• grumpasaurusrex@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    Definitely the world of Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot series (A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy). It’s a kind & beautiful world where people can be and do whatever feels meaningful to them because it’s close to a post-scarcity anarcho-communist utopia. Humans live in small but interconnected communities that exist in harmony with nature.

    Highly recommend the series if you want to escape to a warm comforting world for a while. It’s a duology of novellas, so a pretty quick read through.

  • ZDL@lazysoci.al
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    3 months ago

    The world of Earthsea from Ursula K. LeGuin’s books. Why?

    • the setting’s philosophy is nearly Daoist in its focus on balance over domination;
    • although it started (deliberately) with a very patriarchal magic order, over time it was revealed that the “mere witches” the mages looked down upon held the roots of true magic and were instrumental in preserving the world;
    • said magic was based on “true names” meaning to hold power over anything at all you had to deeply and profoundly understand it, resulting in a world of scholars and poets and deep observers – a world, in short, of knowledge instead of warriors;
    • the world wasn’t white, with the default skin colour being a reddish-brown, if memory serves;
    • being a world sort of on the cusp of iron and bronze age technology, but stable (c.f. further above on balance over domination), the world is mostly idyllically coded and the conflict comes mostly from within, instead of the usual fare of huge earth-shattering events that threaten all.
  • almost1337@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    I wouldn’t pick Cradle to start with, but the Cradleverse would certainly be interesting.

  • Balinares@pawb.social
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    3 months ago

    Pern, no question. The people who mentioned the Culture are definitely on to something, and yet, all the same… Give me Pern.