I'm honestly not sure what to make of this book. I'm not even really sure a "book" is the right thing to describe it as... the "story" is basically a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan where the explorer is regaling the Mongol emperor with stories of dazzling, fantastic cities. And the book is basically a little interlude with Polo and Khan talking, followed by a series of quite short "chapters" where each one describes a different city.

As I was reading, the first thought I had was actually that it's a great resource for inspiration for fantasy cities. I recently started running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for a new gaming group that I joined, and I found myself bookmarking some of the chapters with particularly interesting city ideas for reference and/or inspiration later. I suppose in that sense, I liked this book because it piqued my imagination and inspired me. But if someone asked me for a book recommendation I'm not sure it would ever occur to me to say, "You know what I highly recommend? A collection of short fantasy city descriptions."

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Created Feb 24, 2024 at 7:57am • Submit your own review...