World Shapes: Difference between revisions

* [[Philip Jose Farmer]]'s ''[[World of Tiers]]'' took the form of a world-sized wedding cake, just that the layers (tiers) are way wider than they are tall. And the top layer doesn't have a bride and groom standing on it.

* [[CS Lewis (Creator)|CS Lewis]]'s unfinished novel ''The Dark Tower'' features Othertime, which is presumably spherical, but which the inhabitants ''believe'' to be saucer-shaped. (Flat, but you can't get to the edge because gravity drags you back to the center. Of course.)

* The later ''[[Xanth (Literature)|Xanth]]'' books introduce Ida's moon which contains a complete copy of the world except slightly shifted. Naturally Ida exists on that moon and has a moon and so on. All of the shapes from spheres to discs to toroids to dumbbells to spirals to floating islands show up as one progresses down the chain of moons.

** Don't forget that Xanth itself is the shape of Florida, albeit with more varied terrain. Leaving the magical area of Xanth results in entering Mundania (Earth).

* In the ''[[The Culture|Culture]]'' series by [[Iain M Banks|Iain M. Banks]], ''Matter'', introduces the Shellworlds. Spherical worlds tens of thousands of kilometers across, with fifteen concentric habitable layers, each a separate world of its own.

* Robert L. Forward's ''Rocheworld'', two egg-shaped planets orbiting so closely around each other that they share atmosphere, and come to conical points at the ends nearest each other. Oceans can even flow between them under certain circumstances. The oddest thing is that this bizarre world-shape uses ''real-world physics'', and double stars with this configuration have been found.

* In an early ''[[Discworld]]'' novel, characters get a glimpse of some other worlds, including one based on the Norse conception of the world as a flat disc surrounded by the Midgard serpent, and one where an enormous tree sits at the hub.<br /><br />According to The Creator (the guy who made the made the universe) most worlds and universes he makes are flat worlds. [[Insignificant Little Blue Planet|There was one universe he forgot to put edges on the planets though...]]

* Terry Pratchett's ''The Dark Side of the Sun'' has a planet made entirely of water, and two stars twisted into linked toruses.

== Real Life ==

 

* Asteroids. These are too small to be pulled into spheres by their own gravity, and double as [[Shattered World|Shattered Worlds]]. Asteroid 216 Kleopatra is shaped like a dog bone.