Top Ten Fictional Worlds

It's been a minute since I've done a top ten list. This time I've decided to focus on something particularly close to my heart as a scholar, fictional worlds. You can find my thoughts on the theory and philosophy of fictional worlds in other venues, but for this blog I am interested in the most basic question of all: which fictional worlds are the best.

Now, it should be said right off the bat that this list is NOT a list of the best novels/films/games with fictional worlds, but a list ranking the worlds themselves. As with all of these lists, I am going to outline the four factors that I will be using to rank these various worlds:

1. Compatibility of habitation: this is a complex way of asking the basic question "can I, as a reader, move my mind easily from the primary world into the fictional world and move around and experience that world" (this is what Saul Kripke has described as a K factor in his Semantics of Modal Logic) J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth has, for good reason, often been held up as the paragon of a compatible fictional world. By contrast, David Lindsay's Arcturus would meet many of the other criteria I could suggest, but is impossible to imagine inhabiting cognitively.

2. Diversity of inhabitants: how many, and what kinds, of beings inhabit this world. What are you likely to meet? This is a broad category that will include questions of race, species, etc. Some worlds have diversity in abundance (Earthsea is a good example here, inhabited as it is by people of various races, dragons, etc. while Mervyn Peake's Castle Gormenghast is almost uniformly homogeneous).

3. Diversity of geography: does the world in question contain more than one kind of ecological system? C.S. Lewis's Narnia has continents with forest, desert, and a cold mountainous north, an archipelago of islands with distinct geographies, etc. By contrast, the universe of Frank Herbert's Dune novels centers around a desert planet. That's what it has got. Desert.

4. Richness: This is the term I am going to use to describe the answer to the question: does the world in question have its own history, theology, cosmology, etc.? These are among the elements that provide a world with a sense of solidity, depth, and the basis for ontological questioning, all of which are essential to the experience of "world."

So, without further ado, here is my personal top ten fictional worlds:

10. Pellucidar:

Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Pellucidar appears in a variety of novels including: At the Earth's Core, Tanar of Pellucidar, and Land of Terror. A "hollow earth" world, Pellucidar enjoys an astonishing diversity of inhabitants. More than 10 races of sentient beings, and more than 40 forms of fantastic fauna dwell there. Pellucidar also contains a fairly comprehensive geography, and the neat feature of distance being defined not in terms of a visual horizon, but in terms of relative height or depth (consequent to the curvature of the interior of the Earth). Where Pellucidar struggles, and why it ranks only tenth on this list is the question of Richness, Burroughs, like his contemporary H. Rider Haggard is more interested in plot and amazing beasts and vistas than he is in the deeper questions of world-building.

Compatibility: 6/10
Div. Inhabitants: 7/10
Div. Geography: 7/10
Richness: 3/10

Total: 23/40

9. Wonderland:

Low points for compatibility and richness are balanced by high points for diversity of inhabitants and geography.

Compatibility: 4/10
Div. Inhabitants: 8/10
Div. Geography: 8/10
Richness: 4/10

Total: 24/40

8. Pegana:

High scores for Richness here. The Gods of Pegana, the most famous of the Pegana stories, is almost exclusively dedicated to an exploration of the Richness factor, outlining the pantheons, major, minor, and micro deities of Lord Dunsany's world. Pegana is, by this measure, the most influential fictional world ever produced with luminaries like Tolkien, Lewis, and Hope Mirrlees all citing it as an influence. Pegana also possesses an intricate geography. Where it loses some points are in the areas of compatibility (nearly all of the stories of Pegana are about the deeds of gods and so there is not the balancing factor of life on the ground to help sustain the reader's habitation of the world).

Compatibility: 3/10
Div. Inhabitants: 5/10
Div. Geography: 8/10
Richness: 9/10

Total: 25/40

7. Arcturus:

Created by David Lindsay, Arcturus features fantastic geographies and a wide array of inhabitants nearly max out the diversity categories. Tolkien was an avowed fan, and Clive Barker has called it a masterpiece, but the cryptic nature of the world's history (and its relation to Gnosticism), and the extremely low compatibility score hold it back.

Compatibility: 4.5/10
Div. Inhabitants: 8.5/10
Div. Geography: 8.5/10
Richness: 4.5/10

Total: 26/40

6. Oz:

One of the lands that started it all. Oz has a rich history (did you know it wasn't always a Fairyland?), has a well defined and mapped geography, a variety of inhabitants, and a high score for compatibility. If it loses some points it is only because it could not anticipate the kind of sophistication that the fictional worlds it would inspire would attain.

Compatibility: 8/10
Div. Inhabitants: 6/10
Div. Geography: 6/10
Richness: 7/10
Total: 27/40

5. Mid-World:

The world of Stephen King's Dark Tower novels. With an established internal history (think of the legends or Arthur Eld), a vast geography, a wide array of inhabitants, this world scores better across the board than either Pellucidar or Pegana, but doesn't quite ascend to the heights of the worlds ahead of it on the list. It's kind of the Eddie Murray of fictional worlds: 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, .287 lifetime batting average, but never the best player in the league.

Compatibility: 7/10
Div. Inhabitants: 7/10
Div. Geography: 7/10
Richness: 7/10

Total: 28/40

4. World of Ice and Fire:

I don't know what else to call the world of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, but this is the absolute test case for the question of world quality vs. novel quality. I don't think very much of Martin as a writer, but the depth, breadth, history, and compatibility of his world (and it's two main continents Westros and Essos) is absolutely exceptional. We are entering the big time here.

Compatibility: 8/10
Div. Inhabitants: 8/10
Div. Geography: 8/10
Richness: 8/10

Total: 32/40

3. Earthsea:

One of the best. A vast array of lands, many distinct races of human beings, dragons, languages, land and seascapes, and allusions to a fascinating and not fully defined history. Earthsea is one of the most compelling fictional worlds ever created.

Compatibility: 9/10
Div. Inhabitants: 8/10
Div. Geography: 9/10
Richness: 9/10

Total: 35/40

2. Nirn

The world of Bethesda Softworks Elder Scrolls video games, Nirn is a masterpiece of world construction. With a detailed cosmology, rich history, hints of a pre-historical world with stories of its own, multiple avenues to accumulate knowledge, and a vast and diverse geography Nirn is, for my money, the most fully articulated world in video games.

Compatibility: 10/10
Div. Inhabitants: 9/10
Div. Geography: 10/10
Richness: 10/10

Total: 39/40

1. Middle Earth

Could there ever have been another winner? Tolkien's Middle Earth has perhaps the most detailed cosmology, depth of history and myth, a vast number of races of human beings (most of them merely hinted at), mer, and fauna. There are discrete climates and geographic regions, and the compatibility score is so high that there are collections of adult humans who go about pretending that they live there.

Compatibility: 10/10
Div. Inhabitants: 10/10
Div. Geography: 10/10
Richness: 10/10

Total: 40/40