Rating: 
Summary: A Treasure and a Treasury
Review: A trove of wonders, many familiar, many not. It's still nice to browse through the various lands of Oz (with an excellent map to guide me), or to refresh in my mind where the Tombs of Atuan lie in the Islands of the Earthsea Archipelago. It's also wondrous to find Selene, the city of the Vampires where I "without fear, must sprinkle them with vampire's heart-ash; the vampires will then explode in a bluish flash." This is not, and cannot be, a comprehensive encyclopedia of all lands fantastic, but it is an extensive collection of wondrous places. Of note, readers of Science Fiction will find no familiar planets to peruse. These are the locales of Terrestrial imagination, of Middle Earth and Narnia and Atlantis and their ilk. My only personal complaint and frustration is how difficult it will be to retrieve many of the source works used by the authors. Paul Feval's LA VILLE VAMPIRE (Paris, 1875) is typical of the kind of treasure I would like to read in full, but can only find a couple of French language copies at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. Alas, I'll settle for a fantasy of escape to Iffish, that quiet island in the Earthsea Archipelago where if I'm very still, I might catch a view of a rare harrekki, chasing wasps and foraging for birds eggs. Wistful sighs all around.
Rating:
Summary: Encyclopedic, great for reference or pleasure reading.
Review: A very enjoyable overview of an immense number of imaginary worlds; I was most pleased by the copious line drawings and maps of various realms. I highly recommend this for anyone who likes to read.
Rating:
Summary: More then I bargained for!
Review: I bought this book because I was intriqued by the concept. A book that catalogs all of the places mentioned in other books. What I got completely amazed me. Not only were the places cataloged and indexed by book and by place, but the descriptions were long, even better they included maps. The people who put together this book understood that the reason people would buy the book was not because they were looking for a one line definition but because they were looking for information about the places themselves. For example, for the definition of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it would have been easy to write a one line definition stating that this was the school that Harry Potter attended in the Harry Potter series. Instead the book has a definition several pages long including a drawing and also explains everything that has so far been written about the school including the moving staircases and the portraits on the walls. That is just the beginning thousands of places are included in the book, and all are given as much attention in their descriptions as the authors took to explain the locations in the original works of literature. So enjoy this book, it will make you want to read about places to help you to figure out if you want to read the books that created them.
Rating:
Summary: More then I bargained for!
Review: I bought this book because I was intriqued by the concept. A book that catalogs all of the places mentioned in other books. What I got completely amazed me. Not only were the places cataloged and indexed by book and by place, but the descriptions were long, even better they included maps. The people who put together this book understood that the reason people would buy the book was not because they were looking for a one line definition but because they were looking for information about the places themselves. For example, for the definition of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it would have been easy to write a one line definition stating that this was the school that Harry Potter attended in the Harry Potter series. Instead the book has a definition several pages long including a drawing and also explains everything that has so far been written about the school including the moving staircases and the portraits on the walls. That is just the beginning thousands of places are included in the book, and all are given as much attention in their descriptions as the authors took to explain the locations in the original works of literature. So enjoy this book, it will make you want to read about places to help you to figure out if you want to read the books that created them.
Rating: 
Summary: A fun and interesting source
Review: I enjoyed "The Dictionary of Imaginary Places" very much, and found it an interesting source for maps and summarized information on fictional places. There were some places that I felt should have been mentioned in the Dictionary that weren't, although there are certainly a great number of entries already. One problem I have is that the map of Tolkien's Middle-Earth is not entirely faithful to the original (most likely due to the difference in page dimensions). On the whole, though, this is a wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: A fun and interesting source
Review: I enjoyed "The Dictionary of Imaginary Places" very much, and found it an interesting source for maps and summarized information on fictional places. There were some places that I felt should have been mentioned in the Dictionary that weren't, although there are certainly a great number of entries already. One problem I have is that the map of Tolkien's Middle-Earth is not entirely faithful to the original (most likely due to the difference in page dimensions). On the whole, though, this is a wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent reference book!!!!
Review: I like the book.
I got the earlier edition(1980) and the recent update(2002).
However, the authors have missed some places. Back in
1996 I wrote to them suggesting these places. I got a
response unfortunalely none were added. :(
I hope when they do another update they will include the
following places of "Imaginary Places"... "Hill Valley, California"
-From the "Back To The Future" movies- "Toontown"
-A suberb of Los Angeles, California from the movie
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" "The Hundred Acre Woods"
-Where the famous Winnie The Pooh, his pal Piglet, Eeyore,
Tigger, Owl, Christopler Robin live. From A.A. Milne book series
of "Winnie The Pooh". "Mayberry, North Carolina"
-Small town of 2000 where Sheriff Andy Taylor, Barney Fife,
Aunt Bea, Goober and Gomer Pyle live. From TV series "The
Andy Griffith Show" & "Gomer Pyle, USMC". "Sweethaven"
-Small sea fishing town on New England area of U.S.A. Where Popeye The Sailor, Olive Oyl, Whimpy, Bluto, ect. live. From
comic strip "Popeye" by E.G. Seegar. "Gotham City"
-Large U.S. city where the crime fighter "Batman" resides.
From the comic book series of "Batman". "Metropolis & Smallville"
-From the "Superman" comic book series. "Hooterville"
-Small farming community from the television series of
"Green Acres" and "Petticoat Junction". "Luft Stalag 13"
-A German prisoner of war camp outside of Hamburg, Germany.
Where Col. Wilhelm Klink, Col. Robert Hogan, Sargent Hans
Schultz was during WW2. From TV series "Hogan's Heroes". "Island"
-Located about 200 miles south of Hawaii. Where crew & castaways
of the S.S. Minnow are shipwrecked. From "Gilligan's Island"
TV series. "Halloweentown" & "Christmastown"
-From the movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas". To name a few which I hope will be added in an updated edition.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad...but could be better
Review: I like the maps, and the entries, but I found this book to be extreamly limited. I mean, granted there is a lot of fantasy out there, so they had to have some guidelines, but maybe next time they could expand to books that don't have a location here on earth. Another thing that bothered me was how they left out books like Redwall series, and Madeline LEngle's books. Both of these follow the rules set by the author, but neither of them can be found in The Dictionary of Imaginary Places.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad...but could be better
Review: I like the maps, and the entries, but I found this book to be extreamly limited. I mean, granted there is a lot of fantasy out there, so they had to have some guidelines, but maybe next time they could expand to books that don't have a location here on earth. Another thing that bothered me was how they left out books like Redwall series, and Madeline LEngle's books. Both of these follow the rules set by the author, but neither of them can be found in The Dictionary of Imaginary Places.
Rating:
Summary: What a find!
Review: I purchased this book recently and now I can't put the book down.It has every wonderful imaginary world from ancient times to modern day (even Jurassic park!). It's the kind of book you can put down, come back to later and find a new gem to read. I wholeheartedly recommend this book for any fantasy reader or any literature lover, in general.
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