There are lots of rules about writing, but few worth paying any heed. But one concept I would argue for is that character is everything—without character you have no story, you have no plot, you have no consequences, no changes, no desires, no obstacles, no goals. Everything—and I mean everything—in a great novel comes from great character.
And character doesn’t need to be limited to those who walk and talk and have their adventures between the pages of your favourite novel. Some of the best books use setting as character—the place in which the action unfolds can be just as important as the people (or robots or aliens or super-intelligent shades of the colour blue) whose trials and tribulation we follow.
Here are five books where the setting—in this case, strange cities—is key.