"The buildings looked like faerie work..."
-Poul Anderson, The Night Face IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 541-660 AT VI, p. 596.
See also an otherworldly castle here and an elven castle here.
"Their feet fell noiseless on the moss, and its springiness seemed to remove most of their exhaustion." (ibid.)
Silent, soft and springy. Why don't we have such streets?
Walls are heavy and strong and doors are steel. Floors and walls are covered with a gray rubbery substance. More clues to what happens in Bale Time.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Springy moss would not last long with cars and trucks of all kinds passing over them. But of course you knew that!
Thick, massive, padded walls and steel doors in the Holy Cities? Yes, they are ominous clues that something is not quite right on Gwydion.
Sean
Sean,
But we need more pedestrianized areas in cities.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree! I have no objection to improving or increasing pedestrianized areas for our cities.
Sean
Mechanical and foot traffic aren't incompatible. For example, you can lay tram-tracks (and induction coils to power the system) underneath grass and earth, with only the steel showing flush with the surface.
Urban planning is a hobby of mine. I think the best street-layout ever made was the Ogelthorpe Plan for Savannah, Georgia with its squares -- it's very fractal, a setup which can be replicated endlessly, which by its structure makes for efficient but controlled traffic-flow that's surprisingly compatible with pedestrian traffic, is extremely friendly to mixed-use zoning and promoting local social interaction, and internally flexible within an overall framework.
It's also extremely pretty. I really, really wish it had supplanted the unimaginative grid that most American (and Latin-American) cities use. I'm going to use that in an alternate-history story someday.
https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/savannah-city-plan
Mr Stirling,
Great Galaxy! An ad on the blog!
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Very interesting and I will look up a map of Savannah, GA. And Boston, Ma is old enough, in its older parts, to have narrow or wandering "cow path" streets.
And buried tram tracks and induction coils are worth trying!
Sean
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