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The adage 'truth is stranger than fiction' has stood the test of time, and for sci-fi enthusiasts, this sentiment often feels reinforced by online compilations of the most peculiar real planets observed in the cosmos. While these real worlds boast extraordinary geological features, no truly unique extraterrestrial life forms have been discovered, much less the thought-provoking civilizations envisioned by science fiction writers. Fictional worlds also offer the added benefit of serving as powerful metaphors. Let’s delve into these imaginative realms and the profound messages they convey.
10. Riverworld
Philip Jose Farmer initially penned the novel that inspired Riverworld in 1952, but its release was thwarted by the publisher's bankruptcy. By 1971, he had refined his skills enough to reimagine the story as To Your Scattered Bodies Go, earning him his third and final Hugo Award, the sci-fi equivalent of the Academy Award for Best Picture.
To Your Scattered Bodies Go and its three sequels depict the tale of every human who has ever lived—10 billion individuals—awakening on a new planet. This phenomenon is suggested to occur due to the interference of real-life explorer Richard Francis Burton, who disrupted the stasis of regenerating human bodies before their reanimation. These bodies orbited massive electrified rods in a vacuum. Riverworld’s conditions resemble paradise, with everyone appearing around 20 years old, unclothed, and provided with endless food and necessities through mysterious ground openings. Additionally, death is temporary, as individuals reawaken nearby after perishing.
The planet's defining characteristic is an immense, sprawling river, which the resolute Burton is eager to traverse in his quest to uncover the reason behind humanity's presence in this bizarre, utterly foreign setting. A significant obstacle is the absence of metal ores, particularly for figures like Samuel Clemens, who, in the sequel, plans to construct a riverboat for exploration. This richly detailed, indulgent, yet strangely captivating series has left a lasting impression on the science fantasy community, prompting the Syfy Channel to develop pilot episodes in 2003 and 2010.
9. Flanimal World
Following the worldwide success of The Office on BBC 2 in 2004, Ricky Gervais teamed up with illustrator and comedian Rob Steen to release Flanimals, a satirical children’s book parodying wildlife guides. The series expanded to four installments and was slated for a film adaptation by Illumination in 2009, though only promotional clips for ITV ever materialized.
Flanimals revolves around bizarre, dysfunctional biological traits of creatures inhabiting their own planet, which somehow evolved and flourished enough to be cataloged and assigned Latin names. Some, like the Grundits, are excessively aggressive, while others, such as Coddleflops and Puddloflajs, are nearly defenseless, often falling prey to the Grundits.
A prime example is the Plamglotis, a legless creature that swallows its arms to use them as legs. However, this leaves its mouth too full to eat, defeating the purpose of the adaptation. This absurd scenario serves as a comedic metaphor for Gervais’s existential view that life is inherently meaningless—a fitting lesson for young readers.
8. Lithia
In 1959, James Blish’s Hugo Award-winning novel A Case of Conscience presented a bold question for Western audiences: What if humanity encountered an alien civilization embodying the ideal of a religious society, yet entirely secular? These beings, the Lithians, held no belief in deities, an afterlife, or sin, instead embracing concepts like karma. Unlike typical depictions of elegant or transcendent species, the Lithians are reptilian, challenging human preconceptions.
When Jesuit priest and renowned biologist Ruiz-Sanchez brings a Lithian egg to Earth, it hatches into Egtverchi, a Lithian who finds human civilization repulsive yet manipulates human psychology to incite chaos. Adding to Ruiz-Sanchez’s moral conflict, Lithia’s abundant mineral resources tempt his colleagues to exploit the planet, as its peaceful nature makes it an easy target for invasion.
After establishing this morally complex premise, Blish concludes with a controversial resolution unlikely to pass modern editorial scrutiny. Ruiz-Sanchez decides that Lithia, despite its peacefulness and kindness, must be a creation of Satan designed to deceive Earth’s faithful. He resolves to perform a planetary exorcism, sealing the story with a provocative twist.
The story leaves it unclear whether Ruiz-Sanchez’s ritual obliterates Lithia, bizarrely affirming his faith, or if the planet’s destruction results from reckless mining. As reviewer Alex Howe observed, the only morally justifiable interpretation is that the Lithians’ perfection is too unnatural to exist in reality, existing solely as an idealized concept that readers must let go of—a metaphor reinforced by the exorcism ritual.
7. Aura
A unique charm of science fiction lies in how highbrow, critically acclaimed works coexist with more simplistic creations, both equally influential and imaginative. Mario Bava’s 1965 film Planet of the Vampires, despite its unassuming title, exemplifies this. Bava humorously acknowledged the film’s low budget, joking that the planet was crafted from “two plastic rocks” and obscured by filling the set with smoke.
Despite its humble origins, the film garnered enduring popularity, with acclaimed director Nicholas Winding Refn citing it in Variety as a major influence on the Alien franchise, from the 1979 original to 2012’s Prometheus.
When two spacecraft, the Argos and the Galliot, attempt to land on the uncharted planet Aura, they crash far apart. The Argos crew nearly turns on each other after being possessed by mysterious forces. Upon reaching the Galliot’s wreckage, they discover the other crew was less fortunate, succumbing entirely to the same entities, leaving no survivors.
After burying the deceased, the Argos crew is horrified to witness the corpses reanimate, only to find their own members permanently dead soon after. Stranded, they venture across the planet and discover the wreckage of an alien vessel containing the skeletal remains of monstrous beings. These aliens, it seems, were also lured to Aura, falling victim to the natives’ control.
Admittedly, some elements of the film struggle to hold up under modern scrutiny. For instance, the Argos crew’s black-and-yellow-accented spacesuits resemble cyberpunk Tron costumes. Yet, for its era, the concept of a ghostly planet capable of dominating human minds was groundbreaking in science fiction, particularly within the genre’s cinematic offerings.
6. Midworld
Alan Dean Foster is widely recognized for his novelizations and story contributions to the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises since the 1970s. Among his original works, he expressed in 2020 that his 1975 novel, named after the titular planet and the fourth installment in the Humanx Commonwealth series, is the one he most desires to see adapted.
Midworld stands out in science fiction as a planet brimming with life—and equally brimming with danger. It’s essentially a planet-spanning rainforest, home to an astonishing variety of predatory plants and animals. The natives have divided it into three distinct zones, aptly named to reflect their peril: the Upper Hell (sky), the Canopy (treeline), and the Lower Hell (ground).
The dense foliage is so overwhelming that many canopy dwellers never glimpse the sky. Adding to the danger are predators known as “clouders,” whose glowing undersides mimic the sky, luring prey as they descend through cleared foliage. In the Lower Hell, bacterial activity is so intense that a raft dropped there would dissolve within hours.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Midworld is the fate of humans who crashed there centuries before the novel’s events. Over time, they evolved so that even their children possess expert botanical knowledge, allowing them to navigate the planet’s countless floral and animal traps. They also share a lifelong bond with small mammals called furcots, which die simultaneously with their human partners.
5. Lagash
Isaac Asimov’s 1941 short story “Nightfall,” later expanded into a novel with Robert Silverberg in 1990, was famously inspired by a conversation with John W. Campbell (author of Who Goes There, the basis for John Carpenter’s 1982 film The Thing). The discussion centered on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s musings about humanity witnessing stars only once every thousand years. Lagash is Asimov’s depiction of Campbell’s response to that hypothetical scenario.
Lagash revolves around six stars, resulting in perpetual daylight, with nightfall occurring only once every few millennia—an event known as the “long night.” The inhabitants of Lagash are naturally terrified of darkness, yet they paradoxically seek the thrill of experiencing it in controlled environments, akin to an amusement park ride. Historical records, though fragmented, reveal that each long night triggers the collapse of civilization. These records are incomplete because the planet descends into chaos and madness during these periods.
A group of scientists, however, has prepared a secure bunker equipped with ample lighting to endure the long night without losing their sanity. Yet, when the crisis arrives, they are confronted with the harsh reality that overconfidence often leads to devastating lessons.
For those intrigued, astronomers and fans of the story have struggled to devise an orbital model where a planet with six suns could experience darkness every two millennia. Sean Raymond, an astrophysicist at the Observatory of Bordeaux, explored various orbital configurations, but the longest interval of darkness he could theorize was merely two months.
4. 0099-4836/010-D
This planet is, by far, the least renowned on this list. The author of the 2006 short story “Gorge,” which features this world, published it under the pseudonym “qntm” rather than his real name, Sam Hughes, in the collection Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories. Despite the dark themes of other stories in the collection, this one stands out as the most harrowing.
0099-4836/010-D is a newly discovered, enigmatic planet so fresh in exploration that it lacks even a nickname. It possesses no atmosphere or impact craters, and its unnaturally smooth, gray surface defies typical geographic characteristics. When the Earth flagship Aspera Jaeyo initiates scientific investigations, trouble arises almost instantly as the three exploration drones lose contact, swallowed by a mysterious “gray wave.”
Shortly after, the gray wave targets the fleet itself, devouring all but the swiftest vessels. It becomes clear that the gray world is not a natural rocky sphere but a massive swarm of gray nanobots that had consumed the entire planet—a manifestation of the “gray goo” scenario theorized by Eric Drexler in 1986. These nanobots had remained confined to the planet only because they had not yet discovered space travel… until the explorers arrived.
3. Solaris
Being adapted into a film is a significant honor for any science fiction or fantasy work. Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel holds the unique distinction of being adapted three times: in 1968, 1972, and 2002. This is unsurprising, as the concept of a living, conscious planet is inherently fascinating, even if it doesn’t resemble an evil zombie world like one of the Brethren Moons.
What makes Lem’s premise particularly compelling is that Solaris is not merely alive and telepathic but also behaves like a scientist. When Kris Kelvin arrives at a station orbiting the planet, Solaris sends him a replica of his recently deceased wife to observe his reactions. Despite Kelvin’s violent response, including ejecting the replica into space, Solaris simply replaces her, continuing its experiment without malice, as if adjusting a control variable.
This is a uniquely compelling example of science fiction crafting a world that is both profoundly alien and eerily familiar. Life often thrusts us into situations where survival appears nearly impossible. Yet, in these moments, both humans and animals discover extraordinary ways to evade death. Whether through ingenuity, cunning tactics, or sheer determination, these tales of survival are truly remarkable.
2. Brethren Moons
Returning to more accessible science fiction, we delve into the Dead Space video game series, which debuted in 2008. Set in the 25th century, humanity has achieved widespread interstellar colonization, only to face catastrophe upon encountering an ancient alien artifact known as the black marker. These markers emit energy that reanimates dead tissue, transforming it into grotesque, violent creatures called necromorphs.
This force is so potent that it unleashes waves of reanimation capable of obliterating entire planets. Over time, the necromorphs on these planets coalesce into city-sized hiveminds, eventually forming massive rogue planetoids known as Blood Moons or Brethren Moons. The series features a particularly notable planetoid, though its details remain unspoiled here. The concept of hostile zombie planets is arguably the most extravagant idea in mass-market science fiction and offers a highly imaginative solution to the Fermi Paradox.
1. Matryoshka Brains
While most planets on this list are designed for entertainment and philosophical exploration rather than scientific accuracy, this entry stands apart. It is rooted more firmly in real-world science, even if it sounds equally fantastical.
In 1997, Robert J. Bradbury introduced the concept of planet-sized quantum computers capable of solving problems beyond human comprehension. The term “Matryoshka” refers to the nested Russian dolls, symbolizing how the processing units of these colossal computers would need to be layered for efficient heat and energy management. Based on current technological trends and neural capabilities, Bradbury predicted such megastructures could become feasible by the year 2250.
This idea continues to be explored in academic circles. However, as Thomas Vidick, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, explained to Vice in 2020, the focus is more on verifying the calculations of these hypothetical computers than on creating construction plans. Despite this, Bradbury’s vision is far closer to becoming a reality than any of the other imaginative worlds discussed here.
