Had to read this book for an Arch class but don't let that discourage you, this book is supurb!

Backcover: Dream-like story-telling at the twilight of an empire.

In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo - Tarter emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts the emporer with tales of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and teh sky, trading cities, hidden cities. Soon it becomes clear that each of these fantastic places is really the same place.