Comment on Serious Stories

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 04:01:16 GMT

I can think of lots of fictional universes I'd love to live in. Either civilization in Against the Fall of Night is pretty nifty, and I wouldn't mind living there, even during the events of the story. Both could use improvements, sure, but a lot less than our civilization! But that's not exactly a thrill-a-minute book. Less far-futuristically, The Door into Summer seems pretty cool too, and as long as you're not the main character you're just your own person.

More often, I'd restrict it to not during the story. Like, Foundation. Sounds pretty swell, if you live in the thousands of years before it starts, or on Gaia. The Hyperion-verse is just great before Hyperion and more so after Rise of Endymion. The worlds of Schild's Ladder and Incandescence are fine except when you have reasonable concerns that everything is about to end, and in the latter case very few people are put in that situation at any point. Similarly, Glasshouse's world is very nice whenever there isn't a massive galactic war going on and you haven't been kidnapped.

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