Here's an easy one for y'all. I'm looking for some fictional British SF place names, from books, movie, or TV shows. E.g., Perelandra, Perdido Street, The Village, Mordor.
So, you don't want names of fictional places -in- Britain, but just ones made up by British authors? Tolkien alone could provide you with hundreds. And even more from my two favorite of his predecessors, E.R. Eddison and Lord Dunsany. Dunsany in particular was a genius with beautiful and exotic names. Babbulkund, Merimna, Tarphet, Pegana, Allathurion, Thlunrana, Runazar, and those are just place names; his personal names are even better, I think.
Correct, fictional place names used in SF by British writers (books or other media). And yes, I know Tolkien alone could fill a wall! What I'm hoping for in the end is a list of not too obscure names, just one per writer (a tough choice for Tolkien!). What would be your top one or two from those writers, ones that people might recognize? (I have to say, I don't recognize any of the Dunsany ones you cited, though it's been years since I read any.)
It occurs to me that I could use 'Bad Ass' for a Pratchett place name rather than the more obvious Ankh-Morpork. Ha ha!
I ran across one of the stories in an old collection I ran into, and it's been so long since I read the eponymous collection that I hadn't known that the bar flies are Tuckerized fans.
What scale of "places" do you mean? Planets or pubs?
My favorite Dunsany place name is one he didn't make up. It's Carcassonne. It's a name he'd seen in a poem somewhere and liked, and used for a fictional city, but he didn't recall where he'd read the name nor where it came from. (It's actually a town in southern France, and the poem Dunsany had read is by Gustave Naudaud.)
Eddison's most important placename is Zimiamvia, but you seem to be not looking just for exotic names, so Witchland or Demonland from The Worm Ouroboros might do you better. (Eddison invented those in childhood, and couldn't bear to part from them.)
For a Tolkien name in English, how about The Cottage of Lost Play?
Ah, good question. I think pubs would be too fine-grained, although you could make an argument for places that might define a whole neighborhood (e.g., a museum or famous landmark). But I'm thinking neighborhoods, cities, countries, or planets. (Yes, it's supposed to be silly!)
"Kor" is good, because besides being prominent in Haggard it's also just about the only fictional placename that Tolkien blatantly stole from another author. (He later changed it, though, and in the published Silmarillion it's Tirion.)
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It occurs to me that I could use 'Bad Ass' for a Pratchett place name rather than the more obvious Ankh-Morpork. Ha ha!
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The White Hart
What scale of "places" do you mean? Planets or pubs?
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Eddison's most important placename is Zimiamvia, but you seem to be not looking just for exotic names, so Witchland or Demonland from The Worm Ouroboros might do you better. (Eddison invented those in childhood, and couldn't bear to part from them.)
For a Tolkien name in English, how about The Cottage of Lost Play?
Re: The White Hart
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I'm afraid I'm going to go with a more obvious Tolkien name like Mordor or Rivendell. Boring to a Tolkien scholar like you, I realize.
Will you be at Westercon this weekend?
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A few obvious ones, then, including works of fantasy. I've almost certainly mispelled some.
Gallifrey
Never-Never Land
Kor
Lilliput
Neverwhere
Gauda Prime
Wonderland
Bas-Lag
Megacity One
Gormenghast
Lud-in-the-Mist
The Village
What was the name of the Moreau's island? Did the land of the Eloi and Morlocks have a name?
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I don't know the answers to your questions, though if the answers are too obscure, it's not worth pursuing.
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Gormenghast. Elidor. Dalemark (or Derkholm).
Me = at Westercon intermittently.
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