The only thing I dislike about George R.R. Martin books is how long they take to read. Unfortunately, as his Song of Ice and Fire series continues, each successive volume grows even more bloated. Studio Dongo takes a similar storytelling approach in The City that Traveled the World, but unlike Martin, Dongo writes spare, economical prose. (You won't find elaborate descriptions of feasts or any other kind of meal in a book by Studio Dongo.) Make no mistake, though--I love A Song of Ice and Fire as much as anyone. I enjoyed seeing Studio Dongo use a similar but more restrained storytelling approach.
The City that Traveled the World is ostensibly the tale of Mick Kugler, the latest manager of the Kugler Dynasty's fortune. The Kugler Dynasty is a matriarchy that Mick married into, and the background for most of that can be found in the much longer predecessor novel, The Kugler Dynasty. I liked the first book, but I LOVED the second book. The Kugler Dynasty merely sets up the larger story that The City that Traveled the World actually starts telling.
And when I say "ostensibly", it's because Mick Kugler is almost a secondary character. The City that Traveled the World is actually an ensemble piece about the motley group of entrepreneurs involved in Kugler's business venture, New Holland, which is a floating city with an extremely libertarian outlook. New Holland stays far enough away from the shore to be in international water, so no individual nation's laws apply. So if you're looking for a prostitute, then you can find one who is cheap, clean, and presumably well-treated. If drugs are your thing, the pharmacy on board makes anything and everything available. Like to gamble? New Holland has you covered. Need cash? Know someone who needs an organ transplant? New Holland has surgeons standing by.
Wait a minute, Randy. This doesn't sound similar to George R.R. Martin's books at all. What are you trying to pull here? Lemme explain the similarities. Each chapter is a story unto itself, told from the point of view of a single character. Martin used a similar approach to some of his Wild Card books, and those were called "mosaic novels". Those stories were written by multiple authors, but The City that Traveled the World is the work of a single author in the same way that A Song of Ice and Fire is Martin's exclusive work.
The City that Traveled the World is hard to categorize. It's science fiction, but it's also a techno-thriller. It also has elements of magic realism. The novel has a plot, but it's clearly part of a larger story. It's a unique reading experience from an unusually perceptive worldview. Studio Dongo writes clean, easily-digested prose that never devolves into the kind of lowest-common-denominator prose that dominates the bestseller lists.
I've tried not to spoil too much of the plot. Each chapter is a fresh experience, and I don't want to spoil any more of the story than I have to in order to give readers an idea of what to expect. If you like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, or anything by Isaac Asimov, you'll love this novel.
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