All That Glitters: The Fantasy Cities You Don’t Need to Reside In

Whenever you assume “magical metropolis,” do you dream of glittering, shimmering utopias, their streets pouring forth with esteemed and equitable witchcraft and wizardry?

Nicely, this listing ain’t for you.

Class ID: 476

Class ID: 480

Class ID: 47669

Test Your Shelf E-newsletter

Signal as much as obtain Test Your Shelf, the Librarian’s One-Cease Store For Information, E book Lists, And Extra.

Thanks for signing up! Control your inbox.

By signing up you comply with our Phrases of Service

“Magic” doesn’t imply “excellent,” and fantasy tales are suffering from locations as darkish as they’re wondrous. Take into account crossing these cities off your fictional tourism listing.

A Legal Magic by Lee Kelly

On this timeline, we don’t affiliate Washington, D.C., with a lot magic. However Kelly’s 1926 District is a hotbed of outlaw sorcery. It’s a metropolis each gritty and glamorous, the place Prohibition is in full pressure. However this time? The goal isn’t booze; it’s “shine,” an intoxicating byproduct of spellwork. It’s not all speakeasies and good instances although. In a capital metropolis with criminalized magic, you naturally discover a hopping magic underground but in addition a substantive organized crime ring. The Shaw Gang cartel is the catalyst that pulls collectively two younger magicians on converging, explosive paths.

Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves

Portero, Texas, is a nightmare manufacturing unit. Each monstrous and magical, this East Texas city is residence to Equipment and Fancy Cordelle, daughters of the notorious Bonesaw Killer. As such, even in a city the place literal monsters hunt the populace, the Cordelle sisters really feel just like the hideous outsiders. And possibly the apples didn’t fall too removed from the murderous tree. When Equipment and Fancy uncover a magic portal to a different world that enables them to play God, they use it as a useful software on their very own killing spree, as they rid Portero of rapists, abusers, and different rotten parts.

The By no means Tilting World by Rin Chupeco

The damaged world of Aeon gives two upturned magic cities for the worth of 1. Lengthy dominated by generations of dual goddesses, Aeon stopped rotating 17 years in the past when two sisters broke their bond. Now the world is break up into two, every half with its personal wrecked capital. There’s Aranth, plunged into everlasting night time and buffet by storm and sea. And there may be the Golden Metropolis, with its sandy environs scorched by ceaseless daylight. The one hope for saving these two cities and the world they share? The most recent pair of goddesses, unknown to one another, who’re being drawn by supernatural forces to heal the wound.

Meals of the Gods by Cassandra Khaw

One other twofer for you, however this time, we’re two actual cities via a madcap magical lens. Maybe greater than anybody alive, Rupert Wong is aware of the darkish facet of magic and divine energy. In a busy double life in Kuala Lumpur, Rupert spends his days as a cannibal chef for elite ghouls and his nights as a bookkeeper for the Ten Courts of Chinese language Hell. A quest of kinds from a Dragon King takes him alongside the chaotic supernatural streets of Kuala Lumpur, after which on to London, the place the notoriously pragmatic and emotionally steady gods of Historical Greece have now settled.

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

What can an individual say about Ankh-Morpork? The setting for many of Pratchett’s Discworld novels is a pile of kindling ready for a match. (Coincidentally, so is the river Ankh.) That match is normally lit by the reckless wizards of Unseen College, as it’s right here within the fifth guide of the prolific satirical fantasy collection. When a mysterious youngster “sourceror” reveals up at Unseen College, the wizards are initially enthralled by his energy. However younger Coin’s plan may destroy the material of Ankh-Morpork and Discworld itself.

Borderline by Mishell Baker

It makes excellent sense that Los Angeles would host a portal from this world to Faerie. It’s a transfer from glitz to glamour. However relations between the realms have been higher, which Millie discovers when she’s recruited by the Arcadia Mission to trace down a Seelie nobleman moonlighting as a film star. Shortly, a bigger conspiracy comes into focus, exposing the sinister supernatural underbelly of Tinseltown. It is a high-stakes, traumatic setting, made all of the harder for Millie, navigating life with new prosthetics and a current Borderline Persona Dysfunction prognosis. (Care warning for tried suicide)

Revenge and the Wild by Michelle Modesto

Because the title implies, Rogue Metropolis is a lawless, violent city in an alternate West. It’s the type of place the place saloon brawls escape in hexes and bullets. Seventeen-year-old Westie arrived as an orphan, fleeing the cannibals who attacked her household on the wagon path. Years later, these cannibals have arrived in Rogue Metropolis, ever the magnet for monsters. They’re right here to spend money on Westie’s adoptive father’s magic-harvesting invention. However they’ll get greater than they bargained for once they meet this impulsive, rough-and-tumble teen bent on revenge.