Conference noted::sf

    Two of my favorite worlds are Perelandra and Malacandra (the "native"
    names for Venus and Mars in C. S. Lewis's space trilogy).  Later
    astronomical observations have made both descriptions obsolete,
    but that's a standard risk in SF.  These worlds can't be the real
    Mars and Venus, but they are reasonable in and of themselves, and
    both interesting and beautiful.
    
    Malacandra (Mars) is mostly red desert, but criss-crossed by a network
    of miles-deep canyons.  At the surface, the air is too thin to support
    life, and the place is inhospitably cold, but down in the canyon
    system, geothermal heat keeps things cozy and the air pressure is
    adequately high.  There is plenty of plant and animal life, including
    three separate intelligent species.  This system of canyons is,
    of course, the famous Martian canal system, and was created by the
    three Martian races when their planet was rendered uninhabitable
    during an interplanetary war.
    
    Perelandra (Venus) is covered in clouds and, beneath the clouds,
    covered in ocean.  Enormous, thick mats of vegetation float on the
    ocean like movable, flexible islands, and support forests and "land"-
    living creatures, including a race of green humanoids.  The place
    is like a fluid, polychromatic Polynesia.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    re: .0
    
    As far as size goes, Orbitsville( in the book by the same name by
    Bob Shaw) is much larger than Ringworld.   It is a Dyson sphere -
    a globe 93 millions miles in diameter.
    
    							/alan

    There's "Mission of Gravity", of course, by Hal Clement.  It's 
    the canonical book of planet-building, and is about
    a planet, Mesklin, whose spin is so high that 
    centrifugal force almost cancels
    gravity at the equator.  Gravity ranges from 3 Gs at the equator to
    800 Gs at the poles, with accompanying changes in wildlife,
    weather, culture, etc..  
    
    There's "Dragon's Egg" by Forward, which discusses life on a hot
    new neutron star.  Get interesting effects when a trillion gauss
    magnetic field crosses a billion G gravitional one, but for some
    reason Forward put a fairly ordinary ecology into it.
    
    Niven has built a lot of interesting planets, and in fact it looked
    for a while like he was systematically working through geographies.
    He had a planet whose only inhabitable area was a mountaintop, 
    one where you could only live in a canyon, one with seaonsal,
    super-hurricane force winds, one with light gravity, one with heavy,
    and so on.  His recent novels "The Smoke Ring" and "The Integral Trees"
    are set in a habitable zero-gee gas cloud orbitting around a binary
    star.
    
    Actually, I think Niven slipped up in creating Jinx.  The force of
    gravity on a planet must always be perpendicular to the
    surface, or else things will roll in the direction of the tilt.
    (Local exceptions like mountains can exist, of course).  A planet
    is like a huge water droplet - it will conform to the shape that
    minimizes potential energy.  You can't have parts that stick up out
    of the atmosphere, because those parts will tend to fall towards
    the lower areas.  You can have non-spherical planets if some other
    force besides the planet's own gravity is operating (see Mesklin above), 
    but the air pressure should be the same everywhere.

    re: "Orbitsville"

    Shaw is the only one I can think of who has really exploited the idea
    of Dyson spheres.  There's a mention of them in Fritz Leiber's 
    "The Wanderer" (where starlight is about to go out because all 
    the stars in the galaxy have been coated), and there's a series of
    pulp adventures called Cageworld (where the solar system gets dismantled
    and turned into shells), but I can't think of any others.  Perhaps
    the scale of civilizations needed for such projects are daunting 
    to writers.  It's easier to imagine a few God-like beings creating
    planets than it is to think of the trillions of people you would have
    in such an environment.  Multiply the diversity of the Earth by a
    thousand and you still wouldn't fill one of these structures.
    
    Aside from worlds that are interesting because of their physics, 
    I think Jack Vance does the best job of creating vivid and colorful
    planets.  There's Tschai, the subject of the "Planet of Adventure"
    series, with four distinct alien races and their modified human
    subjects.  There's the world of "Big Planet", where the lack of
    heavy elements means that an Earth-like planet can be 12,000 miles
    across with an acceptable gravity.  Hundreds of cultures can flourish
    without ever coming into contact, and Vance describes a few.
    There's "The Blue World", where people live on mats of seaweed on the
    endless ocean and have to extract iron from their own blood.  There's
    Pao, where language determines culture, or Iszm where people grow
    semi-sentient houses from seeds.  Vance was a merchant seaman,
    and his cosmopolitanness shows.
    
    /jlr

    re .3:
    
    > Actually, I think Niven slipped up in creating Jinx...
    > You can have non-spherical planets if some other force besides the 
    > planet's own gravity is operating...
         
    .0> ...Jinx.  It is a very massive world pulled by tidal forces into
    .0> the shape of an egg by the super-jovian planet that it orbits.
    
    > You can't have parts that stick up out of the atmosphere, because 
    > those parts will tend to fall towards the lower areas.
    > ...but the air pressure should be the same everywhere.
        
    gee, I wonder why those guys need oxygen masks to climb Everest.
    
    
    And then there is Silverberg's Majipoor. A very large low density
    planet, so that the surface gravity is close to 1G but the surface
    area is huge. He also has a mountain high enough to stick out of
    the atmosphere, which is where the king's castle is located, and
    the atmosphere is maintained artificially.
                                              
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

  Thanks for coming to the defense of a fine world, Mr. SM.  ;-)

  Let me lay Jinx to rest, because .3 has a valid point re: atmosphere holding 
the same shape as the planet.

  Jinx orbits a huge gas giant named Primary or Binary that makes Jupiter look
like a wimp.  In the far past, Jinx orbited much closer than it does "today". 
It was deformed into a "egg" shape by tidal forces. 

  Now the difference between the long and short axes are only on the order of
600 miles. Jinx's size is not mentioned, except in a vague manner as being six
times "bigger" than earth.  I took this to be six times more massive.  If
true, I would guess Jinx "on the average" to be about twice the diameter of
Earth, or 16,000 miles.  The "out-of-shape" difference is not too extreme (I 
think?). 

  In any case, Jinx was formed, cooled, and moved away from Primary.  Since it 
didn't have as many radioactives as Earth did to warm the crust it solidified
slightly out of shape before it moved out (not sure if this is real or
hand-waving science). Thus, at Jinx's present orbit, the atmosphere and
hydrosphere have resumed more or less spherical shape while the planet is
still (slightly) egg-shaped, giving us the Ends and the Ocean. 

  >>>WHEW!<<<


  As a side note, Niven's source for his planets seems to be "Habitable 
Planets for Man" an excellent book by Steven Dole.  I have been searching for 
this book for 13 years, and am quite happy to have recently discovered it.  It 
goes through all the requirements that humans need to survive and the 
probabilities for these happening among the nearby stars (data circa 1970).  

				=ELB=

    	That's what always got me about Forward's culture on the neutron
    star:  Here you have an incredible environment almost totally unlike
    Earth even in the rate of time, yet the beings on it are little
    more than slugs who act like humans!  Then again, maybe that is
    exactly what Forward wanted, though I was rather disappointed.
    
    	One of the most fascinating SF worlds to me is Solaris, the
    planet/being.  Now *there* was a truly alien environment/creature.
    
    	Larry
    

	 My vote  will  have  to go to the world created by Greg Bear in his
	 novel  "Eon".   Originally  a  large  asteroid,  picked  up  in the
	 asteroid  belt,  it is converted to a spaceship by excavating seven
	 large  chambers  inside.   Some  of  the  chambers  contain cities,
	 communicating  with  each  other  via  a  subway system, running in
	 tunnels  excavated  under  the  chamber  floors.  The (cylindrical)
	 chambers are connected at the ends by tunnels.

	 And the   seventh   chamber   goes   on   forever.    Through  some
	 technological  wizardry,  some wonderful machinery has been created
	 and  put in the sixth chamber of this asteroid/spaceship (which was
	 called  "Thistledown"  by its creators, "the Stone" by the Earthmen
	 who  discovered it).  This machinery, apart from acting as inertial
	 damping  for  everything in the asteroid, has created and maintains
	 "the  Way"  -  the  corridor  that  makes the seventh chamber go on
	 forever.

	 A tube-formed  singularity  (it goes without saying that a corridor
	 like  that  has  to have a point where all physics go haywire) runs
	 along  the  entire  Way  and  is  used  as  transportation  link by
	 "Flawriders" gliding on it.

	 On regular  intervals  along  the  Way, "gates" have been opened to
	 other  universes  -  so  the  Way is used as a point of commerce by
	 several different worlds.

	 If you haven't read the book already, don't miss it!


	 -- POL

    Avalon, the Ythrian-human joint colony in Poul Anderson's "People
    of the Wind" and "The Earth Book of Stormgate".

    Jinx may have originally formed in an egg shape, but it wouldn't stay
    that way.  For that matter, Earth mountains that are only six miles
    high eventually fall down.  On Jinx, the Ends are effectively 
    mountains 600 miles high.  The lateral forces at the base of
    such a 'mountain' would be enormous.  The rock would ooze out until
    it settled into a lower energy configuration.
    
    Look at this another way.  The potential energy of 1 kg of rock
    at an End would be:

    E = 600 miles x 2 Gs ~= 20 million joules / kg

    By rolling a tonne of rock from an End to the Middle, you could
    generate about 5000 kilowatt-hours of energy.  By rolling 200
    tonnes of rock an hour (large steam shovel rates) you could generate
    a billion watts, the capacity of a large nuclear power plant.
    There's a LOT of energy tied up in that kind of bulge, and it would
    not stay there for billions of years.
    
    /jlr

    The Puppeteer Rosette.
    
    --- jerry

    I just finished "Mission of Gravity" and I too found Mesklin and
    its inhabitants to be fascinating.
    
    I am currently reading Brian Aldiss' "Hothouse" about an Earth set very
    far in the future.  The Sun is in the process of expanding and then
    dying out.  The Earth's rotation has stopped with respect to the sun so
    that one side is always illuminated and the other is always in
    darkness.  Because of the catastrophic climatic changes, plants are the
    dominant life form.  Small tribes of humans still exist on the lit
    side, but due to radiation induced mutations, are basically primitives
    1/5 the physical size of 20th century man.
    
    I have drawn a blank on the source of another interesting world - the
    book is sitting in a bookcase at home.  The world has one river and all
    of the people that ever lived on earth now populate this world.  Noone
    can die, they simply relocate to another area of the world.  Food,
    tobacco, drugs, and liquor is provided by mushroom shaped objects
    placed along the river's banks. 

    Aldiss's "Hothouse" is also published under the name "The Long Afternoon
    of Earth".  One may be a short story while one is a novel, but
    it's the same core story.   
    
    tlh
    

    You are right, Tracey.  "Hothouse" is the novel.
    
    Thanks for the creator of Riverworld, but the actual title was "To Our
    Scattered Bodies Go".  I believe Farmer wrote a couple of sequels to
    this as well. 

    Actually, HOTHOUSE is the British title while THE LONG AFTERNOON
    OF EARTH is the American title.
    
    re:.16
    
    Farmer wrote five other Riverworld books.
    
    --- jerry

        re .16
        
        _To *Your* Scattered Bodies Go_, not *Our*

	What, no votes for Darkover or Pern? I especially like Darkover
	with it's varied population of terrans,Cheri, telepaths and 'regular'
	people. MZB gives this planet reality from the Hellers to the 
	dry towns.

	Pern of course, has the dragons and the burning threads.

	Closer to home - how about earth in Asimov's 'Caves of Steel' and
	then Solaria and Aurora with their robots. 

    What about Gaia, a living planet with a collective brain?  Talk
    about intelligent ecological planning!
    
    ... Bob

    In what story does Gaia appear?

    re: .21
    
        Gaia appears in the trilogy consisting of "Titan", "Demon",
    and "Wizard" by John Varley.
    
    ASP

    re .21:
    
    The Varley trilogy:
    
    			Titan, Wizard, Demon 
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    Re .22
    
    Oh, THAT Gaia.  It's hard to place the name, since it's just the
    Greek word for "Earth" and/or the Earth-mother goddess.  I read
    most of Varley's trilogy and it was indeed interesting.  His Gaia,
    in case you're wondering, is more like a space-station than a planet.
    It's a roughly toroidal object orbiting Saturn, several milesin
    diameter.  It is a single organism, with other organisms living
    inside it.  The thing is intelligent and has been picking up our
    radio and TV broadcasts for years.  It also designs new organisms
    and species for the fun of it, so that when our heroes arrive some
    time in the future, they find several races patterend after Terran
    mythology -- centaurs and angels, for instance.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    Uh, I was thinking about the Gaia in the last two Foundation novels.
    You know the one that grows up to become Galaxia?  That is most
    definitely a planet.  At least for now...
    
    ... Bob
    

    I'm afraid I didn't finish Varley's trilogy.  Did he ever get
    around to saying what these planet-creatures were for?  Why someone
    went to all the effort to design them?  It all seemed a bit whimsical,
    in the sense that Gaia could create anything she wanted to, so there
    was no reason for any of her creations.
    /jlr

    Re .26:
    
    What they were *for*??? What are *we* for???
    
    They were living beings, and as such were as whimsical as could
    be expected. Besides, Gaia was reaching the age when her race began
    to go mad, so her "whimsy" was becoming some sort of paranoid
    schizophrenia. No wonder things looked random...
    
    -b

    
    How about the future world of Gibson shown in the neural equivalent
    of an integrated computer network, Chiba city with its rogue doctors
    making any physical alteration money can buy, and the gritty uban
    decline of the sprawl.  Not a place I'd like to live, but very
    interesting just the same.
                                
    					DanF

    One world that caught my fancy was Hydrot, a planet of Tau Ceti
    in "The Seedling Stars" by James Blish.  We see very little of Hydrot
    in the course of the story, though.  Most of it is covered by ocean.
    The only exception is a small, marshy continent.
    
    It was colonized by a crash-landed team of genetic engineers.  Their
    last act before dying was to design the next generation of colonists.
    Using a great deal of hand-waving, Blish tries to convince you that
    (1) it is not feasible to design intelligent life for the oceans,
    and (2) it IS feasible to design intelligent life for a puddle in
    the marsh.  I don't believe him for a moment, but the result is
    facinating -- microscopic, rotifer-sized humanoids.
    
    Also facinating are the "natives," the local popultion of protozoa,
    which turn out to enjoy a stiff kind of collective intelligence
    and ally with the humans against the local rotifera.
    
    The plausibility of this world is just about zero, but for me it
    really evoked the old sense of wonder.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

        Appearing for the first time in _Midnight at the Well
        of Souls_, this world was used as a development/test
        bed for the race that populated a (our? I don't think
        so) universe with the successful species.  MatWoS
        was the first of a quintology (?) -- one of my favorite
        "extended novels" -- and, I think, Chalker's first
        of many.

Re .29 

It's been a while since I read it so I don't remember the details, but...

How about the mostly ocean planet (name?) that the colonists from a now
destroyed earth visit in Clark's "Songs of a Distant Earth". The whole planet is
covered by ocean except for a couple of islands, one of which is volcanic. The
"natives" are the decendents of embryos sent from Earth and cared for by robots
until they matured. They were sent to colonize space when it was learned that
the Sun was going to nova (in 3300 AD?). They are visited some 500 years later
by the last inhabitants of Earth who escaped just in time before the Earth was
destroyed. These visitors are just planning to stop over long enough to pick up
enough water to freeze into ablative shields for their space craft so it can
continue the journey to their final destination. During their stay, they DO
discover a marine (lobster like) life form which does seem to have an
intelligent society which it is feared may pose some threat to the natives at
some time in the future. 

    re .30:
    
    Thanks for reminding me about Chalker.
    
    My favorite is the world of "Flux and Anchor". Did he ever actually
    name it?
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    re: .27 - Varley's moon-creatures
    
    I didn't mean that Gaia was whimsical, but that her creations were.
    If you can create anything you want, it doesn't much matter what
    you create.  Also, I was under the impression that Gaia and her
    sisters were designed by someone, perhaps as habitats.  
    Did Varley say they evolved on their own?
    
    /jlr

    Another Philip Jose' Farmer series no one mentioned yet is the "World
    of the Tiers"
    "The Makers of the Universe"
    "The Gates of Creation"
    "A Private Cosmos"
    "Behind the Walls of Terra"
    "The Lavalite World"
    I thought these were very well executed and imaginatived.
    
    Mike_L

    I like Fionavar from _The Summer Tree_ and _The Wandering Fire_
    by Guy Gavriel Kay.  (the Fionavar Tapestry fantasy series)
    
    It includes a varied terrain, from the mountains, to the sea, to
    the Forest that no man dares enter.
    There are varied races and gods that intervene sometimes, to keep
    the balance between dark and light.
    Of course, there's magic abound!
    
    Theresa.

< Note 545.29 by PROSE::WAJENBERG "Just a trick of the light." >
                              -< Thinking Small >-

>    One world that caught my fancy was Hydrot, a planet of Tau Ceti
>    in "The Seedling Stars" by James Blish.  We see very little of Hydrot

Also known as "Surface Tension".

kevin

    My favorite _developed_ world is Jach Vance's Big Planet (from a
    novel of the same name).  My favorite semi-developed world is Trenco,
    in Doc Smith's Lensman Series.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Some other worlds that I've enjoyed are Roger Zelazny's Amber series.
    All worlds are but shadows of Amber including our own Earth.
    I'm currently looking for the one after "The hand of Oberon", but
    I haven't had any luck locating it.
    
    Mike_L
    

    	Could you explain what you mean by all other worlds are but
    "shadows" of Amber?  Thanks.
    
    	Larry
    

    Re shadows: That's the definition of Amber - the place of which
    all others are but shadows. (If you haven't read the books, try
    at least the first one ("Nine Princes in Amber"); the concept of
    shadow-walking is worth it all by itself.)
    
    The "shadow" concept - basically, that anything you can find anywhere
    in the universe has an "original" somewhere in Amber - reminded
    me of Lewis' Narnia chronicles, in which the afterworld is rather
    like that. Lewis' idea was that Heaven is the ultimate reality,
    and this world is merely a dim reflection; sometimes glimmers of
    wonder come through, but often it's obscured by evil deeds or
    shortsighted people. 
    
    -b

    re:.36 re:.29
    
    Actually, the story about Hydrot is titled "Surface Tension",
    while THE SEEDLING STARS is the name of the collection that
    contains it.
    
    --- jerry

    Re .39 & .40
    
    Amber is very like a Platonic archetype.  It is the ideal, perfect
    city, in the ideal, perfect world.  All other cities and worlds
    are "shadows" cast by Amber.  The people in Amber are less than
    ideal, but they are rather godlike and cast their own shadows into
    the shadow-worlds.  Our Earth is only one of a huge number of
    shadow-worlds.  At the far pole of reality from Amber stands (floats?
    drifts?) the Courts of Chaos.  Near Amber, the worlds are magical
    in a medieval-fairy-tale way; near Chaos, they are magical in a
    surrealistic way; presumably our world is in a relatively dull stretch
    in between.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    Cuckoo, which is I believe the work of Poul Anderson and Jack
    Williamson?
    
    len.
    

    The planet Cricket - Douglas Adams
    
    John J
    

    re:.43
    
    That's Fred Pohl, not Poul Anderson.
    
    I know, those Po{h,u}ls are all alike. :-)
    
    --- jerry

    
    re .43, .45:
    
    Right jerry, I realized that on the way home.  Gee, if I just had
    a cellular modem...
    
    len.
    

    
    How about:
    
    	o "Kobold", from _Protector_ (Niven) which is a toroid a few
    miles across built by the Brennan-Monster (a protector stage human).
    He "uses generated gravity as an art form". At the center of the
    toroid is a circular lake... which can be reached by swimming up one side
    of a bidirectional stream...
    
    	o Sagittarius A from _Gateway_, _Beyond the Blue Event Horizon_
    and _Heechee Rendezvous_. The black hole where the Heechee live...
    				- HBM

    Anyone remeber?
        
    Robert Asprin's DEVA dimension from the MYTH series.
    A collection of tents, storefronts, stalls, malls, and gambling
    halls as far as the horizon.  Each opening out into an Alternate
    dimension for "STORAGE".
              
    
    

    RE: -1
    
     I though DEVA had the tents and so on, FROM every place, not TO
    every place. It was the one door in the house (green door I think)
    that went to other places.
    
    Ben

        Nobody said anything all the worlds in Venus on a halfshell
    (Kilgor[Kirt Vonnegut]Trout). Or Trafalmador from Slaghter house
    five. Two of my all time favorite books.
    
                  R
                   R
    

	Dosadi  was a very interesting world.  From books by Herbert,

	Whipping Star, The Dosadi Experiment,  ....  my memory fails but

	I think there might be  another book in this milieu.



					mkowa

    A vote for Barsoom.
    
    	Without this, I may never have gotten into SF.
    
    Also, though not my overall favorites, Deathworld (H. Harrison)
    and the world from Poul Anderson's `Fire Time'.
    
    Mike

       The Adept world/s.
    
       The Moon (by lots of authors).
    
    
    Nick.

    The world of the Belgariad & the Mallorean.
    
    K.C.

    My favorite world, as a world, is David Lindsay's world in "A Voyage
    to Arcturus". I think his name is David. His world is truly wierd.
    
    A close runner up is probably the earth in "Stars My Destination",
    by Bester. I like what he did.
    
    steve popkes
    

    Treason - Orson Scott Card

    Nobody has mentioned Leguin's Earthsea.

    But my favorite is her Forest.

    -- mikeK

    Hyperion, from the book of the same name, by Dan Simmons.
    
    And another vote for Ringworld.
    
    len.
    

    
    
    	Most of you are probably going to go "oh god" but I think
    	 the most interesting world would be Xanth.
    
    	M
    	 B

    For those of you who like obscurity, the despairing earth in the Mark
    S. Geston novels: Lords of the Starship, Out of the Mouth of the Dragon
    and The Day Star.
    
    Not that I would want to *live* there...
    
    steve p

    Re: .-1
    
    Obscure, but favorites.  Do you think they are all the same world?
    "The Day Star" was set in a place where you could walk 
    upwind into Time along the Road into greater and greater worlds.
    The other two were set in worlds ravaged by apocalyptic wars.
    The tone of "Lords of the Starship" and "Out of the Mouth of the 
    Dragon" was similar, but I'm not sure that they shared anything else.
    
    /jlr

                Not exactly a world, but I kind of like Zelazny's
                Roadmarks where the  highway  runs  through  time
                with different exits for different periods.
                
                Also, Amber is cool, Terry Brooks' Shannara world
                and S.  R.  Donaldson's world is on the top of my
                list  (with Tolkein right up there  as  well,  of
                course)
                

    re:.64 re:.63
    
    Yes, all three novels are set in the same world, though THE DAY
    STAR was set much later then the other two. (I should note that
    I haven't read these for almost 20 years, so details are hazy,
    but I'm sure that they're all connected).
    
    --- jerry

    
    	Maybe I'd rather vote for a shadow...
    
    							Mauricio

    re: .64, etc
    
    All three were set in the universe of the day star, there are
    references in the day star to the other two. I think there was a
    reference to the evil empire whose name I have forgetten in Out of the
    Mouth of the Dragon.
    
    steve p
    

    Re .64 & .68
    
    Could you describe this Day Star universe more fully?
    
    Earl Wajenberg

not a world so much as a concept -

the cyberpunk concept of the matrix and machine space/machine reality.

Plug into the matrix/the net and it becomes your world, and unlike a 
video game - it can kill you...

grins,

clark.

    re: -.1
    
    I don't know what book the preceeding person read, but as far as I can
    tell it was not Mark Geston's The Day Star
    
    There is very little technology in the day star. The premise is the
    universe is like a nautilus shell. Each chamber of the shell is a
    world. The sun is the source of time which enters the univers through
    the opening of the "shell" losing potency as it proceeds through the
    shell until it reaches the last chamber. The last chamber is only
    lightly touched by time.
    
    The thread connecting all of these worlds is a road that the main
    character walks to the center. Outside the "shell" are the forces of
    chaos, which are unbridled time.
    
    As far as I can remember, there is not a single computer in the entire
    book, much less any video- or cyberspace.
    
    Which makes sense in Geston's writing. One of his recurring themes is
    not that technology itself is bad, but that the blind worship of
    technology loses man his soul. He says this baldly in The Seige of
    Wonder, which, I believe, is his last book.
    
    steve p

    I kind of like the Twenty Universes in Glory Road... lots of room
    and dragons I can believe in...
                      
    						js

    I'll bet .70 is referring to one of the worlds in Hyperion...
    

    re .73 re .70 - no, there is no cyberpunk notion of the "matrix" in
    the Hyperion novels, though there is a very roughly analogous notion of
    "artificial" intelligences interacting with reality.  The stuff from
    .70 sounds more likely to have come from W. T. Quick's novels (Dreams
    of Flesh and Sand, etc.) or Walter Gibson's work (Neuromancer, etc.).
    
    len.
    

    re .74 re .74 re .70 - I think it's William Gibson.  But then, I'm no
    surer of that than I was of it being Walter.
    
    len.
    

    re:.75 re:.74
    
    It's William Gibson. Walter Gibson was the man who created and wrote
    The Shadow.
    
    --- jerry

    My personal favorites are Katherine Kurtz' Gwynnedd and Patricia
    Kenneally's Keltia, but only after the obligatory Middle Earth which is
    the ultimate of fantasy/fiction worlds.
    
    Andrew
    

The Integral Trees and Smoke Ring