City in the sky but now moored to the ground? Not Dark City, nor Mortal Engines

[YanMac]

Read this novel c.2013 which my girlfriend lent me but who now has no memory of it! Grrr.

Set sometime in the future where small cities are airborne (something to do with terra firma being uninhabitable?) but have to come down for refuelling occasionally but eventually the one in the book eventually moored itself permanently. Lack of fuel?

Lead character is male and some kind of junkie. He's on some kind of mission to find someone/thing and has to wade through the low-life scum on the lower levels of the city, up through the higher echelons to the rich folk.

Sure I read on Wikipedia afterwards that Spielberg had bought the film rights. But also convinced I've seen a film adaptation of it - either that or my imagination was so vivid reading this that I made a movie in my head!

Anyone..?

 

[Ursa major]

I don't think it is, but some of it sounds a bit like Jaine Fenn's Principles of Angels.

 

[YanMac]

Thanks Ursa, you're right, it does sound similar but isn't the one.

 

[monkeypooper]

Sounds like a book I have on my Kindle to be read pile hell divers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith it's not but just sounds similar

 

[YanMac]

Wow, sounds like such a familiar set up but in the one I read there's no 'divers'. Thanks for posting - all useful to eliminate!

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson? It has a floating city above France called Skyholm and is set hundreds of years after a nuclear war has devestated the world.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Brian G Turner]

The only novels I can think of that might come close are Fran Wilde's Updraft or Jim Butcher's Aeronaut's Windlass.

 

[tinkerdan]

I would suggest::
Under the Empyrean Sky (The Heartland Series) by Chuck Wendig
::however nothing about the cities landing.

 

[PaulMmn]

"The Edge Chronicles" by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. This is a series of at least 8 volumes. #1 is "Beyond the Deepwoods." Has floating cities, and dangers on solid ground. Floaters are tethered to the ground. I haven't read them in years so I can't give you any details.
--Paul E Musselman

 

[Vince W]

I wonder if it couldn't be the Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove. Buildings are made of 'ice' and have to be tethered. The series also has some of the other elements you describe, but I read the first four books back in the early 90s, but they've been repackaged since with some alterations. Originally the fist book was The Middle Kingdom, but now the first book is Son of Heaven.

 

[YanMac]

Thanks for all your suggestions people. Sadly none of them are the one though.

 

[hitmouse]

Parts of this sound like Cities in Flight by James Blish. Other parts much less so.