Jeff Vandermeer is working on a book titled If You Lived Here: The Top 30 All Time Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds for Underland Press. They are looking for nominations from readers on their favorite fantasy and science fiction worlds, and it’s possible they may request to use what you have to say about one of your favorite imaginary worlds in the book.

I’ve been thinking about submitting some myself, but I’m having a horrible time limiting it to just 3.  There’s the quirkiness of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, the overall awesomeness of life in the Culture as created by Iain M. Banks, the open-minded beauty and expansiveness of Jacqueline Carey’s Terre d’Ange (ok, I guess that doesn’t count since it’s not quite secondary but on an alternate Earth).  Oh, and N. K. Jemisin’s world of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Broken Kingdoms in which gods are abundant is pretty neat too…  And so is Malazan with its ascendants… Sharon Shinn’s Samaria is pretty interesting, and so is the division between summer and winter in Joan D. Vinge’s The Snow Queen… And so many others, even if a lot of them have enough turmoil that I may not want to actually live there!

What are your favorite worlds from fantasy and science fiction? What is it you find so intriguing and memorable about them?