Hey all,
I'm sure everyone here has already come across this question. But it's always fun to discuss it, and there are quite a few new folks around here to incite some fresh debate. So this discussion seeks your take on what you consider the best, or at least your personal favourite fantasy setting.
From the Known World in A Song of Ice and Fire/GOT to the dark setting of Warhammer, we all have a little something that makes us like more one or another. So tell us...
What's your favourite fantasy world? Why?
This is for fantasy only. I will eventually make a discussion on sci-fi.
I have recently started to delve into the Warhammer world in preparation to the upcoming Total War: Warhammer, and I'm loving it. It's so dark and gritty, and each race is really unique and everything is a lot different from other fantasy settings. It's a nice mix of your usual fantasy with some innovative stuff like the dwarves' steampunk style, the gothic style of the Empire somewhat mirroring the Rennaisance and other historical periods... And I have really just scratched the surface of this great series.
Other than that, there's ASOIAF's world, which is likely my favourite but that is largely due to GOT's story rather than the setting itself, and that position belongs to TES's Nirn. It is a compelling place, with distinguished races and an intriguing lore.
I feel like I should say Middle Earth but there are so many out there.
Probably the Ebberon D&D setting as it is very unique and almost alien to any other world I have played in before. Nirn is great because of its complexity in lore and I like how it has a nice balance between gritty realism and being very whimsical and high fantasy like at other times.
The Elder Scrolls is definitely up there, though I have two other favorites.
The first would be Roshar, the world of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives. It's a worldbuilding show-horse unlike anything I've ever read.
The second would be a childhood favorite of mine, Redwall by Brian Jacques (it's technically called Mossflower County). Yes, it's a world filled with cute anthropomorphic woodland creatures, but for me its a place of fond memories.
Jeez where to begin. I wrote a post over on Comic Vine a while back called Why Malazan Is The Best High Fantasy of The Last 2 Decades. It's probably easier linking to that rather than trying to write it out again.
One of my clients was friends with Brian Jacques, I remember her being very cut-up about him dying a few years ago.
I read most of his books when I was younger, I think Mossflower remains my favorite.
Brian Jacques and Terry Pratchett are both gone. Its been a pretty hard blow to english literature over the past few years...
On topic: I am very fond of pratchetts discworld but overall I much prefer my fantasy lands devoid of any comedy...
I remember reading Michael Moorcocks 'Eternal Champion' (Hawkmoon) books when I was younger and I remember those being very good. I should probably try reading more of his work...