What Fictional World Would I Go To?

Goodreads posed this question: “If you could travel to any fictional book world, where would you go, and what would you do there?”

What a great question!

But that poses a problem since most of my favorite stories are crime fiction/mystery tales based in the modern day. That seems wasteful to stay in the current times. Besides, would I want to get embroiled in something fraught with death and double-crosses? No, thanks.

Maybe I could go with a historical crime fiction/mystery world. Although I don’t want to go back to the old West, and I sure as heck don’t want to go back to Victorian England. The only time-traveling I’d like is somewhere between the 1960s and the 1980s. Should I consider the world of the Ernest Tidyman’s Shaft novels (1970s New York) or Martin Limon’s Sueno and Bascom series (1970s South Korea)? Both are series that I love.

Leaving the earth sounds far more exciting, so I should probably look to a science fiction novel.

Fans of fantasy books are probably saying, “But you could go hang out with the hobbits, muggles, or the other wild things.” Nah, I’m good. Fantasy has never been my bag.

Now that I’m thinking along the lines of science fiction, I checked out my favorites. Most of the novels that I love in this genre are dystopian. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, George Orwell’s 1984, and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? come immediately to mind. Those worlds are fun to read about, but would I willingly want to live there? Hard pass.

Maybe I need to reconsider the earth but find someplace warm and sunny.

I know the perfect book!

I would choose to stay in Kinja, the fictional Caribbean Island at the center of Herman Wouk’s Don’t Stop the Carnival. It’s a novel about a mid-life crisis surrounded by natural beauty and man-made chaos. I wouldn’t want to take the role of Norman Paperman, the book’s protagonist. I’d rather work as a bartender in his hotel and watch the turmoil unfold.

What about you?
If you could visit any fictional world, where would you go and what would you do?