Whats your favourite fantasy world?

[CiciTj]

1.Discworld
2.Earthsea
3.Oz
4.Narnia
5.Neverland

[Elehzya]

The Tsuranni Empire - Raymond E Feist. I simply love the Asian-like culture!

And these books are still in boxes, so I can't remember the actual name of the world (bad me!), but Anne Kelleher's (Silver's Edge) Otherworld, mortal lands and Shadowlands. Okay, so the names are a bit obvious, but I still enjoy it.

Despite the story and writing (not really into) I also liked the world and culture of Elvenbane (Norton and Lackey). I love the idea of evil elven lords, it's refreshing.

[Kazz Wylde]

The world of Hyboria, it has all the landscapes, besides Conan still rules! I also think the Free cities continent of ASOIF has a lot of untapped potential!

[neal66]

my favorite fantasy worlds are:
Seven Kingdoms used in Martin's Song of Ice and Fire
Midkemia created by Feist
Malazan empire created by erikson

[Gildor]

- Arda, Middle Earth etc
- Westeros and the whole world away from that place that Martin concocted
- Earwa
- Nehwon
- The World of Malaz (Although i've not often heard any collective term for the whole world as yet)

[Papazak]

The Forgotten Realms!!

However there is not one fantasy world (other than Neverland I guess) I would want to BE IN. There are so many powerful, disgustingly evil, tyrannts and beasts and I am just a wimpy couch potato!!

[owlcroft]

However there is not one fantasy world (other than Neverland I guess) I would want to BE IN.

That hits a critical point that I don't recall seeing addressed on the thread: does "favorite" mean "place I most like to read about", or does it mean "place I'd most like to live"? The difference is, to put it mildly, enormous.

Even the "nicest" of fantasy worlds is rarely a place anyone accustomed to the modern world would really get along well in. What do hobbits do for toilet paper? How close is the nearest emergency room? Who's your dentist? How much does a book cost and who publishes it without benefit of a printing press? And so on.

Rustic, medieval worlds can be comfortable enough for their native denizens, whose expectations are set by the prevailing culture and technology; some day, our times will be seen as woefully lacking in even the "basic requirements" of civilized life. But unless you're figuring on a major mindwipe as part of the process, there are not a lot of fantasy worlds anyone reading this would be anything close to comfortable in if zapped to them.

That said, there is quite a roll call of eminently fascinating places to read about, from which it is hard to make a "favorite" selection. Many of these have not yet been mentioned, so here are some for consideration (this is not simply a laundry list of fantasy worlds--it really is, for all its length, selective), alphabetical by author name (worlds not in boldface appear in only a single book):

• Oz (L. Frank Baum)
• Twombley Town (James Blaylock)
• Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
• Looking-Glass Land (Lewis Carroll)
• San Veneficio (Michael Cisco)
• Tun Faire (Glen Cook)
• The Island Under the Earth (Avram Davidson)
• Beyond the Fields We Know (Lord Dunsany)
• Zimiamvia (E. R. Eddison)
• The Unholy City (Charles G. Finney)
• The Riverside (Kenneth Grahame)
• Windameir (Niel Hancock)
• Viriconium (M. John Harrison)
• The Night Land (William Hope Hodgson)
• Ryhope Wood (Robert Holdstock) - if it isn't really sf
• "Old China" (Ernest Bramah; Barry Hughart)
• Elundium (Michael Jeffries)
• Earthsea (Ursula K. Le Guin)
• The Flat Earth (Tanith Lee)
• Paradys (Tanith Lee)
• Venus (Tanith Lee)
• Nehwon (Fritz Leiber)
• Arcturus (David Lindsay)
• The Continent of Man (Eric Van Lustbader)
• Bas Lag (China Mieville)
• The Realm of Morpheus (Steven Millhauser)
• The Hundred-Acre Wood (A. A. Milne)
• The Commonwealth (John Myers Myers)
• The World in Amber (A. Orr)
• Gormenghast Castle (Mervyn Peake)
• Discworld (Terry Pratchett)
• Middle Earth (J. R. R. Tolkien)
• Islandia (Austin Tappan Wright)
• Amber (Roger Zelazny)

A couple of random notes:

Besides Lewis Carroll, Tanith Lee is the only author who comes up more than once, which I guess is something of a validation of her creative powers.

And whether the "Ryhope Wood" (Mythago Wood) tales are fantasy or science fiction is a personal judgment; they sure read like fantasy, but Holdstock does offer some quasi-scientific wallpaper.