Here's mine:

The DC Vertigo universe

Although strictly connected to the more mainstream DC comic universe it is more often than not an existence of its own. My main windows into this have been Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books, Alan Moore’s Swampthing and the Hellblazer comics staring my current avatar, John Constantine. God(s) exist in this universe, but only as long as they are worshipped by humans. The Jeudo-Christian God is a bastard, as power hungry and conniving as the different incarnations of Satan. There is a grittiness to this universe that has played an important part in bringing a certain maturity to the comic/graphic-novel art form.

The post-apocalyptic Fallout universe

The Fallout games take place in an alternate existence to our own in which nuclear war between the Chinese and Americans destroyed civilisation in the year 2077. Although they were at the technological level that we may assume we will be in the 2070s America’s culture was that of the late fifties and early sixties. So the wastelands are a mixture of high-end technology and pulp culture. Fusion reactors and plasma guns exist alongside posters for Jazz clubs and noir detective magazines.

A Song of Ice and Fire universe

I’m a relative newcomer to GRRM’s fantasy world. I watched the Game of Thrones television series last year and spent the winter reading all the books. It isn’t the most realistic or adult fantasy series I have read, nor the one with the grandest scope to its ideas. But GRRM nevertheless manages to instil a wonderful amount of realism and scope into his world. His characterisation is brilliant. And despite the huge amount of characters he manages to make them all unique and relatable.

The Revelation Space universe

With the exception of a few Arthur C Clark books Alistair Reynolds’ Revelation Space trilogy was my first introduction to what is known as “hard science fiction”. There is no faster than light travel or communication. There are no teleporters or replicators. And any aliens are truly alien. The idea that the human race will diverge into different sects depending on their philosophies on technology is not an original one within SF, but it really feels as if Reynolds has thought it out more than his fellow authors. The back story behind the characters’ interactions is one of humongous scope. Literally going billions of years into the past and future. And of course, the coolest spaceship with the coolest name exists in this universe, The Nostalgia for Infinity.

Mass Effect. It's big and a huge with plenty of unknown to face up to and shoot with big guns.

When it comes down to it, isn't that what it's all about?

Fallout most definitely. Been with it since the beginning. Loved the whole retro futuristic, 50s pulp view of the future.

Also loved the Traveler universe. Based mostly on Asimov's Empire / Foundation with a few other writers blended in.

Hammers Slammers would have to be in there also. Dogs of War in a high tech setting.

I've never heard of the "traveler". But I've read most of Asimov's Foundation series. I think the only one I haven't is the one where he ties in the I, Robot universe to his Foundation one.

I'm going to have to look into that.

Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space) in particular the Rust Belt, Chasm City and Nostalgia for Infinity.

The Culture - Iain M Banks, although strangely enough its the every day life that more interests me than the weird and wonderful settings of the novels.

Hell

Those described in pretty much any of Borges's fictions. And of course those of CalvIno's Invisible Cities.

Nivens 'Known Space'.

MacIver wrote:I've never heard of the "traveler". But I've read most of Asimov's Foundation series. I think the only one I haven't is the one where he ties in the I, Robot universe to his Foundation one.

I'm going to have to look into that.

I read the Foundation series and Robot series. They all take place in the same universe and the history in Traveler is drawn straight from Empire and Foundation. The game setting takes place during the Dark Age.

There is a collection of short stories by various authors that takes place in the Robot period that I loved. There is a mnemonic that was at the core of one of the stories that I remember to this day. "Most Voters Earn Money Just Showing Up Near Polls". I'll let you puzzle on that one for a while.

Grimstad wrote:

Traveller is a series of related science fiction role-playing games, the first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop and subsequent editions by various companies remaining in print to this day. The game was inspired by such classic science fiction stories as the Dumarest saga series by E. C. Tubb, the Foundation stories of Isaac Asimov, H. Beam Piper's Space Viking, Larry Niven's Known Space, Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium, Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League and several other works of science fiction literature[citation needed].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28game%29

Blast from the past, I remember the figures. Did other role play games MERP, star frontiers, mech warrior & shadow run mostly.

Grimstad wrote:There is a mnemonic that was at the core of one of the stories that I remember to this day. "Most Voters Earn Money Just Showing Up Near Polls". I'll let you puzzle on that one for a while.

Ah, another case of Science Marches On.

infiniteentropy wrote:Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space) in particular the Rust Belt, Chasm City and Nostalgia for Infinity.

The Culture - Iain M Banks, although strangely enough its the every day life that more interests me than the weird and wonderful settings of the novels.

Agree on both but if I had a choice to live in it would be The Culture, the everyday life sounds interesting.

Admittedly I had to Google that to figure it out.

I guess now it wouldn't make any sense.

Most Voters Earn Money Just Showing Up Near Polls.

MacIver wrote:Admittedly I had to Google that to figure it out.

I guess now it wouldn't make any sense.

Most Voters Earn Money Just Showing Up Near Polls.

Yup, it needs an update.

Most Voters Earn Money Just Showing Up NAKED

Oh, Dante's, of course. I'm not sure how I forgot that one.

Actually, I often feel like Purgatorio isn't an alternate universe, but is my daily life.

I think Discworld wins this for me. Where there´s L-space and narrativum you can´t really go wrong and the combination of gritty and funny (with various levels of emphasis) in the later books is just great.
A close second is the Warhammer 40k universe - as lifetime geek I´ve pushed tiny model around for an age or two and that particular dystopia can be interpreted so broadly, with rather rich thematic material. The complete lack of anybody remotely being a good guy makes up for it being rather soft SciFi.
For universes in single books, Neal Stephenson has a few rather good ones - I´ve liked the world of Anathem and the young ladies illustrated primer.
Finally - to give the impression of errudition rather than just nerdiness - the universe in Steins Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is brilliant.

Just ordered Anathem susu.exp. Sounds good.

I like the Eve universe and history

there is tons of stuff to read about it and 2 novels

the old intro to the game:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjbwsyhJjUs[/youtube]
unfortunately they replaced it with something less backstoryish

some stories and fiction:
http://www.eveonline.com/creations/fiction/
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Portal:EVE_Fiction

Reading Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald now. Hard to tell how fictional this is. Definitely not entirely real, nor entirely unreal.

Incidentally, Sebald's is some of the finest prose I've ever come across, anywhere, in any genre. Even in translation from the German. It doesn't surprise me that before his tragically early death he was short-listed for the Nobel Prize. He's the real thing.