Invisible Cities #

Rating 4.5/5

Invisible Cities is a peculiar book. It is a book about Marco Polo telling about his tales and visits to distant cities, however as you go on through the book you eventually put together that these are not all unique and real cities but more so descriptions of the different elements that make up the personality of a city. It should become clearer by the end that in all of these cities, Marco Polo is talking about his home city of Venice.

I learned about this book off a recommendation from Jonathan Blow from some of his interviews where he discussed development of Braid and I can see the inspiration very clearly. I will also recommend this book in like fashion and it formed the inspiration behind my(honestly mediocre) texts within Mirrormind.

What I will say is probably the most inspiring city out of all the cities in the book is Thekla. The unfinished city, following the blueprint of the stars.

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Published on 2026/02/20