I love the Expanse. I think it is a very realistic depiction of the future 400 years from now on the path we are on. The power struggles between the Earth and Mars and the Belters caught in the cross fire who are barely considered human. Everything is run ny corporations that only care about profits and will grind down anything that is in the path.

Ankh-Morpork.

Mostly, I presume, because I don’t live there, and can safely experience it through the pages of a book, which are thankfully unsuited to transmit the sense of smell and, while still able to cut, are less likely to kill me than a dagger or any of the other deadly instruments one is likely to encounter there.

The rest of the Disc can be quite enjoyable too.

Star Trek’s depiction of the late-24th century. The height of the Federation, with nearly-ubiquitous post-scarcity democratic socialism, where anyone can do what they want, unburdened by having to work just to survive. But if you do work, you have the freedom to pursue anything, anywhere.

Iain M. Banks’s Culture series—the prototypical example of “fully-automated luxury gay space communism”.

Hogwarts.

A huge castle where you can learn magic, explore and live adventures with your friends? There’s a reason there was so much success for that saga.

JKR is a horrible person, but that universe is still there for people to create and share stories. There are a few fanfictions out there that are better than the last books.

!leaky_cauldron@diagonlemmy.social for people interested in that universe.

The Cosmere

Different worlds with hard-ish magic systems that are different. Yet each is a manifestation of the same underlying forces/rules across the Cosmere.

Whether it’s Stormlight, Ferruchemy, Metallurgy, etc. they’re all aspects of investiture.

Which means you get unique stories and challenges in the worlds but you also get the occasional cross of characters with one set of magic in another world of the Cosmere that has another.

And my personal favorite in the Cosmere is the Wax and Wayne series of Mistborn (books 3-7) where you have metal based magic in a Wild West like setting. So people who can manipulate metal using bullets from pistols in unique ways. Imagine all those fantasy novels with wizards… but centuries later as technology advances to the age of steam engine and firearms.

An excerpt from one of those books

Smoke curled in the air over the bandit boss’s pistol.

“Oh . . .” Wayne said softly. “You just made a bad mistake, mate. A very bad mistake.”

The boss turned away from the body, holstering his gun. “Fine,” he yelled, walking toward the door. “You can have some fun, boys. Burn it out of your blood quickly and meet me outside. Let’s—”

Everything froze. People stopped in place. The curling smoke hung motionless. Voices quieted. Whimpering halted. In a circle around Waxillium’s table, the air rippled just faintly.

Wayne stood up, shouldering his dueling canes, inspecting the room. He was placing each and every one of the bandits, Waxillium knew. Judging distances, preparing himself.

“As soon as I drop the bubble,” Wayne said, “this place is going to erupt like an ammunition store in a volcano.”

Waxillium calmly reached into his jacket and slid a hidden pistol from beneath his arm. He set it on the table. His twitch had vanished.

“Well?” Wayne asked.

“That’s a terrible metaphor. How would an ammunition store get into a volcano?”

“I don’t know. Look, are you going to fight or not?”

“I’ve tried waiting,” Waxillium said. “I gave them a chance to leave. I tried giving this up.”

“You gave it a good show, Wax.” He grimaced. “Too good a show.”

Waxillium rested his hand on the pistol. Then he picked it up. “So be it.” With his other hand, he poured out his entire pouch of steel into his wine cup, then downed it.

Wayne grinned. “You owe me a pint for lying to me, by the way.”

“Lying?”

“You said you hadn’t brought a gun.”

“I didn’t bring a gun,” Waxillium said, reaching to the small of his back and sliding a second pistol out. “You know me better than that, Wayne. I never go anywhere with only one. How much bendalloy do you have?”

“Not as much as I’d like. The stuff’s damn expensive here in town. I’ve got maybe enough for five minutes’ extra time. My metalminds are pretty much full, though. Spent a good two weeks sick in bed after you left.” That would give Wayne some healing power, should he get shot.

Waxillium took a deep breath; the coldness inside him melted away and became a flame as he burned steel that pinpointed each and every source of metal in the room.

For anybody interested in starting with a book that is in the Cosmere “Mistborn: The Final Empire” is a great starting point.

High fantasy set in a post apocalyptic world. More-so when all of the technology is forgotten, or unknown, rather than when they are making use of the barely working technology.

The Shannara series is the only book/tv series I have read that fits this. I myself have set several of my RPG campaigns in a setting like this, and am working on another when the TMNT RPG is rereleased.

Into the Badlands (TV Show) is a close setting, it is feudal post apocalyptic fantasy where they have limited technology.

I really like the world of Horizon zero dawn and forbidden west. All the ruins from buildings we can recognize (and some we cannot) are really cool. I also like how humanity had to start again without all the knowledge that was lost in the Apollo purge and how they had to adapt to a world shaped by the AI called Gaia and her robots.

In FFXI, at around level 20, you have to walk from your starter city to the main capital city, Jueno. It takes a couple of hours your first time, because all of the monsters are level 40+, and you have almost no chance of surviving an encounter,. You have to cross several very large maps in the process, usually alone or with a friend at around a similar level, and there is a lot of sneaking around you have to do in order to avoid detection. I always liked this part of the game because of the challenge it presented. When you arrive in Jueno, you finally get your chocobo license and never have to walk across those maps again, unless you really wanted to.

The updated version of the game doesn’t require traveling like this anymore. I think you can just take an airship or teleport there somehow now, but I still take the long way for nostalgia whenever creating a new character.

Shadowrun. It’s horrific and dehumanizing and dated. But it’s perfect.

As challenging as it would be, the Fallout universe.

Don’t know why. I just feel like in the Fallout universe, you can be anything you want to be as long as you can convince enough people to back you up. Those same people might eventually stab you in the back, but still…vigilance is a small price to have the freedom to climb from a nobody stumble-bum to a czar of your own city-state.

Star Wars, specifically the universe created by the EU from 1991 to 1999. It was a wide open wild west of ideas. The details of the clone wars hadn’t been established, Anakin Skywalker as the chosen one didn’t exist, and there was just such a massive variety of content.

My favorite is Middle Earth, but my 2nd choice would be the Dresden Files. Everything from Chicago to the Feywild to Vampire parties to the realms of the dead.

As a kid I loved the realm of Dinotopia. Something about the art style fascinated me as a youngster

World of Darkness, although my only experience with it is Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. It’s so atmospheric though, I’m so sad there’s nothing else like it. Rules are well defined, whole masquerade thing feels quite logic, characters are believable, structure of clans/families/groups and their rivalry and world views is interesting, it’s also close to our real world, but mystical… I just love it.