Canada is a vast and diverse nation. Different regions have different customs and habits, not to mention differences of opinion (political and otherwise) with other regions. But they share one sentiment: Canadians generally hate Toronto1. It may seem odd that a country would dislike its largest, most diverse city, a city in which one in twelve Canadians resides2, a community that is responsible for one-fifth of the national economy and much of our cultural wealth, and even odder that Ontarians join in, given that the Ontario economy would collapse like a rotted fruit without Toronto, but there it is: Toronto-phobia.
Canadians are so notoriously Toronto-averse that Canadian cop show Flashpoint made a point of never explicitly stating that it was set in Toronto, leaving viewers outside Toronto free to imagine that the program was set in any large Canadian city that happened to possess the CN Tower that kept appearing in establishing shots.
[I would include a helpful picture of the CN Tower here, but I’d prefer not to be sued for doing so…]
Happily, not every Canadian SFF writer suffers from Toronto-phobia. Here are five examples of books set in the city from the fantasy side of the ledger.
Above by Leah Bobet
Far below Toronto’s streets, Safe provides a refuge to beings living with marvelous gifts and onerous curses—people who, if caught by the authorities, would be subjected to unpleasant experiments. Some of the refugees have been so subjected before they escaped to Safe.
Matthew is able to pass for a regular human. He can venture above to buy necessary supplies without letting any normal know that Safe exists.
Safe takes precautions against the mundane authorities. It never occurs to them that they are in any danger from supernatural entities—such as those who invade the refuge. Only Matthew and a handful of companions escape. If they are to save their community, they must discover who these invaders are, and how they can be fought.
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Above
The Night Girl by James Bow
Like so many before her, Perpetua Collins journeys to Toronto in search of a better life. Also like so many before her, she finds opportunity scarce and rent far too expensive. Welcome to the exciting world of homelessness in a town whose winter temps can hit -30o C… Fortune in the form of an enigmatic want ad smiles on Perpetua. Perpetua is just the human face needed to staff the front desk of T.P. Earthenhouse: Bouncers, Rare Coins, and Art Installations.
Toronto is even more diverse than it knows. Earthenhouse provides employment to one of Toronto’s more unusual demographics: supernatural beings like goblins and trolls. Earthenhouse himself is a goblin. But the fair folk have carefully hidden from humans for millennia and Earthenhouse’s plans endanger that masquerade. There will be consequences, and Perpetua will soon find herself threatened by them.
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The Night Girl
Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed
Nick Prasad’s best friend Joanna “Johnny” Chambers is wealthy, white, and happens to be the world’s smartest teen. She’s this world’s answer to Reed Richards. The two teenagers have been friends since childhood. Nick is infatuated with Johnny and Johnny…values Nick as a chum.
Romantic frustration must be put to one side. Johnny’s latest invention is a miraculous power source, the key to solving climate change. All humanity will want it. So too will the unspeakable cosmic beings who covet our world. Turns out that the power source is also a dimensional gate.
Puny humans like Johnny and Nick can’t stand against such eldritch horrors. Nevertheless, they’re all that humanity has. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!
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Beneath the Rising
The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson
Mixed-race Sojourner “Scotch” Smith is too white to be black in the eyes of her black schoolmates, too black to be white to her white schoolmates. Still, school is tolerable; school and the time Scotch spends with the Raw Gyals dance troupe both provide refuge from her parents’ draconian discipline.
There are a few other problems, such as the fact that her BFF Gloria seems to be eyeing Scotch’s ex-boyfriend. Oh, and the fact that Scotch has developed a weird skin condition and has been seeing floating heads…
All of these troubles pale in comparison to an unexpected volcanic eruption and an invasion by entities out of myth and legend, of course. Life just got all too interesting, and possibly quite short.
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The Chaos
Spells of Blood and Kin by Claire Humphrey
Lissa Nevsky’s grandmother left Lissa three legacies: haunting grief, a large, empty house, and a clientele that expects Lissa to step into her grandmother’s role as Toronto’s premier koldun’ia (Russian witch). The role is unwanted but necessary: Many of the old lady’s spells stopped working when she died and Lissa may be the only person who can restore them.
The spell Maksim Volkov purchased kept the supernaturally enhanced man’s violent urges under control. Without the magic, Maksim gives in to bloodlust and licks the open wound of mugging victim Nick. Maksim is cognizant enough to realise that he has probably passed his curse on to the young man. Maksim and Lissa will have to find Nick before he becomes a danger to Toronto. If only Maksim had any idea as to who Nick is or where he lives… If only the price that Lissa will pay was not so high…
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Spells of Blood and Kin
***
Doubtless I haven’t mentioned your favorite Toronto-based SFF book, so tell me about it in the comments.
In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of “questionable notability.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He was a finalist for the 2019 Best Fan Writer Hugo Award, is one of four candidates for the 2020 Down Under Fan Fund, and is surprisingly flammable.
[1]That’s a bit inaccurate. Only Canadians who live outside Toronto hate Toronto. Canadians within Toronto don’t hate non-Torontonians in return because they are unaware that there’s a world outside the city.
[2]Or it could be more than one in twelve, depending on your definition of residing in Toronto.
I thought Canada was a frozen wasteland populated mostly by hardy pioneer fur trappers and Frenchmen. Kind of like Minnesota (except sub Norwegian for French).
Tanya Huff’s got a few series set in Toronto, doesn’t she? I thought the Blood Price books were set there, and maybe something else.
I’ve always thought the alleged hatred of Toronto by Canadians who live elsewhere was much exaggerated by Torontonians, for some reason. I’ve lived in the Maritimes and Ottawa all my life, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say they hated Toronto. The closest I’ve seen is resentment from Ottawa Senators fans of media coverage of the Maple Leafs. That and general dislike of the big city from rural and small town folk is all I can think of.
Does “Scott Pilgrim” count?
Missing: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow.
Tanya Huff’s Keeper books visit Ontario.
Elizabeth Bear’s Hammered and following have a lot of Toronto in them.
Neat list idea! I’d like to read my way through the whole list.
I remember Will and Ian Ferguson writing in How to Be a Canadian (2001), “It used to be that the one thing uniting Canadians, coast to coast to coast and regardless of their background or political leanings, was this: they all hated Toronto.” The authors suggest, goofily, that at the time of publication the collective ire was more likely to be directed at Vancouver – but this was still the reason why when I moved out here a decade ago after a few stints in other parts of Canada and the U.S., I expected a lot of people to think that I hated Toronto and kept going out of my way to explain that I absolutely didn’t. For the record, I love the place. (Except that the cost of living lately is destroying a lot of indie businesses, some of them legends – Clinton’s on Bloor is closing after 83 years! Makes the city feel a bit past its prime.)
Robert J. Sawyer’s SF is often set in Ontario – I keep meaning to go back and reread the ones with Toronto locales now that I actually live here and have seen the places up close. ‘Calculating God’ as I recall opens with a spacecraft landing outside the Royal Ontario Museum (almost prescient; since publication the place has received a dramatic, bold modern renovation that now leaves it looking, well, as if a spaceship fell on it). And ‘Factoring Humanity’ has at least one character who is a psychology professor at the University of Toronto (I am also an academic and have since met two or three of their nonfictional counterparts in passing).
Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Fionavar Tapestry is actually set in Toronto, if memory serves. Spoiler alert: the scene shifts to a different locale….
Toronto, represent! #WeTheNorth
Ahem…
Moving on, the works of Robert Charles Wilson are often set in Toronto, most notably The Perseids and Other Stories.
Robert Charles Wilson’s interesting novel “The Affinities” is partly set in Toronto. I haven’t read all of Wilson’s work, so there may be others. I believe the stories in his collection “The Perseids” (which again I haven’t read) are set there.
Headin’ off to the City with yer pals th’other day….
Highly recommend Alice Degan’s FROM ALL FALSE DOCTRINE (set in 1920s Toronto) and THE TENANTS OF 7C (short story collection framed around a supernatural bakery in Kensington Market).
It is completely unfair to say that “Flashpoint” used Toronto without giving the name was for the benefit of Canadian’s who did not want it to be Toronto when there are many other shows (Orphan Black, Rookie Blue and Lost Girl come to mind) where the city is not named so that it can be sold to American markets as “unnamed American city”. Also, Vancouver has not been named in shows filmed there for decades (from the X-Files to the Arrowverse) so Toronto need not be alone in this regard.
And of course Scott Pilgrim counts…
Also, Daryl Gregory’s Afterparty. The bit set in the Annex gets the vibe of that stretch of St. George st. so right I could smell it.
@13, Orphan Black was explicitly set in Toronto (they name-dropped Mississauga and Scarborough). And boy did “North York” confuse the hell out of the American fans. ;)
@13, There was also from 1992 to 1996 a vampire police detective series set in Toronto, Forever Knight.
I love Toronto. But then, I’m not Canadian, and I’m from New York City — the city many Americans love to hate.
Kevin Hearne didn’t set a whole book in Toronto, but part of one Iron Druid book explains why you should never be in Toronto if you’re named Nigel.
And apparently, there’s a throwaway line in his upcoming urban fantasy in August which adds to the “never be Nigel in Toronto” legend.
Toronto sounds like Canada’s version of New York City. The rest of the US really hates New York. It takes something like 9/11 to make us rally round the Big Apple.
Tony Burgess’ “Pontypool Changes Everything” is mostly set in the small town rural hinterland around Toronto and does things with language as internal narrative, means of communication and what it would be without either (also zombies), that I’ve never seen elsewhere. Unfortunately the editor didn’t know how to spell Yonge Street. The 2008 movie adaptation was good, but a bit more straightforward.
Maggie Macdonald’s “Kill the Robot” is differently strange in the way that it deals with the straitjacket anxieties that come from fear of looming destruction, guilt at one’s own part, the centralization of power and displacement of whimsy, and alienation from one’s friends and self.
Canadian author, Gemma Files, has 2 dark fantasy works set in Toronto: Experimental Film and We Will All Go Down Together. Her writing style reminds me of Caitlin Kiernan and Kathe Koja.
Both already mentioned, but Robert J. Sawyers Calculating God and Robert Charles Wilson’s The Perseids and Other Stories (complete with imaginary bookstore!) are both superb!
Nonsense. No one hates Toronto. No one outside of it has a reason to worry about it at all. The only people who disparage Toronto are Torontonians.
I’m USian, so of course I don’t hate Toronto. I also live fairly near New York. The only people who hate New York are anti-cultural yahoos. The same demographic likely despises Toronto.
Two books to add: Nalo Hopkinson’s “Brown Girl In the Ring” is a great Toronto book. And I was thoroughly entertained by Elan Mastai’s “All Our Wrong Todays”.
I would never assert an absolute on any anti-Toronto sentiments. I tend to doubt that feelings are as uniform or ubiquitous as folks often suggest. However, a casual glance at the comically vengeful policy of the Ontario Conservatives in the last two years, and the disproportionate impact on tourism spending (for example), or meddling in municipal governance, would make any Torontonian feel victimized. Having said that, Conservative austerity negatively impacts every Ontarian in various ways.
So, in summary, if you want a sci-fi book that looks at some of the communities that are actually consistently/systematically maligned by the Canadian state and other government institutions, read Cherie Dimaline’s “The Marrow Thieves”.
Two days, two dozen comments, and somehow no link to The Vestibules’ PSA.
@princessroxana: The easiest way to describe Toronto is that it very self-consciously wants to be New York, but knows it never will.
@23. That’s exactly it; it’s easy for outsiders to underestimate just how conservative and xenophobic most of small-town Ontario is; Toronto is both the largest and most multicultural city in Canada, so everyone who lives here is suspect. Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver get similar sentiments, but Toronto is just a bigger target (and it doesn’t have Ottawa’s excuse of being the nation’s capital).
(I grew up in a small town, and when my old friends/relatives learn that I now live in Toronto, the first thing they do is express sympathy. The second thing is to ask when I’m moving back “home.”)
What a great post thank you so much.
All the books I can think of have already been mentioned. Regardless of other people’s thoughts on Toronto, it is a great city with a wonderful Sci-fi and Fantasy (and general nerd) community.
Now if only we could get some of the great Inernational authors to visit us here
I’m looking at you Scalzi and Sanderson…..
How about Station 11, which starts in Toronto before the world spins out of control and the action moves to other locales?
@1 Wiredog, as a Minnesotan I MUST SAY…
Oh, right. Actually, that’s pretty correct.
Thanks and carry on.
Any book I could have mentioned are already mentioned above, so I’ll just add that I first discovered the anti-Toronto attitude after an article in Scientific American left the lights of Toronto out of a night time photograph. This prompted a letter that in part said:
There is a Canadian game, which contributes greatly to national unity,
called “Let’s All Hate Toronto and Forget It Ever Existed,” but
Americans are not qualified to play.
C. C. Barnes, in a letter to Scientific American, Feb. 1990
@23, and that, folks is why the rest of the US hates New York City in a nutshell. Arrogance is never attractive.
Long, long ago it was my job to put out magazines in a library. One issue of New Yorker asked plaintively why everybody hates New York. The other wondered if we really needed the Midwest. One may have had a lot to do with the other.
There’s a story about some American TV show, being shot in Toronto. For one scene, they needed a dirty slum. Hard to find in Toronto. They decided to make their own. They trucked in a bunch of crumpled newspapers, cardboard boxes, and other kipple. By the time they had the stage set, it was time for lunch. While they were eating, people reported this eyesore. The Toronto garbage men swung into action. By the time lunch was over, the film crew’s personal slum was a pristine Toronto alley.
I’ve never maligned Toronto. It has both a Malaysian and a proper Indonesian restaurant. It has some great specialty beer bars. If the drivers on Queen Elizabeth Way give lie to the idea that Canadians are always polite, and drive more like the maniacs on the Washington D.C. beltway, that’s a minor complaint.
@32,
There is a long antagonism between city and country; it long predates US independence. I know that the same feeling is present in Illinois regarding Chicago and have heard it’s present in France regarding Paris. Cities are frequently hot beds of change, and many people dislike that
A lot of that feeling is driven by the multiculturalism and possibly progressive politics.
This seems like a good point to steer the conversation back to books, Toronto-based fiction, and potential reading/viewing recommendations, if anyone has further thoughts in that direction…
Jen Frankel’s Blood and Magic series, about a teen who gets way too much personal experience with magic, is set in Toronto.
Jon Bois The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles _starts_ in Toronto…
I always get CBC’s Vanishing Point SF anthology radio show confused with their Nightfall SF anthology radio show (unrelated to the Asimov) but one of them had a hilarious pattern where any time a story took its protagonists outside Toronto, terrible things happened to the protagonist. It was like the answer to “What if the primary writer for the Tourism Board was HP Lovecraft?”
No Peter Watts? Really?
Unmentioned so far: one of S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse novels (_High King of Montival_, I think) has a sequence set in Toronto, prominently featuring the CN Tower.
@mike G: YES on Tanya Huff’s books. Not only the “Blood” series (which I liked very much despite the vampires!) but “Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light.” Probably the first urban fantasy I read, still a favorite, not well known.
Will look for the other recommended books, most of which I don’t know.
Seconding @15’s note about Forever Knight for honourable mention (as it was TV rather than a book). Honestly, the first show I remember seeing when I was little where it was clearly made in Toronto, and they embraced that fact instead of calling it some city in the States (it always amazed me that places like New York & Chicago always seemed to have an Honest Ed’s).
James, great list!
SF there isn’t yet (as far as I know) but should be: something bringing together a character like Guardian’s Rocket with Toronto’s Raccoon Nation. Bonus if it includes Conrad’s backstory.
I just finished Beneath the Rising. It is not set in Toronto, it’s Edmonton, where Premee lives.
How about Nalo’s Brown Girl in the Ring?
I picture Toronto as the site for the urban fantasy books by Charles de Lint. A quick search doesn’t turn up any links but for me the Toronto vibe is there.
@35
Re: France and Paris – to be fair to the vast majority of French (and as someone from England I’m astonished to be making that statement) Parisians do cultivate a disdain not just for other French people but the entire rest of the world’s population…
As someone from Hamilton, there is certainly some dislike for Toronto – or maybe more along the lines of previous Toronto residents coming here and bumping up the previously-affordable housing market. Plus a rivalry that I think only Hamiltonians notice, though it’s mostly around football.
That said, for Toronto-set pieces, I have The Grimoire of Kensington Market by Lauren B Davis on my to-read list which is an adaptation of The Snow Queen – looks very cool.
There was a made for tv thriller decades ago about a pandemic in Toronto in which a minor news anchor character seemed positively gleeful about the progress of TO’s demise. It might not have been a big stretch for the person playing the anchor, who as I recall was CHCH’s Tom Cherrington, a Hamilton icon…
Yeah, put “a plan so cunning” into Google – with quote marks – and you get pictures of Rowan Atkinson. Someone compiled online every mention of a cunning plan in the four “Blackadder” series, and this is one of the most elaborate; “I’ve got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.”
Hello!
I’m trying to track down a book for a friend. He remembers it from his child hood. Fantasy portal fiction set in Toronto. Possibly published sometime in the 80’s or late 70’s, likely set in the 1700’s? Two books novel length, ensable teenage cast. He distinctly remembers portals opening up on Bay st? There’s a Vampire, and other fantasy creatures including a unicorn?
Does this sound familiar to anybody?
No, he doesn’t remember the title or the author… or any of the characters.
Anyone have any suggestions?