Series
Golden Road
Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven · 2 novels · 2000–2005
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's fantasy duology is set in an analogue of prehistoric Southern California shortly after the sinking of Atlantis, in a world where magic runs on a finite, dwindling resource called mana. The Burning City follows a young thief drawn into the fall of a city sustained by the fire god Yangin-Atep as the mana powering both magic and monsters runs out; Burning Tower continues in the same depleting-magic setting a generation later. The books use the receding-magic premise as a fantasy allegory for resource exhaustion and civilizational decline.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
- Genre
- Theme
- Place
- Time
- Tone
- Audience
Reading order
The order the books came out.
Map
Golden Road at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 2000s2
Shape
Mood
This series sits where the catalog sits — its mood is the corpus average.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book2 of 2 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- The Burning Citydarkest · calmest
- Burning Towerbrightest · most intense