Someone MUST have done this before...

Do it.

I can't think of any other ones like that. Sounds cool.

If you have never heard of it, you can't be copying. Even if it is the same premise, you will not write it the same as another person.

I know I've read a book like that years ago, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was called or what it was about. Just the floating islands....

Do it!!

There are not a lot of fantasy elements that haven't been done before in some capacity. Some are just more prevalent than others. So long as you're giving it your own flavor, it usually isn't a problem. That's what separates a great story from a here-we-go-again story.

I definately remember reading a trilogy of novels with floating islands in, and another saga by another author involving floating cities, but for the life of me I cannot remember the names - sorry! i read the books about five years. It's been done, but maybe you could refresh the idea, bring it back into fashion lol

the only thing I can think of like this is Skyland, which is a tv show that comes on Nicktoons TV. But it has nothing to do with underlands. I'd go for it!

Sounds a bit like Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wings (DS). I don't think there were any underworlds though. Any other floating lands like that are planets in the SciFi genre.

Sounds a little like Baten Kaitos if you've ever played that game. Except for the underlands part, that sounds pretty unique to me.

Well, if it's been used in a good number of places, I'm not so worried about it, since it won't seem like I'm ripping the idea off of any one specific story. *sneaks away to draw a map of the place now*

I wouldn't worry about it anyway. It's impossible to "accidentally" plagiarize something. See here:

http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/1999-12-20.shtml

A fine article, and I do wish everyone on this forum would stop worrying about whether things have been "done before". ;) It gets a little ridiculous. Everything has been "done before". But your story is still your own, not anyone else's. How many people have written retellings of fairy tales, and yet their story was still clearly _theirs_? Just focus on writing a good story, and any comparisons with other works will only be in the positive light, not negative.

First, islands floating in the sky is an idea. As long as your take on them, and your plot, are different from what others have done with them, you should be fine.

That being said, Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman wrote a series of seven books called the Deathgates cycle, in which one of the universes is made up of islands floating in the sky. But then, there are at least five (maybe six, in a way) different universes, four of which are based on the four elements (hence the floating islands in the Air universe), so it should be different from your own story.

I read the first page and no one has mentioned... Last Exile. I'm not sure about floating Islands because it was a very long time ago when I saw it. I think it's more like a bunch of space stations or something but in the end they find the real surface of the planet which has lain hidden under the clouds the entire time.

I was gonna do something exactly like that a number of years ago, actually, but the project fizzled out. But as others have said, it really doesn't matter whether other people have done something similar; yours will be different.

Wow, yeah that's funny.. I've actually been working on a few novels for some years now based on pretty much the same idea, vast sky, islands, airships (though minus the "underland" thing). I highly doubt our stories are similar enough so as to cause a problem.. but still.. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop magically stealing my ideas :P (jk of course).

My idea lately has really progressed further into the realm of sf than pure fantasy, but I'm curious to see where you'll take yours.

Well, technically in Baten Kaitos, the Children of the Earth are a part of an underland, no? I think you can build off this concept, you'll just have to tweak it in some way that is completely original. :)

In fantasy, as another poster pointed out, the floating-islands culture was featured in Weis & Hickman's book "Dragon Wing."

In science-fiction, it's being covered in a much better way in Karl Schroeder's Virga series, starting with the book "Sun of Suns". Virga is a hollow artificial planet filled with breathable air, man-made suns, and wooden low-tech cities that are spun for gravity. The first book is basically a pirate-adventure story, and is cool as anything else that's been written lately.

Neither of those books have the "Underland" you describe, though, so it sounds like you may have a new spin on the idea.

There is a young adult graphic novel, "Meridian" that uses much the same principle about the islands in the sky. The actual solid land there isn't unknown to them though, even though it is considered extremely dangerous as a rule. In fact there are some ground based colonies of people down there, but even then, they float on top of the toxic sludge that has come to replace water on the ground.

Even so, I really hope you write yours! It would be awesome to see what stories could come out of a setting like that!

There is a cartoon on one of the children's channel called "Skyland" that seems similar to your idea. I hope you can do better because I find this one very boring!

Am I the only one who thought of The Jetsons? Hahahah.

I think the story sounds cool. You should write it.

The first thing I thought of was the Anime series Romeo x Juliet, but it still sounds like a compelling idea, you should do it.

Sadly enough the closest thing I can think of is Windhaven by George R.R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle.

At any rate, it sounds like a good read...and if you need an extra beta, here you have a volunteer.

Thanks everyone! Now if only I can think of a plot to go with this world... well Nano is still a ways away at least!

Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines and follow-ups has a vaugely similar idea, except the cities are on wheels instead of the sky. Your idea sounds unique good. though - I'd read it.

Anyway, this reminds me of Septerra Core. The world has seven layers, the outermost being islands floating in the sky, and you travel on deeper toward the core.

Laputa came to mind, yes, but that's still entirely different. That's a legend, while people live on the Earth, not vice versa, among other things you described.

However mentioned cars a post or two above me, I had a subscription to Nickelodeon Magazine a few years ago, and one comicin ther was a series about these people who lived in cars on a highway. They were sorry fr the "unfortunate" people who were stuck on the hghway median. If anyone else has old back issues of that from the past five or six years, you might want to check that out, if it interests you.

The first thing I thought of was the one episode of Firefly where they steal the lasater... floating cities... but now I'm really interested in reading your story because I think floating cities would be awesome!

You know, if we're veering toward floating cities in the sky, there's always the original: the city of the Hawkmen in "Flash Gordon". That's what - 1930's? 40's? I wonder if anything predates that, or if Alex Raymond was the first?

The Garth Nix series [the seventh tower, I think] had everyone living in these towers and what not and no one ever left to the real ground. Other than what everyone else has said about the islands, this is the only thing I thought of.

Good luck!!

*blink*

Boy, do I feel old.

Laputa is originally from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. And yes, it predates Flash Gordon.

That was my '07 NaNo.

Except the Sky Islands were country sized pieces of bed rock kept aloft by the constant drawing of magical energy by the souls of the mages who gave their lives to raise humanity from the horrors unleashed by an apocalyptic war against the evil Mage-Kings.

You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of Starcraft, a lot. Other then that nothing really strikes me, except for maybe that anime show on YTV, "Storm Hawks" other then that, nothing at all... -I read a lot of fantasy, so I think your good- Just don't go too far to sci-fi, or it will no longer be fantasy, but science fiction. LOL Anyways, have fun, and hopefully I will get to chat with you during the comp. ^_^