On Monday, inspired by a recent TOR.com post,  I checked out three awe-inspiring Fantasy settings.

Although I suggested that I might return with some equally are-inspiring Science Fiction examples, I am going to stick with Fantasy milieus for today, because the more  I thought about it, the more I realised how many truly fabulous worlds exist at our reading fingertips.

Starting with the Rain Wild milieu of Robin Hobb’s Liveships novels—and more recently her Dragon series. From the outset I fell in love with the world of the Bingtown and Rain Wild traders and the mysterious, challenging environment of the acidic Rain Wild River. The interweaving of the extremes of the physical environment with the cultural norms of the people who live within it, particularly the veiled Rain Wild traders, as well as the connections to a much wider world, made for a fascinating Fantasy read.

Another world I fell in love with a long time ago, and keep returning to, is the realm of Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster trilogy. From the tiny, relentlessly agrarian and incurious island of Hed, to the Three Portions of the An where the dead refuse to distentangle their affairs from those of the living; from the icy fastnesses of Osterland where wolf packs and vesta herds (think elk/moose)  are jointly bound to the defence of the land, to Herun with its mists and marshes and tors—and a ruler who can see through mountains, the world offers enduring fascination. Not least that of a society informed by and dedicated to resolving riddles.

A more recent world that caught my interest was Woerld in Teresa Frohock’s Miserere: An Autumn Tale.  Woerld is one of four interconnected realms of existence, the other three being our Earth, Heaven, and Hell. Of the four, Woerld is the battleground in which fighting orders based on all of Earth’s religions battle to contain the hordes of Hell , which are constantly striving to break out, overwhelming first Woerld and then Earth, with the ultimate objective of taking Heaven itself. Although this may sound like familiar territory, I believe Teresa has shaped it into a vivid and authentic Fantasy world.

So there you are, three more fabulous Fantasy worlds—but how about you, dear readers: perhaps you have a favourite or two you’d like to share? (Don’t forget to tell us why you heart ’em. 🙂 )