I had forgotten that Mark Smith's Virtual Reality books were both set in a world which may very well be part of
the Rainbow Land of his and Jamie Thomson's Duelmaster series. The name of the Palayal River by the city of Godorno suggests
Tekumel, but nothing else about the setting does. The
Forest of Arden features in both, though whether it's Shakespeare's, the one
by the Avon, or some third high-fantasy variant is not clear.
It does feel quite Shakespearean, these books being very strong on atmosphere. That's especially true of Godorno in
Coils of Hate, a city that resembles a nightmarish version of Venice where the walls fairly drip with a dank ambience of distrust and fear. I could ask Mark about the intended setting (possibly it was an unmapped corner of Orb) but it was twenty years ago and he's not likely to remember now.
Mark's titles in the series were
Green Blood (love that title) and
Coils of Hate. They were the nearest to being interactive novels - rather stronger on the novel side than on the interactivity, to be honest. The characters and locations would make a superb role-playing sourcebook, which is one clue that Mark might have taken them from his notes for the Orb campaign. (Which was not, as I never tire of telling people, even remotely Oriental, despite the Way of the Tiger books.)
And these maps..! I challenge any role-player to look at Godorno and not want to spend a few evenings adventuring there. One of Mark's biggest literary influences is
Fritz Leiber Jr, and there's more than a hint of
Lankhmar to those streets and canals. It does no harm to have the maps beautifully rendered by Leo Hartas, too.
