I am unfamiliar with Invisible Cities, but have a feeling the theme isn’t far off from an anime I adore called, Kino no Tabi (Kino’s Journey) – The Beautiful World.

I hope I wasn’t too far off the mark.

This is great – I particularly like how the silence moves from being filled with secrets to being filled with pity.

I think this series of stories is (and should be) creating something distinct from Invisible Cities anyway. Inspiration should only act as a springboard, not an anchor.

I don’t know the anime you refer to but if your story is anything to go by, it has a more sci-fi/fantasy theme than Calvino’s book?

I’m really glad to see this continuing; it’s fertile ground for sequels in writers’ individual styles.

I really enjoy this thread of stories. One pulled me into the world, one pulled me into the population, and one pulled me into the head’s of the people. Please keep this up guys. These are great.

I’m with Spiderj. I have, perhaps to a fault, been linking his first, fresh story too closely to the inspirational source material, which discounts his efforts (and the sequels) for their originality and inventiveness.

I mostly just like the idea of The Journey in all its possibilities from so many writers. It can be cyclical, paradoxical, incongruent, or harmonious. I just think it’s a fun exercise to see where it leads.

And, as you’ve proven, it can move in fascinating directions.

The cities in Kino’s Journey went from the sublime to the ridiculous…there was one city that had only robots left, another was very medieval, with deep superstitions that Kino had to deal with. One did try a hive mind, using science, but ended up with the people isolating themselves to get away from each other.

In any case, thank you very much for your kind words…this story frustrated me greatly, even after I hit the “Post it” button. ^^;

This is a great story. I love the detail of the woman’s voice “husky with disuse,” and how this story continues the traveler’s sadness and alienation from the first one.

I’ve neither seen Kino’s Journey or read Invisible Cities (and now I’ll have to do both) but the idea of the Journey is an universal one with a lot of resonance. People have always been telling traveler’s tales and tales of cities that never were.

I like it. Fits in a groove with Isaac Asimov’s planet-mind Gaia in the novel “Foundation and Earth”, or perhaps more like the Second Foundation in his “Foundation’s Edge”. The interface specialist is akin to the interface specialists to Coalescences in Greg Bear’s “Exultant”. Forgive me, I read a lot of SF. I think I’ll go read the other stories in this thread now!

For me, this was the least directive of the ones in this little series so far. I think I see the point, but I also see how you’ve left it a bit open to interpretation. Or maybe it’s just something you can fairly have different views about.

This was my first ficly read. Thank you for starting my new addiction. I have no idea how you fit so many scenes in this story. I feel like I know the speaker much better than the few words you’ve used. Amazing.

This was something great, at least to me. It’s such a paradoxical thought, that you can be perfectly happy if you give everything up… Simply great!

This story has been nominated for the ficly book.

Wow. It brings up the ideas associated with what’s in the mind, the secrets we keep, the pain we don’t share or else it will contaminate the others. An interesting concept, and brilliantly written. I was taken on a visual journey.