# I'm looking for sci-fi/fantasy stories set on non-spherical worlds. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 5, 2012, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963 "2012-11-05T15:58:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/41 "2012-11-06T01:06:08Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > Quite obscure, but David Lake’s [Ring of Truth](http://www.amazon.com/The-Ring-Truth-David-Lake/dp/0879979356) is set on a “world” that is the inside of a spherical void within infinite solid matter. Sounds like someone DID write a story set in the Cyrus Teed “inside out” universe I described in post #14, I hadn’t heard of this before. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/42 "2012-11-06T01:16:01Z")
If the current movies (_Thor_) are to be believed, Asgard is a big, floating island in space. ---
**Author:** ![Satchmo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/satchmo/32/4223_2.png) [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/43 "2012-11-06T01:29:22Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Some of Larry Niven’s Known Space stories take place on Jinx which is somewhat egg-shaped (the east and west poles stick out of the atmosphere). Damn! Ninja’d by 6 and a half hours. I must be getting slow. I did like how the humans used the ends for vacuum industries, plus that was where there were Bandersnatchii. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/44 "2012-11-06T01:33:20Z")
In the World of Warcraft, the “world” of the Burning Crusade known as the Outlands is a small part of a world that got blowed up real good… just a collection of really huge, country-sized islands floating in space. (WoW purists will point out that it’s really only about 20 miles across, but whatever). ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/45 "2012-11-06T02:04:55Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Some of Larry Niven’s Known Space stories take place on Jinx which is somewhat egg-shaped (the east and west poles stick out of the atmosphere). Wasn’t there a story somewhere set on a cubic world, where the 8 vertices were essentially these huge mountains? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/46 "2012-11-06T02:06:51Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Wasn’t there a story somewhere set on a cubic world, where the 8 vertices were essentially these huge mountains? I think that’s “Vacuum Diagrams” by Stephen Baxter (that I mentioned upthread) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/47 "2012-11-06T02:08:00Z")
Ooh, another one! [Sigil](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigil_%28city%29) is the main city in the Dungeons and Dragons setting Planescape. It’s located on the inner side of a torus. I’m mainly familiar with it through the excellent computer game Torment, but it’s also been featured in novels, in case you need that for a qualification (although the game has a better story than the average fantasy novel). ---
**Author:** ![Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speak_to_me_Maddie)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/48 "2012-11-06T03:26:51Z")
Thanks for this thread op and all contributors. I just got a whole load of books added to my reading list. Cool stuff! ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/49 "2012-11-06T03:55:41Z")
Dave Duncan’s duology “Children of Chaos” and “Mother of Lies” is set on a _dodecahedral_ world. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/51 "2012-11-06T05:43:58Z")
Little-known fact: Nollywood is shaped like a phish. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/52 "2012-11-06T05:52:56Z")
Obligatory tvtropes link: > **[World Shapes - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WorldShapes?from=Main.BizarreWorldShapes)** > > Since the most prominent force in shaping a molten proto-object large enough to later be called a planet is its own gravity, worlds in real life tend to be roughly spherical in shape. This is also why there is a direct relationship between the … ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/53 "2012-11-06T08:30:42Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > You know about _Mission of Gravity_, right? Hal Clement? Planet with rotational speed great enough to significantly distort it from spherical. Not sure if that is what you have in mind or not. Technically not, since Melskin is an oblate spheroid which was explicitly excluded in the OP. It’s worth reading anyway though. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/54 "2012-11-06T08:56:22Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > In the World of Warcraft, the “world” of the Burning Crusade known as the Outlands is a small part of a world that got blowed up real good… just a collection of really huge, country-sized islands floating in space. (WoW purists will point out that it’s really only about 20 miles across, but whatever). Hell, if we’re going with video games, in the early days the planet Sonic the Hedgehog inhabited was called Moebius and was, well, a Moebius Strip. I’m not sure exactly when this stopped being canon in the Americas (this was never the case in the Japanese version due to the story not mattering and thus the teams having completely disparate story bibles). I imagine it had to have stopped being canon by the time of Sonic and Knuckles because of the clearly round Earth you see from space, but then all the crap in Robotnik’s base had “Eggman” plastered on it and that wasn’t his official name in English speaking regions until Sonic Adventure came out (which, due to it being more story heavy, was about the same time the American and Japanese storylines became the same). ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/55 "2012-11-06T10:22:56Z")
^^^^ Reported for being spherical spam. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/56 "2012-11-06T13:16:03Z")
_Helix_ by **Eric Brown** , and it’s recent sequel _Helix War_ features an immensely long string of barrel-shaped planets coiled around a sun, although I think their shape isn’t clarified until the 2nd book. I really enjoyed both books - the first involves the system’s discovery and the second is about problems that arise 200 years later. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/57 "2012-11-06T13:26:15Z")
There’s this story set on a series of [Bishop Rings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat)) orbiting around Beta Sagittarius; **[Betrayals](http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/142396)** …but I’m probably not supposed to tell anyone about this on this board, because it was me that wrote it… ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/58 "2012-11-06T13:35:29Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > [Matter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_%28novel%29), a Culture novel by Iain Banks is set on an artificial shell world, massive ships and orbitals. Orbitals are worth investigating further, if you have never read any Iain M. Banks stories. They are smaller versions of Ringworlds, which rotate once a day to give a planet-like alternation of day and night. They turn out to be about three million kilometers across, assuming an Earth-like day and Earth-like gravity. [Orbitals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(The_Culture)) ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/59 "2012-11-06T13:37:48Z")
Helical worlds makes me think of Marvel’s old _Micronauts_ comics set in the microverse, where Homeworld looked like a helical tinkertoy-type atomic model, and Spartek a spiky spheroid, IIRC. There’s also an old trilogy by Lyndon Hardy, starting with [Master of the Five Magics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Five_Magics). The last book in the trilogy involves dimension-hopping to worlds with different natural laws, including one withh rocks zooming around empty space were steered by changing the natural laws of repulsion and attraction. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/60 "2012-11-06T14:00:53Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > There’s this story set on a series of [Bishop Rings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat)) orbiting around Beta Sagittarius; **[Betrayals](http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/142396)** > > ..but I’m probably not supposed to tell anyone about this on this board, because it was me that wrote it… I hadn’t heard of that term before. To me, a Bishop’s Ring is a meteorological effect due to volcanic dust in the atmosphere: > **[Bishop's Ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop%27s_Ring)** > > A Bishop's Ring is a diffuse brown or bluish halo observed around the sun. It is typically observed after large volcanic eruptions. The first recorded observation of a Bishop's Ring was by Rev. Sereno Edwards Bishop of Honolulu, after the Krakatoa eruption of August 27, 1883. > This gigantic explosion threw a vast quantity of dust and volatile gases into the atmosphere. Sulfate aerosols remained in the stratosphere, causing colorful sunrises and sunsets for several years. The first observation of... ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963/61 "2012-11-06T15:13:40Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > In the World of Warcraft, the “world” of the Burning Crusade known as the Outlands is a small part of a world that got blowed up real good… just a collection of really huge, country-sized islands floating in space. (WoW purists will point out that it’s really only about 20 miles across, but whatever). It’s not about 20 miles across, what happens is that time moves really, really, really fast when you’re traveling (otherwise the non-blown-up, spherical Azeroth would be smaller than our Moon). > [@Ethilrist](#): > > If the current movies (_Thor_) are to be believed, Asgard is a big, floating island in space. It has been so for decades in the comics too. I promise I’m not following you around :dubious: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-sci-fi-fantasy-stories-set-on-non-spherical-worlds/639963.md?page=4)