Conference noted::sf

    
    		BTW-who is the current moderator? Mike Foley?
    		
                                                sam
    		
    
    						

    Dave Cantor and Mike Foley are co-moderators. For future reference,
    typing "SHOW MODERATOR" will list any and all moderators of the
    current notesfile.
    
    --- jerry

    I forget the name, but I guess you'd have to include the city in
    Thieves' World. It has certainly had enough books written about
    it!                                                  
                                                         
    Does New York City count? After all, it has been used in many SF
    stories, e.g., When Worlds Collide, the Cities in Flight series,
    etc.
    
    - Richard

    ... Bellona, in DHALGREN.
    
    Fred

    Try Arthur Clarke's "The City and the Stars".

    The city in Clarke's "The City and the Stars" is Diaspar, the last
    remaining human settlement, or so we are told at the beginning of
    the novel.   There are lots of descriptions of parts of the city,
    but nothing like complete maps.  The ultra-high technology of the
    place could easily adapt to fantasy, if you don't want SF.
    
    I think .4 mentioned Blish's "Cities in Flight" novels.  The principle
    city is Manhattan, uprooted and sent through space by its "spindizzy
    generators."  You could adapt any extant city to this method, of
    course, though you might want to add some futuristic modifications
    to the city map.
    
    There's also the Emerald City, for pure fantasy.  The later Oz books,
    by Ruth Plumly Thompson and John R. Neil give lots of ambience,
    though no detailed maps.
    
    There are maps of Lahnkmar, the foremost city of Fritz Leiber's
    Nehwon and the home of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.  Its big, rambling,
    decadent, and riddled with crime and intrigue.
    
    If you were to read Zelazny's Amber series carefully, you could
    get some details about Amber, the archetypal city at the center
    of the cosmos.  Its main features are metaphysical and magical rather
    than architectural, however.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    Hi,
    
    I tried to draw a map of Amber once.  Gave up.  Very difficult.
    Not only is it the center but the 'shadow' worlds seem to extend
    out in more than all directions.
    
    Joe

    Perhaps Trantor and Terminus (sp?) from the Foundation series. 
    
    There are also the 'cities' of New York, Tokyo, London, etc from
    Rendezvous with Rama, that may have some potential.
    jim
    

    Terminus was a planet, not a city.  Trantor, however, was both --
    a planet completely urbanized and covered with a solid sheet of
    cityscape.
    
    Tolkien gives a general description of the layout of Minas Tirith
    in "Lord of the Rings" -- the city was built on a mountainside,
    in seven levels, each with a wall.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    The city (_think_ it was New York) in Hugo Gernsback's seminal,
    but difficult to read, _Ralph 124C41+_ was described in nearly
    _agonizing_ detail.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    
    (Complete with footnotes, as were many Gernsback stories)

    How about Gene Wolf's Book of the New Sun series? I'm thinking in
    particular of the city in which the main character grows up as an
    apprentice of the Guild of Torturers. It is described in the first
    of the four books, which is entitled The Shadow of the Torturer.
    I think that the city if called Nessus.
    
    You'd have to add a lot of your own detail, but I think this would
    be fun.
    
    	Andrew.

    If you really want to try the classics, see Dante's _Inferno_. 
    Tolkien's Minas Tirith is modelled on just a part of this exquisitely
    described landscape (the City of the Virtuous Pagans).  Tolkien's
    description of Minas Morgul also derives (in part) from Dante's
    description of Dis.  While Dante's (and Virgil's) journey through
    Hell is far from exhaustive, indications of the peripheral geography
    have been sufficient to generate any number of "maps" over the past
    several centuries.

    From The Ringworld Engineers:
    
    Canyon, made by the Wounderland Treatymaker in the 3rd Man-Kzin
    War.
    
    It is 20 miles long and is built upon canyon walls ? high.  There
    is a lake in the center with some slight hills at the exact center.
    The walls are lined with sightseeing trams (not for transportation
    since the development of the transportation booth).
    
    Tony

    Speaking of Niven
    
    How about the largest artifact of them all.....the Ringworld itself!
    
    Or on a more *dispersed* track...the Belt???
    
    John