The world of Earthsea from Ursula K. LeGuin’s books. Why?
- the setting’s philosophy is nearly Daoist in its focus on balance over domination;
- although it started (deliberately) with a very patriarchal magic order, over time it was revealed that the “mere witches” the mages looked down upon held the roots of true magic and were instrumental in preserving the world;
- said magic was based on “true names” meaning to hold power over anything at all you had to deeply and profoundly understand it, resulting in a world of scholars and poets and deep observers – a world, in short, of knowledge instead of warriors;
- the world wasn’t white, with the default skin colour being a reddish-brown, if memory serves;
- being a world sort of on the cusp of iron and bronze age technology, but stable (c.f. further above on balance over domination), the world is mostly idyllically coded and the conflict comes mostly from within, instead of the usual fare of huge earth-shattering events that threaten all.
This is essentially the plot of The Astral Library by Kate Quinn (I think?).
The culture, probably. Post scarcity. Live as long as you want.
change genders at will, whatever body mods you want, drug gland in your brain to get high however you want whenever you feel like it, fancy genitals that work extra well, just tell your body to sleep, freeze yourself for a while if you get bored, end your life whenever you want, super intelligent computers to help you with anything and take care of everything, spend a few years on the party/orgy ship if you want, go to the edge of space alone if you feel like it. i hope we can approach that as a species someday.
Came here to say that. Particularly interested in the body swapping part for totally cisgender reasons.
You beat me to it.
And me
Augment your body how you wish. Charge sex back and forth. If you get bored, larp in a medieval society to gently guide them. Bored with our galaxy go visit the next one over. Visit earth, dispair at the backwardness.
What’s not to like
Maybe daughters of a coral dawn? No men on the planet sounds lovely.
You got me interested, thanks for the reco !
I read a lot smut soo I’ll just say somewhere with magic.
Definitely the world of Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot series (A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy). It’s a kind & beautiful world where people can be and do whatever feels meaningful to them because it’s close to a post-scarcity anarcho-communist utopia. Humans live in small but interconnected communities that exist in harmony with nature.
Highly recommend the series if you want to escape to a warm comforting world for a while. It’s a duology of novellas, so a pretty quick read through.
I decided as a child that it would be Pokemon.
Oh that would be lovely!
Hilda
Oh wow, great thinking!
I wouldn’t pick Cradle to start with, but the Cradleverse would certainly be interesting.
Pern, no question. The people who mentioned the Culture are definitely on to something, and yet, all the same… Give me Pern.
Too many to count, but since I finished it recently, The Spellshop
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One of the diana wynne jones worlds. A safe one please
