Memoranda
core novel 1999 The Well-Built City
Record
| First published | 1999 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.87 (357 ratings, collected 2026-09-15) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780380802623 |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
Memoranda continues the Well-Built City trilogy after The Physiognomy, following Cley some time after the events of the first novel as a strange affliction, a sleeping sickness spreading among the City's population, forces him back into the world of physiognomy and the authoritarian order he once served. To find a cure, Cley must journey into the mind of Drachton Below himself, the tyrannical Master whose pseudo-scientific rule shaped the City's earlier order, navigating an inner landscape built from Below's own memories and obsessions. The novel extends the trilogy's blend of surreal, dreamlike imagery and political allegory, following Cley from his uneasy retreat from physiognomy back into direct confrontation with the man whose ideology once defined his life's work.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Well-Built City
- Series: The Well-Built City Trilogy core; position 2 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Jeffrey Ford
Notes
- From the series record (The Well-Built City Trilogy): A continuous surreal dystopian-fantasy trilogy following the Physiognomist Cley.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Well-Built City Trilogy: position 2 of 3: previous The Physiognomy (1997) · next The Beyond (2001)
Sources
← The Well-Built City dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.