Fun Fictional Worlds.
AV Club writers ponder the question: "Which works of fiction create a world (or a version of reality) that you’d consider most enjoyable to live in?".
Some great stuff to read but only Zack Handlen provides the appropriate answer.
[ edited by zeitgeist on 2009-06-13 05:12 ]
June 12 2009
This thread has been closed for new comments.
You need to log in to be able to post comments.
About membership.
FaithsTruCalling | June 12, 16:00 CET
Sunfire | June 12, 16:11 CET
Lirazel | June 12, 16:19 CET
kazzmere | June 12, 16:23 CET
1. Sit at that table in the Sunnydale High library and be a part of the scooby gang.
2. Sit at that dinner table in Serenity and be a part of that crew.
Other than that, fictional worlds I'd like to be a part of, would include:
3. Hogwarts. Seriously. Very Much. That'd be the best school going experience ever.
4. Attend the high school in Veronica Mars and have nice friends who can quip with the best of 'em and be incredibly rich. I'd also settle for having Veronica's dad.
5. Work at Bartlett's white house. Preferably as one of the big shots. I'd like to do some of the speech writing. Who needs a life outside of work, if your work can be like that? Also, I'd like to date Mary-Louise's character please.
6. Be a part of The Next Generation's Enterprise. Although the uniforms would start to annoy me after a while.
7. Work at Newsradio's WNYX. Who wouldn't want to work at that Jimmy James owned station? I'd take Dave's place in the whole thing, thank you very much.
8. Be one of the Friends in 'Friends'. I realise they do have jobs, but they're almost never there. All they do is hang out, have fun and drink coffee with a witty and fun group. It's the dream right there, man.
9. Be Bernstein during his work with Woodward on the watergate scandal. Can you imagine anything quite as exiting and rewarding? Wait, we said fictional right? Crap ;).
[ edited by GVH on 2009-06-13 01:27 ]
GVH | June 12, 16:26 CET
brinderwalt | June 12, 16:28 CET
Anywhere from the Firefly world (but not Miranda) would be cool but I think it would be funner just to hang out on the ship with the crew.
And of course I'd pay an overnight visit to the Dollhouse- do some yoga, have a communcal shower and settle into my pod for the night!
missb | June 12, 17:04 CET
My number one choice would be Doctor Who if I could have my own Tardis (Travels through space, time, and is bigger on the inside? Sign me up.)
Pushing Daisies--life should be that colorful, and watching the show always makes me want to be fashionable rather than be the bland jeans and t-shirt person I am.
Star Trek. Not my favorite fiction (though TNG was my first scifi show), but I don't want my life to be too interesting. A world where you don't have to worry about hunger or poverty sounds pretty nice.
theclynn | June 12, 17:28 CET
azzers | June 12, 18:04 CET
Yes, please. Good call! Oh, now I'm sad again. Why must all of Fuller's masterpieces get cancelled?
Be a part of The Next Generation's Enterprise. Although the uniforms would start to annoy me after a while.
But they don't let you sit down while you work. :)
And it's definitelly life on a Firefly class transport ship for me. Life has pretty much turned me into Malcolm Reynolds anyway.
[ edited by Tycho on 2009-06-13 03:07 ]
Tycho | June 12, 18:05 CET
Visit: Serenity. In a heart beat! I'd even bring some fresh fruit. (From the replicator on the Enterprise, of course. ;) )
Vacation: TARDIS. Honestly, I don't think the good Doctor would bother having me around after just a few days. All the screaming... I'd get on his nerves.
Winter home: Middle Earth. Even having everything handed to you on a nice clean sterile ship gets a bit much. Of course, I could just create Middle Earth as a holodeck program... and watch the battles from afar.
NYPinTA | June 12, 18:10 CET
And why not the DCU? Because the DCU is a scaaaaary place.
alexreager | June 12, 18:44 CET
frostcircus | June 12, 20:12 CET
FaithsTruCalling | June 12, 20:19 CET
Mine is an evil laugh. *ha*
Ifwewait | June 12, 21:05 CET
A Serenityverse existence would be much more normal, with the exception of space-travel, making it look very appetising (barr Reavers).
I can imagine living in a Terry Pratchett Discworld world be fairly cool; the very fact that assassins can climb walls by climbing so fast Gravity doesn't notice always seemed an ideal world to live in.
Archduke Sebassis | June 12, 21:09 CET
Lost would be terrifying. Smoke Monsters, Hostiles and Incidents? No thanks.
Whedonverse worlds would be... an interesting experience. Probably more fun than ours, but with a seemingly higher mortality rate. Then again, if I stay away from Sunnydale (or heck, California in general), or being with some outlaw smugglers, things could be good. Unless I get the PAX tested on me, and I go all dead, or crazy.
Oh, and I'd hate to be in the Potterverse. A bunch of magic folk looking down on me, messing with my mind? No thanks. Not to mention I'd hardly want a bunch of people who are too dumb to simply shoot a man they want dead (if not with a gun, then with a arrow) instead of waving wands at them.
And it is maybe because I'm so rabidly pro both Star Wars and Whedon, but did the first and last authors seem way to 'Well I'm not that big a fan, but...' 'This part sucks, but...'. Either man (or woman) up and be a fan, or don't. Don't be all wishy washy about it.
[ edited by SteppeMerc on 2009-06-13 07:08 ]
[ edited by SteppeMerc on 2009-06-13 07:08 ]
SteppeMerc | June 12, 22:07 CET
archon | June 12, 22:09 CET
Plus: At Hogwarts, you'd get to live at a school filled with fun people who are learning magic. Honestly can't think of a more fun place to live and learn. Although FaithsTruCalling is right, you wouldn't want to be there during book 7. But before or after that, is fine living indeed :).
GVH | June 13, 01:04 CET
Sky Island would be immense.
If I had too choose a non-animated 'verse, I'd probably go for the Firefly 'verse. Be, like, a middle-class guy, rather than travelling at the end of the worlds. Love me some holographic paper. Shiny. A little town in the Star Wars 'verse sounds cool. Or, the world in JJ's Star Trek, before Kirk goes into space.
Jaymii | June 13, 03:57 CET
I always want to join the Torchwood crew, love their "office" with very big bird flying around waiting for someone to have barbecue sauce poured on them..hmmm Lunch great.
rehabber | June 13, 04:01 CET
Congrats on the promotion to blue, Sunfire (though I'm not sure what that means yet, I'm sure it's something good). :)
deepgirl187 | June 13, 04:13 CET
Almost Famous for me, no contest. With regular recuperative retreats to Rivendale and Lothlorien.
SciFi wise the "world" I'd find most interesting to actually experience wasn't on the list - Babylon5. You'd still get to be part of a bunch of rebels, but not all the planets would be dry, dusty and full of cowboys.
ETA: I adore Firefly and Serenity. Just dry, dusty planets and Frontier towns, not so much.
[ edited by Shey on 2009-06-13 15:29 ]
Shey | June 13, 04:54 CET
And, as others have mentioned, I'd have to be a lot stronger than I am to survive in any of them- serious enhancement, if not superpowers. It's the characters that attract me...their worlds are interesting places to visit, but.....the real world is more than dangerous enough for me.
toast | June 13, 07:12 CET
Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar, some of SM Stirling's alternate histories, especially New Virginia from _Conquistador_., some of the nicer colony worlds form Poul Anderson's Future History, during the early phase of the Polesotechnic League or very much later during the Commnalty, Gordon Dickson's Chidle Cycle after the end of the books, not during, maybe, maybe Narnia.
Andre Norton's worlds were like somebody described Tim Burton's, too claustrophobia-inducing. So was Burroughs's Barsoom.
The Buffyverse is just here and now with demons; I'd still be 53 living in an $80-a-week room sleeping with a stuffed dog and my only friends on TV show fansite posting boards, just with vampires to worry about too. I have a Mary Sue in my fanfiction, but he isn't really who I am.
[ edited by DaddyCatALSO on 2009-06-13 18:27 ]
DaddyCatALSO | June 13, 09:20 CET
No fantasy either: too many rules, demons, bad guys, other people with magic. I wouldn't mind having magic or a magically-bonded-to-me horse/dragon/other, but the responsibilities and rules are dullsville.
Glancing thru my books, I realized, hey, I would kill to live in Wodehouse's Bertie and Jeeves universe! 1920s England, everybody I know is deliriously living off their trust or family wealth, people writing silly books or musical comedy for the theater, beautiful dresses and men in tuxes, gorging on dinners at the Ritz and traveling to palatial country houses for parties, endless flirting! I know that Evelyn Waugh's version is more faithful to real life, but I'd much rather live in Wodehouse's fluffy world than his satirical one.
dottikin | June 13, 09:58 CET
That is one thing about Buffy that confused me... they never used crossbow at range. Sure it is less likely to hit, but you can fire a lot more bolts rather than just one (then get the crossbow knocked out of your hands).
SteppeMerc | June 13, 10:03 CET
Whedonette | June 13, 10:19 CET
Rob | June 13, 12:55 CET
MysticSlug | June 13, 15:15 CET
Tonya J | June 13, 15:31 CET
Still, I'm sticking to it. I'd love to live in Hogwarts ;).
GVH | June 13, 16:13 CET
We'd be cannon fodder in any of his universes. We'd be Sunnydale students who "die mysterious deaths" and ruin the football team's chances of winning the championship. We'd be meat for vamps, or target practice for the outlaws of Firefly/Serenity. Dollhouse is basically our world already, right?
ALthough I'd take my chances in Firefly than Buffy/Angel. I mean, my god, Once More With Feeling had a guy burst into flames all for Xander's sick joke.
John Darc | June 13, 19:49 CET
I love the worlds created by Jo Clayton in her books but they do seem to be a places where everyone is very much out for themselves... Tanya Huff's "Summon the Keeper" worlds could be fun... and Hogwarts IS terribly cool. Narnia... I use to obsessively draw pictures of my favorite places when I was a kid. And I love Discworld TM!
BUT, I think I'll have to go with Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next world. It's a place where literature is the ultimate entertainment and primary topic of conversation, and where the preservation of Jane Eyre becomes an emergency of national importance. (Not to mention a lucrative tourist business...) Yeah, that's MY kinda place. Plus you know, Dodos! Hamlets! And Miss Havisham!
BreathesStory | June 13, 19:57 CET
Let Down | June 13, 20:06 CET
Would stay far, far away from the Jossverse, if we're going with me being me. If I was some powerful god or demon or whatnot, maybe I'd venture a trip to the Buffyverse, but as we saw, even those beings could fall and even sometimes the human-friendly versions of them.
Firefly is just society as it is now with more gadgets (potentially a plus or a minus), legal prostitution across the board instead of just in some countries(plus), and potentially even more shady governments than we have right now in real life. Plus miner's lung disease and shitty mayors on certain poor planets. And pompous customs came back in style in a big way on certain others (ie Persephone in "Shindig"). And Reavers. And scary ebola wands wielded by freaky blue hand men. The planets are terraformed and seeded with whatever came from Earth, so you're not likely to get anything looking especially new, alien, or interesting (aside from rock formations). Might be fun to have dinner with the crew of Serenity, but beyond that, it's not so welcoming. It being more grounded sci-fi (aside from a psychic/semi-telepathic) is part of what makes it great TV/movie material, but if I'm visiting a fictional space-set 'verse, give me Star Trek instead.
Probably some cartoon's universe would be safer, but I can't think of one in particular at the moment.
Kris | June 13, 20:14 CET
WhoIsOmega? | June 14, 03:09 CET
Let Down | June 14, 03:38 CET
The West Wing seems perfect, working at Bartlett's white house would indeed be wonderfull, but even if you don't get to you, you'd still live in this world only with a truely brilliant US president.
The Harry Potter world appeals to me too, though it would have to be the evil wizardry free version I imagine there was pre and past Voldy. Also you'd have to be a wizard or atleast know some, since it's the magic that makes the world so appealing.
Doctor Who is another great suggestion. Love to travel with the Doctor, but even if you don't get to a world were the Doctor is out there just seems kinda nice. (You would get attacked by Daleks every year, ofcourse, but atleast the Doctor would save you.)
A Groundhog Day experience could be fun if you already know the rules (f.e. that it will end when you get the day perfect & that nothing you do has any consequence). As long as it doesn't take you too long to get that perfect day and you don't have to get stuck in the middle of nowhere or go through that silly groundhog ritual, that is.
[ edited by the Groosalugg on 2009-06-14 14:33 ]
the Groosalugg | June 14, 05:32 CET
As an alternative I'd suggest John Varley's hippie-feminist solar system stories of the 1970's!
Capt. Logic | June 14, 09:15 CET
I considered and crossed out Susanna Clarke's Magical England, Herbert's Arrakis, and The Matrix and it's real world because I loved those places but they seem waaaay too hard or weird. Groundhog's Day might be fun if it was Groundhog's week and could escape it whether or not I learned piano and caught the kid falling from the tree.
Final answer to live, I think, would be Dream's Kingdom in Gaiman's Sandman because it would be endlessly new, terrifying and awesome and would pretty much encompass every fictional universe ever created. Only with the power of Dream himself though because man.. would I hate to get stuck in that place.
Awkward Saw | June 14, 12:09 CET
Simon | June 14, 12:14 CET
I'd even be willing to walk The Pattern to get them - in fact, that would be half the fun, acquiring your powers through a legitimate test of will. ;)
Shey | June 14, 23:24 CET