Oh of course there's blending between the two genres even under that rubric. It's just neat to see perceived authorial intent taking precedence over superficial characteristics like "Are there spaceships?" "Is there a dragon?" etc.

And yeah, I'm really also looking forward to the next Airbender series The Legend of Korra. The move to a steampunk, modern, future city looks to be jarring, but if anyone could handle a shift like that well, it's the people who wrote and created the series in the first place.

Oh also, this is a really narrow fictional universe, but the City of Rapture from the video game Bioshock? Brilliant.

I'll go with TC's right-wing fantasy universe as my favourite.

Hahahahahahahaha. I laughed so hard at that I woke up my neighbours and now they're yelling at me through the wall ShockTrooper.

Also I'm not really sure that TC's right-wing fantasy universe is all that different from Rapture in Bioshock. Granted TC's universe probably isn't full of insane, mutated zombie people, unless you count liberals I guess.

Nice question.

I think my favourites are:

Nehwon - the setting for Fritz Leiber's excellent "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" novels, and which contains the wonderfully evocative city of Lankhmar. This is both a great setting for fiction and also a great place to set a fantasy role-playing campaign.

The Young Kingdoms - the setting for Michael Moorcock's "Elric!" novels. Classic epic fantasy setting.

The Discworld - this one has already been mentioned (good one, Cynical Naif) but I have to mention it too as it's one of my favourites. It often gets overlooked due the comedy element of Pratchett's books, but actually it's a really good setting (although it does borrow heavily from the aforementioned Fritz Leiber!)

Based on Mafia's definitions of fantasy and science fiction (which I like, for the record), then the world of Highlander, which is more or less a dark, secret, right-under-our-own-noses world would also qualify for me. I think it's so often the classic good versus evil that it is fantasy (if we exclude that debacle that was Highlander II: The Quickening). Both Connor and Duncan are classic fantasy heroes in that regard with a morale compas that never wavers.

And would the world of James Bond count as fantasy as well? While Bond's moral compass may be different from our own (he enjoys the pleasures of the flesh big time, especially women), it still never wavers when it comes to the safety of the world and Queen & Country. And let's face it, the man *never* loses his cool under pressure and survives situation real spies would never get into. Oh, and he never misses when it counts.

And I almost forgot Redwall and the world of the rabbits in Watership Down (my all time favorite non-Tolkien fantasy).

I was going to mention Stargate too, but it doesn't seem as believable to me as other science fiction franchises, because I don't think the acting is as good. In particular, I cringe every time Amanda Tapping says "technology" for some reason... I think they use dues ex machina far more than most other SF franchises, which is what turns me off.

The Name of the Wind, which is supposed to be part of a larger series called the Kingkiller Chronicles.

For sci-fi, Rendevous with Rama is pretty incredible. I mean, a fully functioning lifeship? Awesome. Also Larry Niven's Ringworld. The idea of a giant ring circling a star with alternating "blackout" patches creating artificial day and night are just cool.

When I was a kid I loved the hell out of Animorphs. I still think about it sometimes actually. Really got into that universe.

Stargate was better in the Kurt Russel / James Spader movie. The series got so OTT and pushed the world beyond the realm of believable. I enjoy it, but wouldn't say it's world is one of my favorites. It's like Doctor Who and Torchwood. I love the shows. This season's Doctor Who keeps getting better and better, but the universe he inhabits is too full of contradictions, and not just of the space time type. For instance, this weekends episode had a British nurse who seemed to think the Doctor's alien theory was rubbish early on, yet all of Britain has seen their little island invaded time and again by aliens.



<*real spoiler alert below*>



Again, not saying the story is rubbish. It was actually an excellent story and I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially seeing how the Doctor had to crush Amy's blind faith in him in order to save her. And the hints at what is to come send goose bumps donw one's spine. I mean, the Doctor saw his fear as well along with some compatriots of the Doctor having their pictures on the wall and the minotaur's final words being that he wasn't referring to himself as the monster with blood on his hands (clearly meaning the Doctor is that monster). Well written and fully consistent within itself, but the world of Doctor Who is *not* consistent on the whole.

Granted that Stargate is very ott, and the acting is at times questionable and it's terribly vanilla....yet, the idea of it, the universe, is just amazing. Quite simply brilliant.

sorry, IMHO that is :)

I like this thread. We've discussed how to differentiate SF from F. So next point:

What makes a rich F/SF universe?

I would argue the following:
--A clear sense that the universe extends well beyond the characters and plot that are the focus of the story. (The Star Wars universe is poorer because the main characters are so central to everything, and you keep meeting the same guys. How can R2 possibly be at every turning point in galactic history?)

--Little differentiating details for various locales/cultures. George R. R. Martin is great at this, with features such as sisters' stew, heart trees, and dyed lacquered beards differentiating the myriad cultures and subcultures of Westeros and the other lands.

--Interlocking big themes (and more than one).

--More than one villain. If it is "Cobraaaaa!" every single time, things get stale and the universe is smaller.

Don't forget coherence. Marvel and DC universes suck because they lack any sort of continuity.

Also different perspectives, what strikes me about GRRM's work is how similar events are seen so differently depending on the vantage point. Also very interesting is throwing in major events where there are very little perspective (events like The doom of Valarya adds a touch of authenticity to the world, in the real world some things are just unknown) In other words the world is experienced in perspective, not by a godlike narrator.

More than one villain is one of my complaints with Trek sometimes. It seems we have 4 or 5 main villains and rarely do we get any new villain to deal with. But then we get episodes of the series without an actual villain so much as a situation to handle and they become brilliant. In TNG we had Moriarty become more brilliant than Data due to a programming screwup (someone who could outwit Data, not Sherlock Holmes) but he was less villain and more new life form and it was resolved so well. And in ST: Nemesis, we got a real villain who was original. Similarly, in WoK, we got Kahn (a returning character, but not a regular one) and in the reimagined ST, we got Nero who we could actually have some sympathy for considering what he witnessed happen.

Star Wars, though, is always the same basic villain, the Emperor and the Empire. Even in the prequels, it was all leading up to that point and Palpatine was *always* the villain, whether he was Senator, Chancellor, Emperor, or Darth Sidious, he was *the* villain of the SW franchise.

Good points, Santa. I especially like your idea about leaving some unknowns unknown. Mystery is so crucial to both SF and F, but some writers can't leave stones unturned. They (and many GMs, for the roleplayers out there) just have to explain every single aspect of their universe, and this inevitably makes the worlds smaller. Alistair Reynolds has very few aliens in his work, but they are palpably alien. They ain't us, and communication is barely possible.

@ Draug - I think that's one of the things that's more diagnostic about Sci-Fi rather than fantasy. If you look at a sci fi villain for long enough they stop being a villain and just become another side of the story. Whereas in fantasy you can have just an evil emperor/overlord/giant flaming eyeball (I realize Sauron only looked like that in the movies, not the books)/snake-man-dark-wizard-thing/witch-queen who does villainy stuff just for the sake of being evil. But even The Borg who are arguably the most serious, least relatable villains ever to appear in Star Trek are really just another way of being that is completely alien to us as humans.

@Draugnar- "For instance, this weekends episode had a British nurse who seemed to think the Doctor's alien theory was rubbish early on, yet all of Britain has seen their little island invaded time and again by aliens."
But we don't know *when* she was taken. Couldn't she have been taken before the spacecraft crashed into Big Ben (Aliens of London) which was, I believe the first invasion to be "public" as opposed to all of the earlier invasions, which were dealt with (covered up) by UNIT?

Then explain how the victims on the wall included people from *after* that time frame? (I actually know the answer too this and had thought the same thing as you which made it more acceptable to me).



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Huge Spoiler Alert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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The wall was, in a sense, the Doctor's victims. Everyone who died on his watch appeared there.

I've never understood the Dr. Who universe. Time travel is my least favorite SF trope, so I have largely avoided TARDIS country. Haven't they had so many actors that they are about to hit the wall on how many incarnations of the Doctor there can be?

@Ges Yes, but that's why the Doctor is dying.

Back to what makes a scifi/fantasy good: If you take the Star Wars EU as a whole, I think it makes a good universe, but if you just look at the movies, then you're lacking in the scope of it. Once palpatine is out of the picture things get much more interesting. Take Timothy Zahn's Thrawn character. Zahn is by far my favorite SW author, due to his creation of characters such as Thrawn, Mara Jade, and Gil Palleon. However, since this is not a SW thread, I will try to stay away from it henceforth. But if anyone's interested in having a SW discussion, I'm game for making a thread for it.

Good fantasy IMHO also has villains that you can like, or even cheer on. Though honestly thinking back, I can't remember anything specific that fits that ideal. I think it's partially because we're made to see the story from one character's moral perspective more in fantasy, where in SF we're meant to expand our thinking to include the different sides.