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Post by Hermes on Apr 19, 2011 13:50:26 GMT -5
Reading The Basic Eight has made me think about San Francisco as a literary city. Apart from Handler's work, what else is set there?
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiel Hammett. Tales of the City and sequels, by Armistead Maupin. Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow. Changing Places, by David Lodge. (Sort of. Part of it is set in the university city of Plotinus, which is across the bay from the great city of Esseph. It's quite easy to work out where these places are.)
Can anyone think of more?
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Post by Lady Whatever on Apr 19, 2011 14:07:41 GMT -5
Not exactly a luminary work compared to those others, but Gingerbread, a young adult novel, takes place in San Francisco, as does, Free Enterprise . Both are books about young women who are rebellious and free-thinking, in the spirit of the city.
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Post by Seymour Glass on Dec 13, 2011 11:32:21 GMT -5
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. (It's one of the many places it takes place)
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Post by Hermes on Dec 13, 2011 17:03:26 GMT -5
Oh, interesting.
I feel sure there must be more. One thing that struck me is that Cloud Atlas, which was the reading for Summer Book Club here a few years ago, has a section set in Buena Yerba, which I believe is an old name for San Francisco - so i suspect that is where it is meant to be.
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Post by BSam on Dec 21, 2011 15:30:53 GMT -5
Dante's Inferno.
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Post by csc on Dec 21, 2011 15:53:45 GMT -5
Hahahahaha, good one.
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Post by Lady Whatever on Dec 21, 2011 16:15:20 GMT -5
I saw a film once where the Inferno was set in modern day Brooklyn. It was quite funny, and it had impressive puppets.
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Post by bryan on Dec 21, 2011 16:47:13 GMT -5
I saw a film once where the Inferno was set in modern day Brooklyn. It was quite funny, and it had impressive puppets. Was it the one with the paper puppets?
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Post by Lady Whatever on Dec 21, 2011 16:50:45 GMT -5
I saw a film once where the Inferno was set in modern day Brooklyn. It was quite funny, and it had impressive puppets. Was it the one with the paper puppets? Yup. My favourite part of the film was when Dante mused about moving to Vancouver to escape how horrible life was getting, "Except the weather sucks and I hate hockey."
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Post by Hermes on Aug 29, 2014 16:26:40 GMT -5
A couple of books I have read recently which can be added to this:
The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick. Parasite, by Mira Grant.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Aug 30, 2014 10:06:34 GMT -5
Handler's upcoming We Are Pirates will be part of this roster as well.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 3, 2014 14:20:43 GMT -5
Well, I'm taking it that that's normal for Handler's work. TB8 certainly is set there, so is Adverbs in part, and isn't WTM as well? WWBU has no very obvious setting, but the San Francisco area is not implausible, given Al's 'girlfriend in LA'. And even in the Snicket books, though they are not really set anywhere on Earth, I feel that the City is more specifically not SF than not anywhere else. (SF is often called 'the City', and I believe that the term 'the Hinterlands' comes from that area as well.)
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Post by Hermes on Apr 19, 2016 15:22:13 GMT -5
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. (I get the sense there is a lot of science fiction in San Francisco, which is appropriate given the name.)
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Post by Liam R. Findlay on Apr 21, 2016 16:18:00 GMT -5
And even in the Snicket books, though they are not really set anywhere on Earth, I feel that the City is more specifically not SF than not anywhere else. (SF is often called 'the City', and I believe that the term 'the Hinterlands' comes from that area as well.) I thought about this this morning, because of the San Francisco journal of short stories he sent for the book club. I thought 'The city in A Series of Unfortunate Events is probably based on San Francisco' before I got out of bed.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 4, 2017 9:52:16 GMT -5
Tea with the Black Dragon, by R.A. MacAvoy. The October Daye series, by Seanan McGuire. (Who is the same person as the aforementioned Mira Grant, and is also a Snicket fan, as she wrote one of the bits of official fanfic which DH organised a while ago.)
Sorry there is so much science fiction and fantasy on this list. If anyone knows of any mainstream, crime or romance works set there, do let us know.
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