Great fantasy/SciFi world?

dr gonzo

This is both a general question and also me selfishly fishing for book ideas.

What book/book series sets up the best world? It can be fantasy or sci fi.

Is it Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Discworld, His Dark Materials?

or maybe Dune, Enders saga, Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Ive of course put obvious ones but im sure there are tons that people love. Worlds with their own people, customs and even languages so what do you all think is the winner?

sxt

I love the world that is conjurded up in "Perdido street station" .It is a very Alien ,vibrant city,pulsing with a heartbeat.

ixoy

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sxt wrote: »

I love the world that is conjured up in "Perdido street station" .It is a very Alien ,vibrant city,pulsing with a heartbeat.

New Crouzobon is an excellent work indeed.

I'd say "Dune" is one of the most consistent and best thought out universes in sci-fi. It's particularly adept with ecologies, to a degree that I've seen few others achieve.

Fantasy, it's hard to say. I'm tempted to go with Erikson's Malazan world but it's almost too big, meaning it's difficult to grasp the identity of individual nations. Must have a think on this and try and pick one that stands out.

kickarykee

Since a fantasy world is very much defined by the characters that live in it I'd say one of the best ones is that from "Inkworld" ...
and Arda, of course, but that's kind of a standard reply to a question like that, right?

Manach

Top two that come to mind are
- Jose Farmers's Riverworld, where all the dead have been revived on the banks of a global river..
- Burrogh's Barsoom, A harsh arid but very interesting Mars - it even has green aliens, a must for a SciFi fan

Morlar

The world of the Culture novels of Iain M Banks is one of the more comprehensive and engrossing. The world of Geoff Ryman's Child Garden is incredibly detailed and fascinating too,a sort of victorian/ futuristic photo- synthesising London with spashes of orwellianism, where knowledge is transferred by viruses & alcoholic lesbian genetically engineered polar bears write operas iirc. Sounds a bit iffy but it works imo.

GisforGrenade

The world of the Culture novels by Iain M Banks sounds like a truly amazing place, a society in which you can actually do whatever you want as long as it doesn't piss off the robotic overlords and then all they will do is exile you. I love also how they can create whole worlds, sculpting continents, seeding forests etc. Like in the latest book 'Matter' there is a shell world which is like a Russian doll with effectively one planet within another, there are several different worlds all with different atmospheres and different life forms within one massive structure and of course the human's are attempting to take over most of them.

Barsoom is great as well and the world building of Burrough's is impressive in its detail, it really brings the world to life. I nearly prefer sci-fi that came before the space race and the massive advances in astronomy because the author's are dealing with the complete unknown and can dream up anything they like.

mcgovern

As a few others have said, Bainks Culture universe is good.
Also, Alastair Reynolds "Revelation Space" Universe, and Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth.
Now that I think of it, also, David Brin's Uplift Universe is great