U of T), but on the whole, books set in either Toronto or Ottawa are rare.
Not so London. I've just posted a list of fiction and non-fiction about London on the Thamesreach website. I think any visitors would get more out of their trip if they'd already read Neverwhere, or Rutherfurd's London, and reading in advance is a cheap addition to your holiday.
Quite by chance, I found myself reading three books in a row about Edinburgh and environs, just before visiting for Dance Moot:
Rule 34 by Charles Stross,
The Night Sessions, by Ken MacLeod, (link to KMacL's blog, where delightfully I find a quote from my friend GS featured prominently to explain its title). Both are police procedurals set in the near-ish future, with similar-but-not-the-same assumptions about the future. The Night Sessions is, I think, futher out and darker, but makes the more challenging assumptions.
The Burry Man's Day, a Dandy Gilver mystery, set in Queensferry in the early 1920s; Queensferry is exactly where Dance Moot was held, and I could pick out the church it was held in on the little town map. This series shows great promise, at least to someone who likes whodunnits but is tired of the churn of genre historical mysteries.
I've also been following Jim Kelly's mysteries, set in Ely, King's Lynn and environs in East Anglia, and Phil Rickman's books about the diocesan exorcist on the Welsh borders; you don't have to believe in ghosts, or exorcists, to appreciate the stories.
What I liked about all these books is that the setting, and the time, played a part in the stories. It's more than throwing in local street names and favourite pubs. The stories wouldn't have worked in other cities or towns, because they wouldn't have happened the same way elsewhere; some aspect of the town or city, or its history, mattered to the story.
Lots of fiction is 'regional' because you have to put your characters somewhere - but for many books, you could transplant them from one location to another with no change to the plot. In all the books I've mentioned, the authors know the regions intimately, and both love them, and grump about them, by turns.
