Town or Country

[ellenkushner]

Nicola Griffith asks an interesting question - here's my hastily scribbled answer (as I am, in fact, running off to the country):

*Such* a good question - esp for fantasists! Tolkien set the mark with LOTR and his love of countryside - and a generation of American (& Brit?) fantasists then had to dig their way out of his love and knowledge into our own spaces, which tended to be Urban. In the 1980s worked a lot with Terri Windling, culminating in the Bordertown series, which some say was the start of Urban Fantasy....Still going on today.

Me, I made up an entire city to play in, and 3 novels later am still enjoying being there.

Comments

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

Hmm. If I am to judge by the novel that's been brewing in my head the past two years, I'm both and neither. (There's a lot of living and traveling, you see, in both town and country. It's a literal and metaphorical journey.)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Yes, there is that, too. Maybe because in this world it is so easy for us to make the move ourselves?

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

Convenience has definitely changed things in that regard, so simply setting off down the road like Bilbo doesn't seem quite as significant as it used to be. Now you have to dig a bit for that same sense of adventure and discovery, and peek in odd corners and forgotten places at times. (Or so it seems to me, and it's not something I lament: just take note of and think about.)

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

I made up an entire city to play in, and 3 novels later am still enjoying being there.

And I am very, very happy that you did.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Ann! As always.