The Literature of Planetary Adventure

From the first days when humans sat down to tell stories, we’ve imagined tales of great heroes in exotic lands. Consider the Greek pantheon: larger-than-life gods and goddesses whose adventures read like fantasy epics lived by all-too-human celebrities; or Jötunheim in Norse mythology, a realm of enormous proportions, of mountains and frost giants, as terrifying as it is beautiful. Such mythologies have inspired writers throughout history and continue to enrich the work of modern storytellers. In planetary adventure, the tales may be set within the context of a space-faring civilization, but they take place primarily on another world or in a lost land, and retain many qualities of those earlier adventures.