Tough Traveling: City of Wizards

The Thursday feature “Tough Traveling” is the brainchild of Nathan of Review Barn, who has come up with the excellent idea of making a new list each week based on the most common tropes in fantasy, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones. Nathan has invited anyone who is interested to come play along, so be sure to check out the first link for more information. Compulsive list-maker that I am, I’m very excited to take part!

This week’s tour topic is: City of Wizards
 
Something tells me this should be one of the easier themes for this feature, but I still had a tough time of it, especially coming up with only books I have read. After combing my shelves, here are my five I came up with:

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks – The Chromeria

Based on chromaturgy, the magic system in this series is one of the more interesting and unique ones I’ve come across in fantasy. In this world, the “wizards” or magic users can draft a substance called luxin which takes on different physical properties depending on their color in the light spectrum. The heart of the government is located at the Chromeria, also the seat of education and regulation for all color magic.

When the character Kip first visits the Chromeria in order to be trained as a drafter, he is amazed with the huge, impressive colorful structures made of luxin. I’ll be honest — to me this city was a bit hard to visualize. I kept thinking of those multicolored plastic hamsters cages, you know the ones with all those tubes you can add to it to make it a nice rodent funhouse? Yeah, I pictured a whole city like that.

The Magician’s Guild by Trudi Canavan – Imardin

Imardin is the capital of Kyralia, home of the Magician’s Guild, and as such that is where all magicians go to learn magic and also where most Kyralian magicians live. According to the wiki, because Kyralian blood is so high with magical potency compared to other countries, Kyralia also has a tendency to produce more magicians! Oh how I love learning interesting new things about my books. This Tough Traveling feature rocks.

They’re real asshats in Imardin, though. Each winter, the capital gives the boot to all its “undesirables” like the poor and the homeless. In an attempt to protest this Purge, a young vagrant named Sonea somehow manages to pierce the magician’s shield and bean one of them on the head, kicking off the chaotic events of this novel.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling – Hogsmeade

Okay, I realize calling the quaint little village of Hogsmeade a “city” is a bit of a stretch. I know that. But I just can’t not include this one, if you think about it. I mean, considering how places like Diagon Alley or Godric’s Hollow that are really just pockets of the magical community hidden inside established Muggle settlements, Hogsmeade’s pretty much the only place they have to themselves and all to themselves. The only all-wizarding community in Britain!

While Hogsmeade was actually first mentioned in the first book, it doesn’t have its first appearance until this one.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson – Elantris

Elantris, capital of Arelon, was once known as the “City of the Gods”, where anyone who was “chosen” went to live. Ordinary people touched and transformed by the power of the Shaod go through physical and mental changes that give them special abilities. The city was literally radiant, a place of power where the Elantrians used their magical abilities for the benefit of all.

Lovely place, really, until all of a sudden the magic failed and everyone there lost their powers, leaving Elantris a contaminated prison city. The magic users became powerless, wretched creatures, and the city itself crumbled into oblivion.

Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War by Christie Golden – Dalaran

I’m totally cheesing it a bit here by including this one, but what can I say, I’m a gamer at heart. When I heard that “City of Wizards” was this week’s theme, my mind immediately went to World of Waracraft’s renowned city of mages: Dalaran.

Dalaran is a “magocratic” city-state with a turbulent history. Destroyed in the Third War, the mages of the city refused to abandon their home and instead erected a huge glowing force field-like dome around the ruins in order to rebuild. After that, they moved the whole damn city by floating it to another continent by magical means. Now that’s dedication! Dalaran plays a pretty big role in this novel, which is why I chose it.