Okay, so give me a few minutes to put up the poll, its got 16 options. I personally like a lot of them, but dc comics has to be my fave. Outlandish scale and powers, elements of sci fi interwoven with fantasy. Booyah! And DC is cooler than Marvel.

Narnia is a close secind wonderful stories of a land that evokes truly magical feelings. (So i sound like a disney character, sue me.) Narnia is one of the few fictional settings that i would actually want to live in.

Anywho, elaborate on your choice(s) and tell us why you love them!

The "A Song of Ice & Fire" book series is probably currently my favorite fantasy "setting". The new "Game of Thrones" television series on HBO, which is quite good I must say, is based upon said series.

Crap! It says i can only post a poll within of posting the thread, and i had so many options i cant type that fast! Im gonna message matty, maybe he'll put it up for me...

Narnia does have the sort of "a hero is you" feel to it. I can dig it.

Personally I adore the Gormenghast series, Mervyn Peake's writing is so overwhelming and intricate, it's like reading a Gothic cathedral in braille.

Also the Star of the Guardians series by Margaret Weis is kind of amazing, it's a sort of Robespierre/Machiavelli-themed epic space opera.

I also heartily enjoy China Mieville (eg Perdido Street Station). He writes a gorgeously vulgar sort of fantasypunk noir with huge scope in his worldbuilding.

Charles DeLint can be amazing as well, he writes urban fantasy that gradually blends mythology that sort of lives on the fringe of city life. Someplace to be Flying is one of my favorite books of all time.

Haruki Murakami is sort of similar to DeLint in that his books start out very mundane, with uninspiring main characters, and the plot sort of drifts diagonally forward into increasing surreality almost before you (or the character) notices or can really second-guess it. His writing sets the sort of atmosphere like if you stay up super late at night and nobody's around, and the world just seems sort of unreal. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the first one I read and it is very very good, but The Windup Bird Chronicles is one I keep going back to over and over as sort of a comfort-book.

Edit: I'm also ashamed that you didn't include Dune - Epic Nerdesert!

Edit2: I don't know about setting per se, but the Ender series (the old one at least, haven't read the new ones) get my vote for biggest emotional impact from any sci-fi/fantasy. Ender's Game especially usually makes me cry at least a few times throughout.

Poll posted. You owe me, that was a ton of typing.

There is no spoon.

I do owe you, thanks. i'll mail you a hundred dollars!... monopoly money is okay, right?

Also, while i tried to hit as many major series as i could, it seems there are plenty of others that people cherish...something tells me "other" will be the most commonly selected answer.

Oh, yes, i should have made that an option. "Matrix - there is no nerd"

Am on book 3 of Steven Erikson's 'Malazan Book of the Fallen' (fantasy). The author is an archaeologist, or ex-archaeologist, and at times you get an inkling of that in the details, but the overall plotlines are quite in-depth.

The matrix gets my vote but as far as setting or environmemt I would say anachronox.

I voted Other mostly because I cant decide. Hitchhikers would be comedic fun, Firefly would be kind of cool, but we'll probably end up in an Arthur C Clarke version of the future.

Also, I dont know how many of you use tumblr but this one is one of my favorites:

http://****yeahsciencefiction.tumblr.com/ Im sure you can figure out what got censored >_>

Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe. No FTL, novel solution to Fermi's Paradox, space combat that needs to take relativity into account etc.

You might enjoy John Scalzi, eg Old Man's War. It actually goes into taking FTL into account in space combat.

you should be beaten for leaving Babylon 5 out of the poll options..

B5 deserves much more than "other"

Too many to really name, but I'll still go with my first nerd love, the Marvel Universe.

EPIC FAIL to not include Jack Vance's 'Tales From The Dying Earth' books!

Best SF author ever.

Battletech is my favorite universe other than Star Wars, followed by LotR. LotR was displaced as #2 once the films came out and I lost all interest in the books because of them. Hopefully one day I can return to them but for now only the Hobbit and Silmarillion are untarnished for me.

I'll be honest, I was torn between Harry Potter and LotR for different reasons. (in part because I knew poor Potter wouldn't be getting much love, and partially because I've read HP more times than I've read LotR) But as far as world building goes and my sadness in leaving a particular world once I'm done with the books, it's got to be LotR hands down.

Terminator!

Amber is more fantasy than sci-fi.

Also you spelled Chronicles wrong.

Other, Doctor Who.

9/11 conspiracy universe.

Or, uh, Stargate.

.

I'm definitely fond of the Star Trek series myself.

Cant choose! aaagh!

Name them all!

SHOULD'VE MADE IT A CHECKBOX POLL

you know, so we can all vote for everything :3

I'm a LotR geek, in addition to Star Wars. I've read The Silmarillion, The Children of Huron, The Book of Lost Tales, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. I really need to get them out and read them again sometime.

I'm not going to say it's my favorite, but Mass Effect deserves some attention.

or nothing

Sky Doll.

Stargate. I love how the story develops, it did so in such a way that made it seem possible for everything to actually happen.

Whats with the word nerd in everything

Movie or show?

Its my attempt at humorous punning...

The Legend of the Galactic Heroes. The Galactic Reich vs Space America with fleets of warships numbering in the 6 digits. Featuring REAL strategy and tactics, an actual no bull**** story with actual characters, an understanding of what light speed means, and Space Marines that almost exclusively wield axes.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b329/Cmd598/logh/1229909193264.jpg

And it's depiction of democratic/American politicians is frighteningly accurate to today, despite being over twenty years old (Really, almost 30 if you count the novel). Also, it's anime.

I wouldn't want to live in the Doctor Who universe...being an average human would get us screwed over..Dalek invasion..Cybermen...it doesn't make you The Doctor or a companion..it just makes you screwed

Nerd.

Hmm, fan of Star Trek myself, since I grew up with it. But I prefer Isaac Asimov these days, great books!

Actually, the Gateway world by Frederik Pohl is probably one of my favorite sci-fi experiences.