So much of what entertainment is comes down to being about escapism. Not all of it and even the best escapism material out there will still make you think, grow and learn from what you’re reading. But when you pick up a book or check out an anime series or get interested in a movie that’s coming out, it’s all about putting yourself into that world and experiencing it through the creative people that have put it together. And often as the times in the real world gets tougher, the escapism becomes even more interesting and sometimes even more surreal, a trend that’s actually been bucked in the last decade of turmoil due to so many companies that put out creative materials going the safer route rather than challenging themselves and the audience.
Having gone through an immense amount of material over the years there’s more than enough worlds that you’d want to live in. And I’ll even get out of the way of some of the obvious ones like a number of, um, hentai series that I get to watch. But once you get past that, the field opens wide when you have to ask yourself, what world would I want to live in?
When it comes to fantasy novels, it’s a childhood guilty pleasure to want to be a part of the Xanth world, both for its abilities, sense of wonder and the layer of smuttines that exudes from it.
I’m even a bit old school and simple when it comes to post apocalyptic worlds where I’d want to set up my tent as the original Macross series offers so many possibilities when you get to a a survivor from the majority of humanity being wiped away in a matter of minutes.
The world of comic books is a bit harder when it comes to superheroes as I’m not exactly a Marvel fan with the way that universe has worked, so it’d have to be a DC Comics setting. Which has the added bonus of knowing that every few years there’s a chance I could be rebooted back to life.
The harder part for choosing a world to live in when it comes to science fiction books as there’s such a wealth of potential, once you ignore most of the climate cliff books that have dominated the genre for years. There are time periods within the Foundation universe that I’d love to set up and enjoy and even some of Asimov’s early books have some neat ideas when it comes to the Elijah Bailey books. And a big temptation comes to settle in with the later time period that comes from Robert Heinlein’s Time Enough For Love novel with Lazarus Long. But in the end, even with it filled with a fair bit of strife, I’d opt for something within the Commonwealth novels written by Peter F. Hamilton as it deals with human expansion into the universe and a wide variety of challenges and changes.
So what about you? What kind of world would you want to become a part of if you had the chance and choice to do so, from TV series to anime to comics and more. The world is pretty much your oyster and surely there are very different choices depending on what you’re in the mood for…
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