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The exploration of other worlds is one of the most enduring themes of science fiction.
During the first decades of science fiction, Mars was the most common planet and the most romanticized of our solar system whose surface conditions seemed closest to being amenable to life. Percival Lowell's idea about canals of Mars was taken at face value then. Currently Mars is depicted mainly as a target of terraforming. See Mars in fiction for more details on the red planet's numerous roles.
During the early-to-mid 20th century, Venus was also a popular subject. Venus is very similar to Earth in its size and surface gravity, and its surface is hidden by a thick cloud layer. Venus was usually depicted as a warm, wet, jungle- and marsh-covered world where life was plentiful, with often thinly-veiled allegories of the European colonization of Africa. Venus is in fact an inhospitable world — the clouds are sulfuric acid, the atmosphere is hundreds of times thicker than Earth's, and the surface temperature could melt lead. See Venus in fiction for more details and particular works.
Fictional planets
Authors have created thousands of fictional planets. Most of them are nearly indistinguishable from Earth, which is why Brian M. Stableford calls them "Earth-Clones". In these, differences with Earth life are mostly social (like Barrayar in the science fiction of Lois McMaster Bujold). More physically unusual planets have been in the hard science fiction books.
Unusual social environment Typical examples are prison planets, primitive cultures, political or religious extremes and pseudo-medieval societies. - See: Utopia, Dystopia.
Some Fantasy Worlds are also depicted as alien planets.
Unusual physical environment Typical examples are one-climate planets — deserts, waterworlds, arctic conditions and especially jungles. - Abyormen — Hal Clement's Cycle of Fire (temperature extremes)
- Acid — Total Annihilation (Corresive oceans with forests of explosive gasbag plants)
- Aquarius — Giant waterworld that caused the Biblical Great Flood. From Final Yamato of the Space Battleship Yamato series.
- Arrakis — Frank Herbert's Dune (desert world, sole source of Melange)
- Atlantis — Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy (waterworld)
- Ballybran — Anne McCaffrey's Crystal Singer
- Bespin — Star Wars (gas giant with habitable atmospheric layer)
- Big Planet — Jack Vance
- Core Prime — Total Annihilation (metallic with a gigantic computer at its core and a landfill-covered satellite)
- Cybertron — Transformers (Metallic/Mechanical)
- Dagobah — Star Wars (swamp, Yoda's hideout)
- Dhrawn — Hal Clement's Star Light (high gravity)
- Dragon's Egg — Robert Forward (life on neutron star)
- Echronedal — Iain M. Banks' The Player of Games (a fire storm forever sweeping round an unbroken equatorial continent)
- Ego the Living Planet — Marvel comics (living planet)
- Erna — C. S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy (psychically malleable quasi-sentient natural forces)
- Far Away — Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star (triangle of stratospheric mountains, sterilized by solar flare, Starflyer alien)
- Gamilon/Gamilus — Polluted homeworld of Leader Desslock the Gamilon/Gamilus Empire — Space Battleship Yamato
- Garth — David Brin's Uplift War (weird biology)
- Giedi Prime — Frank Herbert's Dune series (surface covered in upwelling oil, homeworld of House Harkonnen)
- God's Grove — Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos (forest world,Worldtree)
- Hekla — Hal Clement's Cold Front (ice age aliens)
- Helliconia — Brian Aldiss (seasons last millennia)
- Hoth — The Empire Strikes Back (arctic)
- Homeworld of The Micronauts, actually a chain of worldlets connected which resembles the ball and stick molecular model.
- Htrae — Red Dwarf (a backwards version of Earth).
- Hydros — Robert Silverberg's Face of the Waters (waterworld)
- Hyperion — Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos (one of 9 labyrinth planets, Time Tombs)
- Ishtar — Poul Anderson's Fire Time (periods of intense heat)
- Kharak — Homeworld (desert planet)
- Kithrup — David Brin's Startide Rising (waterworld rich in heavy metals, which form part of the biochemical structure of its life. Mildly toxic to non-native life. also the "retirement" home of a neurotic race with enormous psi power)
- LV-426 — Aliens
- Lamarckia — Greg Bear's Legacy (Lamarckian evolution)
- Manaan — Star Wars (ocean)
- Majipoor — Robert Silverberg (large planet)
- Mare Infinitus — Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos (waterworld)
- Maui-Covenant — Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos (motile isles)
- Medea — Harlan Ellison's worldbuilding project
- Mesklin — Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity (superjovian)
- Monea — Star Trek: Voyager (waterworld)
- Mor-Tax — the aliens' true homeworld in the first season of War of the Worlds (described as a garden planet)
- Nacre — Piers Anthony's Omnivore
- Placet — Fredric Brown's Placet is a Crazy Place
- Poseidon — Blue Planet Roleplaying game (ocean world)
- Pyrrus — Harry Harrison's Deathworld (high gravity and psychic animals)
- Regis III — Stanislaw Lem's Invincible (inorganic evolution)
- Rocheworld — Robert Forward (double planet)
- Smoke Ring — Larry Niven's Integral Trees & Smoke Ring (gas ring around a neutron star)
- Sol Draconi Septem — Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos (glacier covered)
- Solaris — Stanislaw Lem's Solaris (living planet)
- Star One. A star with a single planet holding the Federation's main computers in Blakes Seven, situated between our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy. Planet destroyed in an intergalactic war.
- Tatooine — Star Wars movies (desert world)
- Tenebra — Hal Clement's Close to Critical (high gravity and corrosive atmosphere)
- Terminal — an artificial planet displaying extreme polar flattening in Blakes Seven.
- Thalassa — Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth (waterworld)
- T'ien Shan — Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos (mountain world, toxic surface clouds)
- Ursa Minor Beta nearly always Saturday afternoon The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Well World — Jack L. Chalker's Well of Souls series (surface divided in thousands of different ecosystems, each one with a different sentient race)
- World of Tiers — Philip José Farmer's book series of the same name (world-sized stepped pyramid with a different environment on each step)
- Yavin 4 — Fourth moon of the gas giant, Yavin; Rebel Alliance stronghold located in the ruins of an ancient Massassi temple (abandoned long ago) from "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope"
- Zahir — Valerian series (hollow planet)
Other - Aiur — jungle planet in Starcraft the computer game
- Altair IV — Forbidden Planet
- Ahnooie-4 where spaceman Spiff (Calvin) decides to put a repulsive blob out of its misery
- Arisia — E. E. Smith's Lensmen series
- Ark — The Strugatsky brothers
- Athse — Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest
- Bajor — Star Trek
- Barsoom — Edgar Rice Burroughs, heroic fantasy version of Mars
- Belzagor — Robert Silverberg's Downward to the Earth
- The Blue Sands Planet — The Strugatsky brothers
- Bog where Spaceman Spiff (Calvin) avoids pools of toxic chemicals under a choking atmosphere of poisonous gases
- Boskone — Smith's Lensmen series
- Bothawui — Star Wars cosmopolitan planet of Bothans
- Caladan — House Atreides home planet before being ordered to take up occupancy of Arrakis. Herbert's Dune.
- Caprica — destroyed home planet of the Battlestar Galactica, one of the 12 home worlds
- Centauri Prime — homeworld of the Centauri in the Babylon 5 universe
- Cyteen — C. J. Cherryh's Cyteen series
- Darkover — Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series (medieval culture and psi powers)
- Discworld — not quite a planet, as it's flat and supported by giant elephants
- Epsilon 3 — orbited by Babylon 5
- Exxilon — Doctor Who episode "Death to the Daleks"
- Gallifrey — Doctor Who (main character's home planet)
- Garrota — The Strugatsky brothers
- Gauda Prime — a planet on which the series Blakes Seven comes to an end.
- Giedi Prime — home planet of the Harkonnen Dynasty from Dune
- Gloob, above which spaceman Spiff (Calvin) has a malfunction in his hyper freem drive and is blasted with a deadly frap ray by the aliens
- Gorgona — The Strugatsky brothers
- Hegira — Greg Bear
- Helicon - Home of Psychohistory founder, Hari Seldon in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series
- Hiigara — Homeworld (lost Kushan home planet)
- Homeworld — Scott Westerfeld's Succession Series (Risen Imperial capital)
- Hope — The Strugatsky brothers
- Kaitan — Frank Herbert's Dune (home of the Padishah Emperors)
- Kashyyyk — Star Wars planet of Wookiees
- Krypton — Superman
- Lar Metaal — Planet which shifts location in space every 1,000 years. Homeworld of Queen Promethium, Maetel and possibly Emeraldas — Galaxy Express 999, Queen Millenia, Maetel Legend
- Legis XV — location of Scott Westerfeld's Succession Series
- Leonida — The Strugatsky brothers
- Lithia — James Blish's Case of Conscience
- Lusitania — Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead
- Metaluna — This Island Earth
- Minbar — homeworld of the Minbari in the Babylon 5 universe
- Mok, where spaceman Spiff (Calvin) undergoes water torture (his mother washes his hair)
- Mongo — Flash Gordon
- Morthrai — destroyed world of the aliens in the second season of War of the Worlds
- Narn — homeworld of the Narn in the Babylon 5 universe
- Oa — headquarters of the Green Lantern Corps
- Pandora — The Strugatsky brothers
- Panta — The Strugatsky brothers
- The Planet of the Apes — originally a book by Pierre Boulle
- Ix — Frank Herbert's Dune (The machine planet)
- Plootarg, where Spaceman Spiff (Calvin) crashes after being zorched by a Zarch spacecraft
- Q-13 where Spaceman Spiff (Calvin) faces despicable scum beings with his mertilizer beam and mordo blasters
- Qo'noS/Kronos — Klingon homeworld in the Star Trek universe
- Qar'To — a planet established in the first season of War of the Worlds to be in the same system as that of the invading aliens (Mor-Tax) and has sent a synth to assassinate the Advocacy
- Rainbow — The Strugatsky brothers
- Reverie — Bruce Sterling's Artificial Kid
- Rigel IV — The Simpsons Home Planet of Kodos & Kang.
- Ruzhena — The Strugatsky brothers
- Salusa Secundus — Frank Herbert's Dune (prison planet and training ground of the Padishah Emperors' Sardaukar)
- Saraksh — The Strugatsky brothers
- Saula — The Strugatsky brothers
- Skaro — Home planet of the Daleks
- Tagora — The Strugatsky brothers
- Terminus - Home of the Foundation in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series
- Texlahoma - depressive Earth analogue in Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X
- Thyferra — Star Wars
- Tirol — Homeworld of the Robotech Masters —Robotech
- Tissa — The Strugatsky brothers
- Tleilax — Frank Herbert's Dune (home of the Bene Tleilaxu)
- Trantor — Galactic Empire and Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov — A planet-wide city
- Vladislava — The Strugatsky brothers
- Vulcan — Star Trek
- Wallach IX — in Dune, the home of the Bene Gesserit.
- "X" (planet) source of Alludium Phosdex, the shaving cream atom, in Duck Dodgers
- X-13 where spaceman Spiff (Calvin) is captured and brought before the Zorg despot
- Z'ha'dum — Home of the Shadows in Babylon 5
- Zanshaa — Walter Jon Williams's Dread Empire's Fall (Shaa Imperial Capital)
- Zark, where spaceman Spiff (Calvin) has several adventures escaping sinister aliens
- Zartron-9 home of the awful bug beings who blast spaceman Spiff (Calvin) while he reboots his saucer's computer and tries to recalibrate his weapons
- Zog, where spaceman Spiff (Calvin) makes a (very rare) perfect 3 point landing
- Zok, where spaceman Spiff (Calvin) is marooned
- Zokk, where spaceman Spiff (Calvin) bounds across the landscape given the low gravity
- Zorg, where spaceman Spiff (Calvin) sets his gun on deep-fat fry to blast aliens
In addition, some writers and scientists have speculated about artificial worlds or planet-equivalents; see Larry Niven's Ringworld or Freeman Dyson's Dyson sphere.
Books - Neil F. Comins: What if the Moon didn't exist
- Stephen Gillette: World-Building (Writer's Digest Books)
- Brian Stableford: The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places
Related articles
External links - Worldbuilding Class (http://www.world-builders.org/)
- The Multiverse Database (http://www.multiverse-db.com/)
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