Fantasy with Real-World Settings

But could you tell more about Rivers of London? I'm not at all acquainted with it.
 
it's urban fantasy police procedural, a young mixed race PC is inducted into the magical world of London to become an apprentice wizard (but still in the police). You can tell the writer knows london really well.
 
Many of us will not be traveling this year, but we can read about distant locations.

This thread is for suggestions about fantasy stories that are set in identifiable real-world locations as they have been, as they are, or as they might be in the very near future. Not science fiction, not horror.

Dragonlady suggests Rivers of London: "it's urban fantasy police procedural, a young mixed race PC is inducted into the magical world of London to become an apprentice wizard (but still in the police). You can tell the writer knows london really well."

I think of Alan Garner's two Alderley Edge novels, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath. You can follow the action of the first one, at least, with an Ordnance Survey map!

Topographic Romance - Fancyclopedia 3

fancyclopedia.org fancyclopedia.org
 
Extollager said:
But could you tell more about Rivers of London? I'm not at all acquainted with it.
Click to expand...
That's the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch about a secret magical wing of the Met Police. His knowledge of London geography and history, together with police procedural make it very realistic and even slightly believable.

But I see now @Dragonlady already replied.

Michael Moorcock's London Bone for same reasons of geography and local history.

There was a YA book about my own manor in Sarth London set during the Second World War that used some very local places to me. However, I'm not sure I would suggest any of these for a vacation.
 
I have a hunch we're going to see a lot of London books, which is fine!
 
Martin Owton, Shadows of Faerie set in and around New Forest.
Jo Zebedee, Water and Wilds set in Northern Ireland.

I'm bone tired at moment once I've had a decent sleep I'll think of some more.
 
Extollager said:
I think of Alan Garner's two Alderley Edge novels, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath. You can follow the action of the first one, at least, with an Ordnance Survey map!
Click to expand...

I knew someone who actually did that when he was a young man and visiting England.

James Blaylock's The Paper Grail and The Last Coin are both set in California (though not the same part of the state) and, as a native Californian, I can vouch for how well he caught the flavor of the setting and the people, and made the magic seem to grow naturally out of the place and the time.
 
China Mieville, King Rat -- London
M. John Harrison, The Course of the Heart -- Huddersfield, London, etc.
Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising series -- Cornwall, Wales, etc.
Mark Halprin, Winter's Tale -- early and late 20th c Manhattan
John Crowley, Little, Big -- upstate New York, New York City

Of course, you can probably just Google "urban fantasy" and find myriad examples.

I can't think off the top of my head of fantasy novels set in Paris, but there is the 1976 film Duelle, by Jacques Rivette, about the daughters of the Sun and the Moon competing to find a magic stone, etc, all filmed in Paris with basically no special effects whatsoever.
 
Tim Powers nearly always uses real places to set his novels.
- The Anubis Gates - London, Egypt
- Declare - London, Middle East, USSR
- Several others novels - in or around LA
Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - England, Spain, Venice
Jim Butcher - Dresden Files - Chicago
China Miéville - Kraken - London
Charles Stross - Laundry Files - Mostly set in London
Charles Stross - Merchant Princes + Empire Games - partly set in modern USA
 
John Crowley's Aegypt is mostly set in somewhere in NY state, near the Pennsylvania and New England border

Robert Silverberg's Book of Skulls is a great American road trip to Arizona
 
Sharon Lee - Carousel Tides and the two sequels. Set in Archers Beach a fictional but based on reality town on the Maine Coast - fantasy with dryads and other land and sea creatures, plus a formal magic set-up with portals. All centred around the family owned old fashioned carousel.

Simon R Green - Midnight Wine - Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire - lovely little town with listed buildings and angels and monsters come to visit.....
 
Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake. Set on the island of Sark.

The Good Fairies of New York. Martin Millar. Set in, um...

Aberystwyth Mon Amour and sequels.
 
Tim Powers was mentioned up above. He collaborated with Blaylock on a number of short stories set in the western part of the US. As well as the books mentioned by Eickerlyc, Powers also wrote Last Call, a story which combines the Arthurian mythos with a present day (or at least it was present day when it was written) road trip to Las Vegas.
 
Dave said:
That's the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch about a secret magical wing of the Met Police. His knowledge of London geography and history, together with police procedural make it very realistic and even slightly believable.
Click to expand...

Isn't this the series where, in one book, Neil Gaiman actually cameos as a character?
 
The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson FTW! Cool plot, and even cooler characters.
 
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