SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

There are some books that you read that are just so immersive that you wish they'd never end. When you finish them and put them down you actually get upset because you can't go there, you can't be a part of it and experience it first hand!

What are some stories that made you feel this way, and what was it about them that made you wish you could go there so bad?

Harry Potter. Ob (Legen waitforit dary)--viously.
Because, well, oculus reparo!I break my glasses twice a month. That's why.

Or siriusly speaking, get into Hogwarts and GETTHATMAGICWAND!!!AND PLAY QUIDDITCH ^_^ As bonus, no muggle homework and I won't even complain like Harry and Ron if they asssign too much. Like, duh, who will?! :L

I'd love to live in Sitia from and . I just really love the magic system in these books.

Totally Harry Potter for me, too.

Fantasy? The world in the Myth series by Robert Aspirin.

Sci-fi. I wanted to live on Terminus from Asimov's Foundation. Geek Central.

Roger Zelanzy's "Amber" series - if I can't live in those worlds, I'd at least like a set of those tarot cards.

I was always torn between Amber, and the Doctor Who universe (but only if I could travel in the TARDIS).

I want to live in Masterharper Robinton's house on the southern continent of Pern in The White Dragon. It sounds a lot like Maui. With friendly dragons and fire lizards as pets.

Narnia. Spent a lot of my childhood trying desperately to get there. (Involved a lot of time spent in closets...)

The Land, from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. I love the idea that wood and stone are alive, and that you can 'see' health and beauty as real things. And the Giants are pretty great.

I wouldn't mind visiting Discworld for a while. Tour Unseen University. Visit the Ramtops. Stroll the streets, well, the safe ones, of Ankh-Morpork...

Iain Banks Culture universe for me

The Thomas Covenant books by Stephen R. Donaldson - especially once they could sense the Health of the Land.

One of Jasper Ffordes Thursday Next series had a character living in a flying boat. That sounded cool.

What about LOTR? With the bad guys gone who would not want to live in the Shire or Rivendell or Minas Tirith?

I just like those books that make me feel like I really am living in their world for the duration of the read... Even if it is a kind of icky place.

I will cast a vote for "The Land" as well, but only at the time of Covenant's first appearance there.

I also love worlds where the technology or magic is there to fix me up ship shape. Other than that, give me any place where people aren't dicks to each other.

+1 for donaldson's the land, esp. If it has Saltheart Foamfollower in it :)

The planet Erna in C.S. Friedman's coldfire trilogy. i mean who wouldn't try to visit a planet where the Fae can turn your every dream and nightmare into reality?

Shadar Logoth in Jordan's Wheel of Time. I love creepy places :)

I'd like to live in the Malazan Empire (Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson). My second choice is to be an Aes Sedai in the Wheel of Time of Jordan.

I'll tell you where I'm NOT living, and that's Westeros.

I couldn't control my emotions when I completed the Hyperion series. I wish Dan Brown revisits it. The Shrike and the whole world is where I lived for better part of a year.

>I wish Dan Brown revisits it.

I think that you might have meant Dan Simmons. While they both have their fair share of Catholic weirdness going on in their books, they are different authors :-)

Xara wrote: "I'd like to live in the Malazan Empire (Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson). My second choice is to be an Aes Sedai in the Wheel of Time of Jordan."

Because you enjoy constant war?

Because Erikson is my favourite author and I love his series. In my opinion, his world is one of the most complex worlds in the fantasy genre. I'd really like to meet some of his characters. There is a good chance that I wouldn't stay alive for long though...

I agree about his world is awesome. Still no way in hell I'd want to live there. ^_^

I'm too old to attend Hogwarts and I have a feeling that I'd have a low life expectancy in the Big Wahoonie, so I'll settle for one of the alternate magical Londons from Neverwhere or A Madness of Angels.
Or maybe the Beta Colonies from Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga (The Warrior's Apprentice).

Seed wrote: "I'll tell you where I'm NOT living, and that's Westeros."

Definitely not Westeros!

I'd like a nice hobbit hole. Or to live in Lyra's Oxford from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series so I could have a daemon.

I know exactly what you mean! Some books I read and subconsciously think I'm reading a book. Some books I read and the words disappear; I'm there!

At a young age the series that sucked me in were the Shannara series and the Dragonlance series.. Lately, it's Robin Hobb's Ship of Magic series and The Name of the Wind. To mix in a bit of sci-fi with your fantasy, it's the Otherland series.

Of course Robert Jordan's world in The Wheel of Time would be fun if all those Aes Sedai weren't so uppity.

Probably the world I was most immersed in recently was Mistborn. Brandon Sanderson has a true talent for world building.

I'm sure there are more, but it's getting late and I'd like to get back to my book.


.....oh, and Harry Potter. :-)

Dude, how did I NOT think of The Shire. I would make an awesome Hobbit.

I live 40 mins drive from the Hobbiton movie set. So I already live in a place with green rolling hills. Close enough for me....

I would live in LoTR, preferably in Aragorn's bedchamber.

Jen wrote: ">I wish Dan Brown revisits it.

I think that you might have meant Dan Simmons. While they both have their fair share of Catholic weirdness going on in their books, they are different authors :-)"
Just hit myself on the head for comparing a great author to an annoying one..

PERN definitely. Prefer a time when thread is not falling though. And I would have a green dragon and some fire lizards.

Yes. Neal Stephenson's monastic community in Anathem is to die for. I would live there in a heartbeat. Also, I really like the idea of Octavia Butler's jungle communities in her Xenogenesis trilogy.

Oh! And I want to live in the White Tower in RoJo's Wheel of Time world!

Lara Amber wrote: "I would live in LoTR, preferably in Aragorn's bedchamber."


LOL, Lara!

I'd totally live in Rivendall or the Shire.

Yes I have and it happens lots of time to me. I love fantasy because it helps me to escape the world with limits. It's more like imaginations

Adam wrote: "Fantasy? The world in the Myth series by Robert Aspirin.

Sci-fi. I wanted to live on Terminus from Asimov's Foundation. Geek Central. [bookcover:Foundation|29..."

I agree with both of these! :)
Being an Amberite would also be great, especially if I get to walk the pattern.

Trike wrote: "I want to live in Masterharper Robinton's house on the southern continent of Pern in The White Dragon. It sounds a lot like Maui. With friendly dragons and fire lizards as pets."

+1 for this!

For a high-tech life, I'd like to live in the Star Trek universe, in the Federation, of course. I love the idea of the replicator, but find myself wishing for a transporter every time we set out on a long car ride to somewhere...

Replicator tech would be awesome! As long as the borg are nowhere near I'd enjoy being in the federation.

Charles de Lint's Newford or southwestern cities, it's a world like ours but with differences for those who can accept and see them. I'd like to hang with Jilly, help her sell her art, listen to Geordie and Ceran and Meran.

I'd like to shop at that Oxfam shop where Mrs. Whitaker finds the Holy Grail in "Chivalry," by Neil Gaiman in Smoke and Mirrors.

I nice round hole in the ground in the Shire would be nice.

I liked the setting in The Diviners by Libba Bray very, very much. It's set in 1925 in New York City, when it was daring and dramatic for a woman to drive a car, smoke a cigarette and vote. Movies were silent and the Harlem Renaissance was flowering. And it's fantasy.

I'd like to be on a ship of the line, not named Enterprise, maybe The Defiant. Then I get replicators, transporters and the holodeck, with Vic Fontaine.

A big no on Star Trek universe. I loved the shows, but as a place to live? Give me Serenity. Between the two give me the world that looks like people actually stub their toes and leave their socks on the floor.

I have very little to add -- living in the Hyperion Cantos' universe (view spoiler)[pre-destruction of the farcasters (hide spoiler)] would be amazing for obvious reasons, especially if one is wealthy.

Although the mention of Westeros is on-point, who would not want to experience the Free Cities or Qarth? Even Slaver's Bay could be of some interest.

I grew up in a place much like The Shire, and I could happily live the rest of my life in a hobbit hole or staring at the towers of Minas Tirith or serving as a gardener in Rivendell or exploring the Misty Mountains.

However, the worlds I most enjoy reading about, Erikson's Malazan universe or Martin's Westeros, I would never want to visit, not even for a moment.

Hmm I would enjoying living in Tolkeins Middle earth but I think I would prefer to live in the Star Wars universe. Even an ordinary person can enjoy a good life and even better if you are born as a Jedi.

Holly wrote: "PERN definitely. Prefer a time when thread is not falling though. And I would have a green dragon and some fire lizards."

I can't believe that I forgot Pern. I'd pass on the fire lizards (most of them seem like annoying toddlers), but I would very happily have a brown or a green dragon.

Every good epic fantasy book. Of course, I would prefer to be a nobleman or dragon or knight rather than a serf goblin or slave.

The Egdar Rice Burroughs's Venus series. I wanted to spend my days in tropical splendor way up in the canopy of tree tops that were taller than skyscrapers and that graced the indefinable point where mist becomes clouds.

Scribble wrote: "There are some books that you read that are just so immersive that you wish they'd never end. When you finish them and put them down you actually get upset because you can't go there, you can't be ..."

NARNIA
I love animals and want to be able to talk to them.

MIDDLE EARTH
Post-War of the Ring - preferably The Shire so I can have my meals as often as I could.

Stan wrote: "However, the worlds I most enjoy reading about, ..... Martin's Westeros, I would never want to visit, not even for a moment. "

This.

I'd second Maggie on this. There are loads of fictional universes or worlds I have enjoyed reading about more and have certainly had a more magical feel about them, but then they usually involve horrible drama.

Definitely the Iain Banks's Culture all the way. A leaderless, anarchist post-scarcity civilisation, where disease, death and all other physical constraints on life have been overcome, and where all life revolves around being able to do what every you like, pursuing any art, pursuit or whim that takes your fancy. Throw in the added advantage that you can synthesize any drug internally should you wish, and you've got a big winner.

The world of Robin McKinley's

I don't even need to be part of the 'aristocracy' ... just being the breeder/trainer of the incredible horses would be enough to keep me happy.