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I love different realities stories, I find them ever so original, engaging and a great way to say a few things about our own reality. Most science fiction and fantasy seems to center around the concept of things that we don't presently encounter (or understand) and I think such a set-up gives the most room for imagination to run wild. It's one of the reasons I like anime so much as well - anything is possible and anything goes.

Naturally Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are the most famous examples right now, but I wouldn't want to live in either world. While those two aren't my favourites it's unfortunate, but true, that msot fo my favourite alternate realities (or future possibilities) are worlds I would not want to live in. They are wonderful pieces of art because they manage to covney strong feelings, but nto very homely places. Also a lot of art presents to us extreme situations to show how far they think people can go and to make us think what we would do, but these are not situations you would want in everyday life are they? I would love to be able to meet my daemon, but I don't want to be under the firm rule of the church. I would love to travel from world to world in the Chrestomanci series (By Dyanna Wynn Jones) but I would not want to be attacked by crazy magicians. And I would like to meet a robot that follows Isaa Asimov's rules of robotics but I also don't want to have to face that it would be a machine and not the perfect human being blaugh

So right now I can't think fo any alternate reality that I'd prefer. Except the ones that are in my head and those are a secret ninja

I'm really not sure whether I would like to live within another reality. At one point, to escape our own reality would be marvelous, but on the other hand, most other realities have issues, just as with ours.

For example, Harry Potter. The war with Voldemort, doesn't exactly seem desirable. But in our reality, we have wars going on all the time anyways. Would it be so different?

Really, I think I'm satisfied with our own reality, as awful as it may be at times. I get more pleasure reading about someone else's reality when mine isn't perfect either. It helps me connect with the stories on a different level. No matter what reality we're from, we all have problems and in some way can cannect with each other. Fictional characters or not, we all live in a problematic world.

Some of my favorite books are other-reality books. (Well, obviously, HDM is one of them). I like them because they force us to examin out own reality, and our values and where our world may be heading. It is true, as Alini said, that these other realities aren't noramly pleasant. They warn us of what we don't want to happend but may eventually happen or be happening if we are not careful. The world depicted in Brave New World is starting to look possible, for example.

I would recomend "Don't Bite the Sun" and "Sapphire Wine" by Tanith Lee for anyone interested in other-reality books.

one good alternate reality novel would be "The Chrysalids". After a nuclear war the Bible is found and communities form. People and crops/animals are mutated. That is a good example of an alternate reality for sure.