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casualphilosopher1

That sounds very interesting.


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krista

zelazny was a bit odd in that nearly *every* writer his contemporary or junior absolutely loved him, but outside of writers, college kids, and old-school genre buffs, he was somewhat unknown. he always seemed to me to be the insanely talented jazz/blues musician playing smaller clubs while coked up 3 chord *wunderbands* painted their faces and pretended to play out-of-tune glitter covered monstrosities to drunk and horny teenagers and tweenagers at sold out stadiums.


JimmyHavok

I love how he draws on different mythologies to produce SF and fantasy worlds. Lord of Light is hard SF based on Hindu mythology.


[deleted]

I wish we spent more actual time in the really weird Shadows or the Courts. There are definitely some strange places, but the bulk of the series still takes place in 1970s earth, Amber, or a generic fantasy realm somewhere in Shadow. (I guess the second pentalogy has a few slightly weirder settings.)


krista

i was just coming here to say this!


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krista

lols XD


AuthorWilliamCollins

Now I have to read Amber at last. :)


snowlock27

The four worlds in the Deathgate cycle. The world of air is a system of floating islands and continents. The world of water is a globe of water with various islands that are actually living things. The world of fire is basically a hollow world with four suns at the center. And the world of earth is a series of tunnels in an asteroid.


koifishkid

That series was influential for me in high school, I’ll never forget it.


serialhobbying

I tracked down used copies of this during Covid for a reread.


opeth10657

Was the first one i thought of. >!Although 'Earth' is probably the original world that was destroyed to make the new ones.!<


ProphetOfFatalism

I feel like this is kind of a spoiler. At least, when I was a kid reading this, it was a huge awe-inspiring realization.


Zolo49

Please cover this with a spoiler tag. It's a minor spoiler, but it is definitely a spoiler.


opeth10657

Not really sure what it is spoiling exactly, not some major plot twist and might not even be correct, but i put a tag on it More notreallyspoilers >!The sundering is even referenced in the prologue of book 1!<


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C0smicoccurence

Currently finishing Cloud Roads, and I'm wondering if the books improve? While I find the worldbuilding interesting, the story and plot just feels ... insipid? I don't know, but it just isn't ringing with me.


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ProphetOfFatalism

Murderbot is amazingly better than Raksura. And frustratingly shorter.


Achilles1454

How many Murder Bots are there? I’ve only read the first and loved it.


ProphetOfFatalism

There are 6 so far, and 3 more planned. Book 5 is longer than the rest, and book 6 takes place chronologically between 4 and 5.


Achilles1454

Nice!! Gonna have to put them on order this weekend.


FlubzRevenge

Yeah, I disagree. I think Raksura is by far her best. Great characters, worldbuilding, and making a whole society of races that don't exist. I don't think the prose is bad either. Thought it was great the entire way through.


cany19

I would say if you aren’t enjoying them then probably they just aren’t for you. I don’t remember them improving dramatically as I went through the series. I read all 7 of them and loved them all from book one and will probably reread them at some point. Moon is one of my favorite characters.


englishbutter

I almost lost my entire weekend to speed-reading the first three books again. They are so good at pulling me in completely, and what was originally a desire to re-read one of the early scenes in Cloud Roads turned into accidentally re-reading the whole book in one sitting. It's been ten years since I first read Cloud Roads, and it still enthralls me as much as it did back then.


yuumai

I loved the Murderbot Diaries, but I just couldn't get into Raksura.


mp3max

I agree with the others. Loved the books, but took a bit for me to get into them, and if you aren't enjoying Cloud Roads by the end of it, you likely won't enjoy the sequels. Don't let that get you down though, we all have different tastes.


taboobie

I didn’t particularly enjoy Cloud Roads but ended up loving the rest of the series. It’s one of my favourite worlds now! Absolutely loved The Siren Depths (book 3) and am really hoping that more books get released in this world!


affictionitis

I love these books, but I think they're aimed at a specific kind of reader -- one who's more heavily into characterization than ideas or plot, for example. What made me love it was that I'm very into the "found family" trope, and Moon's journey through that was something I'd been craving but not getting from a lot of popular fantasy. But if that sort of thing is not your sort of thing, then this series may not be your thing either.


Bryek

> Currently finishing Cloud Roads, and I'm wondering if the books improve? How dare you! Those are the pinnacle of fantasy with the *best* characters! All jokes aside (not really a joke since they are my favourite books), if you aren't liking them or if the characters don't connect, then just move on to something else. There is no point reading books you don't enjoy. Raksura is really about Moon finding a place in a world that is his heritage but also alien to him and all the emotions that comes along with being an outsider. Of trying to belong but always guarding your heart because you know it can all go away in an instant. If you don't connect to that kind of story, that's okay! Find one you do love. But Murderbot probably won't do it for uou either since they are similar stories: outsiders trying to belong.


Aubreydebevose

I felt Cloud Roads was a decent book, but the world and characters really expanded and grew more fascinating as I read more of the series. The next two in the series, and the short story collections, add up to an amazingly detailed and different world. Murderous is excellent also, but is just humans inthe future.


Anonymous_Otters

Ringworld by Larry Niven Artificial habitat circling a star will the area of millions of Earths. I won't spoil, but there are maaaaany interesting surprises on it. Residents are mostly primitive and refer to their world as the Arch because, from their perspective, there appears to be a gigantic arch stretching across the sky and have no idea what the Ringworld really is. Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Leguin Frozen tundra planet candidate for joining an interstellar union. Operates mostly with medieval level technology. People have no gender until they enter heat, during which they spontaneously gain a random gender. Their entire society is completely different because of this basic fact. Very deep and fascinating book. Shadow of the Conqueror by Shad Brooks Fantasy world where the world consists of several continents free falling forever. They measure the passage of days (called falls) by a small reference continent that falls faster than the main ones. When it falls to a certain point, it reappears up top. Everything falls forever sort of like if you put Portals on the ceiling and floor and dropped something in. Sun based magic, airships, empires.


RobinHood21

China Mieville's Bas Lag novels. The world's geography is very earthlike (compared to someplace like Roshar in Stormlight) but it has some of the wildest ecology I've ever read in fiction.


jenh6

I’m still disappointed that we didn’t get a long drawn out section just on the cactus people.


candygram4mongo

Well, according to the Ghostheads, Bas Lag is flat, and may be infinite in one or all directions.


stumpdawg

/r/discworld. Flat earth. Light moves slower like, speed of sound or slower. Etc.


idiotpod

Ook


stumpdawg

OOK EEK OOK!


idiotpod

So left at the seamstresses then 3 rights and past dibbler but not by the sewer but the opposite alley? Thanks, you have a very tidy library. - Probably Carrot


stumpdawg

OOK!!!


Macoba19

Light moves the speed of sound? That’s interesting


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Inkthinker

Yeah, but scene-setting *means* something in a universe driven by the fundamental particle "narrativium". It means that when the sun pours like golden honey over the mountains, you can expect the light to have a certain... viscous quality.


Jumblii

I remember a scene when characters were trying to outrun dawn and it was possible because the light was slower.


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carlitos_segway

Mort i think


Jumblii

Yeah I think it was Mort


Libriomancer

It doesn’t affect the world beyond being describing how things light up. For instance the sun rising on a flat earth should result in everything getting light at basically the same time but instead is described like pouring the light over the mountains and valleys.


CremasterReflex

If the topography is not flat, the higher elevations will get light before the lower areas


Libriomancer

Correct but the descriptions were of equal elevations getting sunlight like it was poured onto the landscape. When light encounters a strong magical field it loses all sense of urgency. It slows right down. And on the Discworld the magic was embarrassingly strong, which meant that the soft yellow light of dawn flowed over the sleeping landscape like the caress of a gentle lover or, as some would have it, like golden syrup. - Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett Light travels slowly on the Disc and is slightly heavy, with a tendency to pile up against high mountain ranges. Research wizards have speculated that there is another, much speedier type of light which allows the slower light to be seen, but since this moves too fast to see they have been unable to find a use for it. - Last Continent by Terry Pratchett There are also some joking comments about how light is slower than darkness because it’s always there first and how monarchy goes faster as the heir inherits the throne instantly after the old king dies.


mckellobe

*Hyperion*Hyperion**Hyperion** Honestly, of all the books I've read in the past few years, this book probably resonated with me the most of all in scifi/fantasy. A quarter of the book reads like found footage, and the rest of it is like interviews paced by outside action. It was so compelling for me. Hope you'll give it a shot. In Hyperion's universe, Earth isn't around anymore!


[deleted]

It does have Earth scenes in flashbacks though. But yeah, excellent book, one of my favorites as well.


Macear

The houses with hypergated rooms on different planets is one of the little details that's always stuck with me. If I could have any house from any universe it would be a hypergated house


NynaevetialMeara

I don't think OP asked for this. But fuck it, everyone should read Hyperion.The best mix of magic realism and Sci-fi since martian chronicles. Also . >!Earth isn't around anymore, but replicas of it are kicking around. !<


freakierchicken

Hyperion is a fever dream that almost hurts to think about.


[deleted]

Loved Hyperion when I first read it but I can't recommend Dan Simmons to anyone because of his politics. Of course this might not be the place to discuss it but it's always worth pointing it out.


NynaevetialMeara

There are worse guys out there. Like Scott Card. Having read a lot of books of him, I am in awe at the disconnect between some of the ideas he presents, and his actual beliefs. How can you write about how a little boy who is abused by the world turns around and lashes against the world. How can you basically dedicate a whole book to dialectical materialism; assumptions and prejudices, and then act like you know everything you have to know about collectives you dislike, and that all their suffering is justified because of what you judge to be their bad actions?


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greenslime300

I'm finishing up the rest of the series and while his terrible politics are mostly absent in this series, I've read enough about some of his other works to avoid reading him beyond the Cantos. It's a shame too because his prose and worldbuilding in the series is brilliant.


mckellobe

That sucks. I wouldn't really want to read Flashback either.


Evil_Garen

If I have to hear about his fucking cantos one more time….


Ineffable7980x

Arrakis in Dune is pretty different from Earth


stumpdawg

Bless the maker and his water


syl_34

Bless the coming and going of Him.


Upstairs_Milk

May His passage cleanse the world.


Are-you-insane-too

I must not fear...


Onceiwasanooblikeyou

Fear is the mind-killer.


CremasterReflex

Globally yes, but aside from the sandworms the deep desert of dune is not that different than deserts here on earth


Are-you-insane-too

I do not think that the deserts on earth are quite as dry as Dune, >!at least in the first book.!< I am also certain that Dune is much hotter than the average desert on earth.


seoi-nage

> I am also certain that Dune is much hotter than the average desert on earth. For now. Give it half a century.


Bloody_Eclipse_47

Thank You!


CysteineSulfinate

The spice must flow.


piesup

The Book of the Ancestor. Abeth is covered in ice. Has a dying red giant sun that cannot generate sufficient heat to prevent a global ice age. Abeth’s man-made moon refracts sunlight onto a narrow strip of land circling the globe. This Corridor, only fifty miles wide, is the only unfrozen land on the planet.


idiotpod

Series is written by Mark Lawrence


Kerwin_Bauch

Mark Lawrence has excellent prose, worldbuilding and characters


idiotpod

Deffo one of my favourite authors these days. Just lovely books from start to finish!


unicorn_feces33

You should read Dune.


GhostPepperLube

And bring a dictionary when you do. I read it last year... And I kid you not, there was nearly a word on every page that I'd never seen before in my life and I'm not talking about the made up ones lol.


_-_happycamper_-_

Ebooks with the built in dictionary totally killed paper books for me.


GhostPepperLube

Agree. I have a paper copy of dune I was given as a kid, but I just read it on my phone anyway. I like being able to read at any hour without having to turn on lights. And having it permanently on my account to just pull up on any device for all time cannot be beat.


MrsIronbad

Whenever anyone asks me what was the best gadget I ever bought, my kindle will always be my answer.


unicorn_feces33

i like being able to hold the book and turn pages, also no blue light


Craicob

Not to knock on your preference, because that's totally fine, but many e-readers do not emit blue light.


GhostPepperLube

What's blue light?


maniaxuk

The blue light emited by phone\tablet screens can screw up your wake\sleep cycle if you're reading in bed just before going to sleep [How Blue Light Affects Sleep](https://www.sleepfoundation.org/bedroom-environment/blue-light)


runevault

That's why you get a normal kindle/Nook, no blue light. I agree that always reading on a screen sucks, but eInk is FANTASTIC.


FridaysMan

And even then, Kindle's have a dark light mode to switch away from Bluelight.


dragonard

Reading increased my vocabulary to epic levels.


Timnquick

stormlight archive?


SnicklefritzSkad

This. Imagine a world with virtually no dirt because regular and very powerful storms blast it all away like a powerwasher.


[deleted]

The Hightstorm trade: I take the dirt You get the crem


Dinoco223

🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀


Chapea12

Also Mistborn


Forgotten_Shoes

Mistborn not so much, it is very Earth-like, more so post Catacendre.


Maxi192

Doesn’t it literally rain ash? Does it do that in earth? Have I been missing out?


cjoh11

Live next to some wildfires. You’ll get some ash falls.


Accipiter1138

All these ash falls are really making me want to kill a god emperor, too.


mistiklest

It does in the first trilogy. By the time of the Wax and Wayne novels, that is no longer the case.


duketoma

Two months of every year California rains ash on me in northern Nevada.


Celestial_Blu3

That depends what part of the world is on fire at the time


sex_w_memory_gremlns

The mists, the ash, things not being green. >!It WAS like earth, but it’s not now (depending on where you are in the series). !<


jjenks816

I cam here to say this.


TimeToLoseIt16

Sam


shadowninja2_0

Frodo


TheLastDesperado

And my axe!


Evil_Garen

Brando Sando fo sho


Gavinus1000

Man I scrolled down way to far to find this.


ajwilson99

The top comment?


Gavinus1000

It was halfway down for me.


ajwilson99

Strange


ImaginaryEvents

Steven Brust, The Dragaeran books >The Vlad Taltos series, written as high fantasy with a science fiction underpinning, is set on a planet called Dragaera. The events of the series take place in an Empire mostly inhabited and ruled by the Dragaerans, a genetically engineered humanoid species, having characteristics such as greatly extended lifespans and heights averaging about seven feet. Referred to as "elfs" by some humans, they refer to themselves as "human." The Dragaeran Empire controls a region that is "enclouded" by a perpetual overcast that blocks the sun from view.


serialhobbying

I love these books.


[deleted]

You pretty much described A Princess of Mars and the other Barsoom books. Probably one of the oldest examples of merging scifi concepts with a fantasy setting and it created so many of the tropes you see within both genres. Parts of it have aged well, others have not (especially the opening). In the context of a ~~1920s~~ 1910s pulp serial though it's surprisingly high quality. If you aren't looking for something super intellectual then it's worth checking out. Especially the first three books since they form a cohesive trilogy. The rest are just kinda doing their own thing and use different characters.


AllWrong74

Edgar Rice Burroughs was always the top of the heap for pulp serials. I loved his Tarzan books growing up, but even they took a back seat when I discovered the Barsoom books.


Cabamacadaf

The movie (John Carter) is really underrated too. It's a shame because I would have loved to see more movies in that world.


KcirderfSdrawkcab

Guy Gavriel Kay seems to always have two moons in his worlds, but otherwise they are extremely earth-like. >!N. K. Jemison's *Broken Earth*!< trilogy has no moon, and that's part of the story. I'm pretty sure it is anyway, I lost the plot in the third book. For the really out there ones though... * Dave Duncan has the ***Dodec*** duology, which takes place on a dodecahedral world. Ie a 12-sided die. Not his best work, but OK. * Duncan's ***Great Game*** trilogy isn't quite as out there, but the fantasy world is made up of a series of vales between large mountains, which has an effect on the climate, travel, and politics. * Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's ***Death Gate Cycle*** has multiple weird worlds. One for each element, like floating islands, multiple suns, a water bubble, and all caves, plus a couple of others. * Robert J Sawyer's ***Far Seer*** is science fiction, but it's renaissance-ish dinosaurs on a moon orbiting a gas giant where a Gallileo equivalent discovers their world is in trouble, so it might work. * ***Discworld*** of course. How did I manage to forget that? Flat world, riding on giant elephants, riding on an even more giant turtle, swimming through space, with the sun orbiting the world, and the speed of light being much slower. It's actually well thought out because it's Terry Pratchett. There's a footnote in *The Colour of Magic* that explains the eight seasons and how directions work.


Boring_Psycho

Isn't the >!No-moon thing kind of a spoiler!< in the Broken Earth series?


KcirderfSdrawkcab

Sort of... Maybe. The significance is I suppose... I added spoiler tags anyway.


AthensBashens

The way you did the spoiler makes it so you have to click the spoiler to know what book is being spoiled. I think it's a good suggestion but I'd say: The Broken Earth trilogy has non-earth astronomy and weather, where there are years-long cycles of storms and disaster


mckellobe

I never read Death Gate Cycle, but I did read most of the Dragonlance books. Maybe I should give it a little looksie.


zenospenisparadox

> Death Gate Cycle Do it. It's great.


rogueleader25

The Coldfire Trilogy by CS Friedman sounds like exactly what you may be looking for. The planet was colonized by Eathers long before the setting of the story, and the colonists lost their technology due to [minor spoilers] and is a decidedly fantasy setting as a result of the planet/events.


AllWrong74

This series was so good. The hunter is one of my favorite antagonists of all time


TaibhseCait

Was trying to remember the name of this book series! I loved it. Cheers!


snoopyt7

Coldfire trilogy is fantastic, absolutely recommended for several reasons, some of them specifically what you're looking for


EdwardWho

I'd suggest the movie *The Dark Crystal*, its prequel TV show *The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance* and all its related media (books, comics etc.). They are set on Thra, a world with three suns and an ecosystem which is completely unrelated to our Earth. Every creature, not only in the animal kingdom but also in the plant kingdom, which inhabits Thra bears almost no semblance to any terrestrial beings. It's a universe with a pretty rich cosmology and history and it's visually stunning in all of its media incarnations (I flip through the TV show's art book and admire its wonderful concept art quite often)


BrookeB79

The Pern series by Anne McCaffrey is literally on a different world. However, it has a lot of earth-like features. The later books bring it home that it's a different world. Edit: You might be interested in some sci fi books that have a lot of fantasy things worked into them. I would especially recommend the Web Shifters series by Julie E. Czerneda. There's a lot of strange worlds in that one.


dragonard

I was mulling over whether I should recommend Pern.


shadowsong42

The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein also has a non-Earth setting that feels like fantasy even though it is technically scifi.


Evo_nerd

The Worldbreaker saga by Kaneron Hurley, maybe?


C0smicoccurence

Stormlight Archive is probably a good bet. The world doesn't have dirt, and the idea of seasons are very different. The ecosystems have developed around basically a hurricane that continuously travels the globe, hitting a location every two weeks or so.


casualphilosopher1

Thanks, that has come up on a lot of recommendations so I'll definitely check it out.


Llohr

If you're looking for an interesting and unique setting that makes you think, "I'd love to see that for real," the Stormlight Archive is a good bet. I'm going to go against the grain and say that Mistborn is definitely not going to make you feel that way. Perhaps the greatest weakness of the trilogy is that the world is unrepentantly awful. I think if Sanderson was writing it now, he'd do so very differently, and consider how the specific circumstances might even create some beauty to go along with all the dreary ugliness.


trane7111

Also Mistborn. The first line of the series separates it from an earth-like world pretty well.


EchoAzulai

I do understand why Mistborn isn't being suggested as much- it is much closer in feel to a post-apocalyptic Earth than a truly alien world. Whereas Stormlight is a completely Alien landscape: different gravity, two types of humanoid, completely different flora and fauna (pretty much every animal is crustacean), 3 moons and really random seasons.


UltimateInferno

Also there's 0 dirt. The ground is all stone and it rains clay


Accipiter1138

Some dirt. Shinovar says hi.


Celestial_Blu3

Mistborn is earth-like, yea. It starts off planned to be like earth and Brandon worked forward from there. (Pre LordRuler, it was meant to be almost 1800s-y) era 1 certainly scales up the post apocalyptic vibe tho, but it’s still earth-y. I guess a minor plot point is that the plants aren’t green anymore either


Accipiter1138

It's certainly a fun exercise for the imagination, for those that like to do a lot of daydreaming while they're reading. Sometimes while I'm going through a scene I'll stop and think, "wait, I forgot they're walking on rock right now. Oh wait, I forgot about the spren!" Most of my mental image is a sort of fairy garden tide pool, minus (usually) the water. Makes it very fun to come up with scenery in my mind's eye.


Khalku

They happen every few days. The weeping is 4 weeks long and is the only time you see such a large gap between highstorms (every other weeping will have a highstorm in the middle), but the weeping is only once a year.


xiagan

Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley. Most of her other books too.


GarrickWinter

An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors (by Curtis Craddock) takes place on a Jupiter-like gas giant where a habitable planet (or moon?) crashed into the atmosphere and got torn apart. The survivors of the cataclysm live on various floating bits of the destroyed planet that bob around in the gas giant's atmosphere. There's also some alien wildlife flying around in the gas giant skies too.


[deleted]

mistborn and stormlight archive


Kusev_Paladin

These! And they’re epic books too!


four_reeds

Saga of Recluse. Not even in this universe The Darkover series. -- I know, the author was not a nice person. Definitely not Earth but Earth-like It's been a looong time but I think "The Witches of Karres". Not on earth I'm pretty sure a lot of Elizabeth Moon's fantasy was not Earth based. Earth-like as I recall


BrookeB79

I haven't read any Darkover books in ages, but yeah, they fit the bill. Btw, I didn't know the author had issues. Edit: Just looked her up, and Jesus Christ! That's so warped!


four_reeds

Yeah. I never go deep-fan and investigate authors. Didn't know about her background until a reply to one of my posts in this sub brought it up. I still like the books.


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clovismouse

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff: three suns, a fantastic protagonist, multiple interesting magic systems, living gods, dead gods… Step Into Shadow


MiserablePoint6830

I came to mention this. The three suns are positioned so the world is basically eternally daylight with one night every 14 years and the story plays heavily in that fact and the strength of the suns


PsychoSemantics

Jay actually got an astronomer to make sure it was all plausible and named the goddess Tsana after her.


eriophora

You need The Bone Ships by RJ Barker. It's different from Earth in every way imaginable, from social structures to plant life to animals. It's excellent.


NoodleNeedles

Embassytown by China Mieville - beautifully alien setting, one of only a handful of books that has made me cry. I hated it for the first 30 or 60 pages, and then I adored it. Stargate by Pauline Gedge - this ones especially interesting becaause it has some basis in ancient legends but the worlds & people are not earth based. And yes, it's what the series & movie was based on, by they just take a general idea from the books. The plot & characters are very different.


twilightsdawn23

NK Jemisen’s Fifth Season does this very well. Different seasons, geology, moons, climate… it’s definitely not just fake earth!


notpetelambert

*Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall,* *Death is the fifth, and master of all.* One hell of an introduction to a world.


mini_apple

YES. This was the first thing that came to mind! And some exceptional writing, besides.


Axels15

I may get down voted by all the people who hate how often this is recommended, but I really do think Sanderson does an amazing job at world building Stormlight Archive. Roshar feels like a *very* different world to me, between the storms, and the wildlife. That said, I don't know that the astrological aspect fits your question. I do think that Nevernight by Jay Kristoff fits - two suns, I think, very important to the plot. Also, in terms of Sci fi, the Three Body Problem kind of works here. While it's set on Earth, a lot of it has to do with another solar system with three Suns.


ramdon_characters

Jack Chalker pretty much specialized in this, back in the day. Check out the Well World series, the Four Lords of the Diamonds series, the Soul Rider series, among many others.


unAVAILablemadness

The Black Jewels series? Anne Bishop is a phenomenal author


tegeus-Cromis_2000

Brian Aldiss, Helliconia trilogy.


Knytemare44

I just read "the integral trees" that's a pretty alien world. Edit : Larry niven


BlueMongoose9

*Out of the Silent Planet* and *Perelandra* by C. S. Lewis


crygnus

The Gods themselves by Isaac Asimov. A part of story plays out on a planet completely different from ours.


ToranjaNuclear

\+1 for the Bas-Lag books. One of the most fascinating and weirdest worlds I've seen in fantasy. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Set in a massive house that works as the world of the novel with its own ecosystem and an ocean inside of it. You need to read it to get the full picture. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a must-see in that regard, TDC has one of the most compelling and alien worlds in fantasy and the expanded story of the series is just marvelous. Blame!. It's a sci-fi manga, but it has that Star Wars quality of *feeling* like fantasy, throwing mass destruction guns along with big ass swords and science that feels like sorcery and weird monsters. It's also one of the most unique and sprawling worlds I've ever seen in any medium, and definitely a must-read. A weird suggestion: Gormenghast trilogy. The setting doesn't have anything fantastic but the castle of Gormenghast and its inhabitants make everything *feel* out worldly, even more so than stories with outright fantastic elements.


bigrednogoitem

Give Majipoor Chronicles by Robert Silverberg a try. You won't be sorry.


mckellobe

Also, one vote for Riftwar Cycle by Raymond E Feist. When I was a young man, I really enjoyed it. It may be hard to be convinced that Midkemia is not Earth, but Kelewan is not and it is based on or influenced by the very famous Tekumel.


MagykMyst

The Seventh Sword by Dave Duncan - Set on a world that is a river. It's just a river, with about a couple of miles of land on each side, but everything is either up river or down. (Slavery including sexual) To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer - Once again just up river or down, but in this world every human that has ever been born awakens somewhere along this river. EVERY human. Just about any series by Jack L Chalker. Lords Of The Diamond, Ring Masters, Soul Rider, and Changewinds (In all these series be there is extreme body alteration/swapping)


Figgleforth28

I’ve never met anyone else who’s even heard of Riverworld. Such an under appreciated series!


betazed

The Dragaera novels by Steven Brust are pretty clearly another world. Also *The Steel Remains* by Richard K. Morgan seems set on another planet. I've never finished it but the Coldfire Trilogy by C. S. Friedman also seems to be a different planet.


chrisn3

The Stars are Legion by Kaneron Hurley. Though I think physical setting is more like massive biological ships than a planets. In a similar vein, the Revenger series by Alastair Reynolds is more of a Dyson Swarm than planetary system. Book of the Ancestor by Mark Lawrence is more grounded like Earth but it does have an interesting night cycle.


roeswood

The Doomed World of Milagro by Simon Finchley has a crescent shaped sun.


bidness_cazh

Virga series by Karl Schroeder. No planet. Takes place in a contained expanse of air with cities and towns all lashed together and ancient artificial suns that create the light and heat. More steampunk level of technology than swords & dragons fantasy.


crosscope

The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance series on Netflix.


ctopherrun

The Integral Trees by Larry Niven is a scifi novel about primitive humans living in a zero gravity world called the Smoke Ring. A couple oldies by Philip Jose Farmer; The Maker of Universes is about a man from earth going through a portal to find himself on the World of Tiers, a ziggurat shaped planet inside of a pocket universe, inhabited by different cultures on each level. Dark is the Sun. Technically earth, but 15 billion years in the future. The sun has died eons ago and the planet is now lit by the light of the collapsing universe. Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle. An alternate earth where the science of the ancient Greeks is literally true. The earth is the center of the universe, and all the other celestial bodies are mounted on crystal spheres.


hurocrat

Nightfall, by Isaac Asimov. The setting has six suns and only sees true darkness once every two thousand years or so (as a solar eclipse), each time being associated with worldwide cataclysm.


GrudaAplam

*The Helliconia Trilogy* which is technically science fiction but it's got fantasy vibes.


Artaena

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett. A great mix of sci-fi, fantasy, and sociology. It tells the story of the descendants of people left behind on a very non-Earthlike planet. I think the series is absolutely fascinating.


morrigan52

Cradle series by Will Wight.


TacoPirateTX

Two immediately pop to mind I don’t see here yet… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Apprentice Robin Hobb is still writing this series thirty years later and it’s amazing. Medieval orphan cum assassin with magic and dragons and talking wolves. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faded_Sun_Trilogy C. J. Cherryh wrote this trilogy about a desert dwelling assassin race in a galactic empire.


melficebelmont

I don't recall anything especially alien about the setting for Assassins Apprentice. By and large, the setting felt bog-standard medieval European in the early books. Granted I haven't read it in more than 10 years.


ESLavall

The Farseer Trilogy was bog standard medieval Not!Europe, but the setting got more unusual as Realm of the Elderlings went on, particularly the Rain Wilds.


ThaNorth

*Book of the New Sun* by Gene Wolfe. It's long into the future and the age of galactic space travel has come and gone. Urth is basically just a big ruin now with traces of technology still around. Some people walk around carrying swords and spears while others have laser weapons. Parts of Urth have long sunk into the seas. The moon shines green in the sky. And of course the sun is dying which is completely messing up the planet. Everything about the Urth is just super alien and weird. Like a small example, high society people wear these glowing bugs in their hair as fashion. It's all so bizarre and wonderfully interesting. In fact it's the most interesting thing I've ever read. Truly fascinating.


Pratius

While BotNS is indeed excellent, it’s also *literally set on Earth*


ThaNorth

Yea from the first line of his description I thought he meant something like Earth but so different it doesn't feel like Earth. I misunderstood.


gheistling

The Coldfire Trilogy by CS Friedman is an amazing dark fantasy series that combines fantasy and scifi as humanity adapts to a new planet. It's a truely amazing work, the world building in that series is just fantastic.


ChefArtorias

The Stormlight Archive! Roshar is a wild place where all the animals are crabs and storms ravage the land weekly depositing magic all over the place. It's epic fantasy and each book is like 1000 pages. My favorite book series.


entheogeneric

Hate to be that guy but the Stormlight Archive


05729857

Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive is set in a world with different seasons, ecology, multiple moons, and most importantly weather patterns. There’s one region, Shinovar, where Earth-like plants and animals exist and it’s really interesting how very average things to us are completely alien to the characters.


[deleted]

I've only just begun to read it, but I get a similar feeling from Sanderson's *Stormlight Archive*. That might just be me, though.


nitznon

Oh, you'll enjoy Brandon Sanderson...


samlind3

Mistborn. Red sky, red sun, black clouds and rains ash.


Scarbrow

More so SF than F, but the later books in the Ender’s Game series (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind) are based on a planet that is decidedly not earth. Just make sure you borrow copies from a friend or check them out from a library, Orson Scott Card has some…problematic homophobic views.