History Main / PlanetaryRomance

* ''ComicBook/TheWarlordDC'': The Vietnam veteran and SR-71 pilot Travis Morgan passes through a hole in the Earth's crust while flying over the North Pole and lands in the [[HollowWorld underground world]] of Skartaris, a LostWorld strongly reminiscent of Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs' ''Literature/{{Pellucidar}}''. There Travis, wielding his [[HandCannon .44 [=AutoMag=] pistol]] and joined by scantily-dressed female barbarian Tara, becomes the Warlord and fights villains such as the EvilSorcerer Deimos and various kings.

However, [[ScienceInGenreOnly the science is largely handwaving]]. Visitors may arrive on the world by spaceship, and there might be items of LostTechnology present, but overall the world will feel like LowFantasy -- a {{feudal|Future}} society with small-scale magic but no BigBad -- and it will share most of the same tropes. Sometimes the genre is even called "Sword and Planet", in reference to SwordAndSorcery, although other authors have this as a different if often overlapping genre. Because the "romance" in the title stems from ChivalricRomance, a LoveInterest is not in fact required.

However, the science is largely handwaving. Visitors may arrive on the world by spaceship, and there might be items of LostTechnology present, but overall the world will feel like LowFantasy -- a {{feudal|Future}} society with small-scale magic but no BigBad -- and it will share most of the same tropes. Sometimes the genre is even called "Sword and Planet", in reference to SwordAndSorcery, although other authors have this as a different if often overlapping genre. Because the "romance" in the title stems from ChivalricRomance, a LoveInterest is not in fact required.

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[[caption-width-right:349:Welcome to Barsoom. Better known as Mars.]]

!!'''By Author:'''

!!'''By Work:'''

* ''Literature/{{Darkover}}'', by Creator/MarionZimmerBradley: Although nominally ScienceFiction, any of the novels set before the rediscovery are indistinguishable from fantasy.

* ''Literature/{{Radiance}}'' is a combined homage to this subgenre and to the roughly-coincident [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood Golden Age of Hollywood]], set in a solar system in which all worlds are inherently hospitable to Earth-like life and colonised by humans.

* ''Literature/PlanetOfAdventure'' by Creator/JackVance, featuring the adventures of Adam Reith, a spacer from Earth, who crash-lands on the newly discovered planet Tschai. Tschai is inhabited by four alien species.

* Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's [[ScienceFiction SF]] novels tend to steer this way: ''Literature/TheLeftHandOfDarkness'', ''Literature/RocannonsWorld'', etc. At least in the sense of having the planets be a pseudo-feudal setting -- she generally avoids the more magical elements.

* Mary Gentle's ''Literature/{{Orthe}}'' series. Slightly different in that Orthe is an alien world, populated by a race who apparently destroyed the high-tech and highly advanced race who once ruled it, and deliberately regressed to a much less technologically advanced state.

* ''Terminal World'' by Creator/AlastairReynolds, is set in the far future on a planet hinted to be a terraformed Mars.

** "The Daleks": The crew land on the post-apocalyptic jungle planet Skaro, and go to explore the gleaming city in the distance to find a vital component for the TARDIS. They accidentally spark war between the NobleSavage Thal race, and the LittleGreenManInACan Dalek race, and lead the Thals into the Dalek city to attack them for good and get the TARDIS back.
** "The Keys of Marinus", written by the same writer as "The Daleks": The crew land on the planet Marinus, with seas of acid and strange hostile aliens called the Voord. An old man blocks off the TARDIS and [[TheChooserOfTheOne tasks them as heroes destined]] to return four [[PlotCoupons Keys]], which they have to explore four different areas of the world to retrieve. There's a LotusEaterMachine city, an ice city, a jungle, and a KangarooCourt culture...
** "The Web Planet": The TARDIS is ensnared in a web and when Ian and the Doctor leave to investigate, Barbara becomes possessed and the TARDIS console is stolen, seemingly by giant ant creatures the Zarbi [[BeePeople under the instructions of their Queen]]. The [[InsectoidAliens Menoptera]] save Barbara and befriend the rest of the crew, and they set off on a journey exploring their planet, encountering various different kinds of insect people, and battling the Animus (a sinister [[PlantAliens Plant Alien]] that has taken control of the Zarbi). Has lots of very dreamlike imagery such as the Menoptera flying in space through an AlienSky, the surreal sounds made by the Zarbi and their larva that they use as weapons.

* ''Film/{{Aquaman}}'', while it technically takes place on modern Earth, is primarily set in the fantastical and technologically advanced five kingdoms of Atlantis at the bottom of the sea. Everything from [[PlasmaCannon plasma rifle]]-wielding stormtroopers backed by missile-spewing hovercraft to krakens and harpoon-wielding FishPeople to epic gladiator duels between kings is fair game.

[[folder:Anime]]

%%* ''Literature/TheDarkangelTrilogy''.%%ZCE

%%* ''Literature/{{Gor}}''%%ZCE

%%* ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'': Between these and his ''[[Literature/{{Amtor}} Carson of Venus]]'' books, Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs was pretty much the TropeCodifier.

* ''ComicBook/TheWarlordDC'': The Vietnam veteran and SR-71 pilot Travis Morgan passes through a hole in the Earth's crust while flying over the North Pole and lands in the [[HollowWorld underground world]] of Skartaris, a LostWorld strongly reminiscent of Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs' Literature/{{Pellucidar}}. There Travis, wielding his [[HandCannon .44 [=AutoMag=] pistol]] and joined by scantily-dressed female barbarian Tara, becomes the Warlord and fights villains such as the EvilSorcerer Deimos and various kings.

** From the same writer: ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomRynosseros'', featuring a [[SandIsWater sandship]] captain in a far future Australia, now [[PersecutionFlip reclaimed]] by the Aboriginal nations.

* ''ComicBook/TheWarlordDC'': The Vietnam veteran and SR-71 pilot Travis Morgan passes through a hole in the Earth's crust while flying over the North Pole and lands in the [[HollowWorld underground world]] of Skartaris, a LostWorld strongly reminiscent of Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's Literature/{{Pellucidar}}. There Travis, wielding his [[HandCannon .44 [=AutoMag=] pistol]] and joined by scantily-dressed female barbarian Tara, becomes the Warlord and fights villains such as the EvilSorcerer Deimos and various kings.
* ''ComicBook/WarlordOfMars'', the comic book adaption of Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'' by Dynamite Entertainment. The books were also adapted by Marvel at some point.

* ''Literature/TheLordsOfCreation'' series by S. M. Stirling is set in a present day AlternateHistory where Mars and Venus, thanks to the intervention of AncientAstronauts, are similar to the worlds portrayed in Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs novels.

* Creator/LeighBrackett's Mars, Venus, and Skaith series, which are essentially LowFantasy DarkerAndEdgier versions of Burrough's series.

** In ''ComicBook/TheCondemnedLegionnaires'', the Legion visit weird and uncanny worlds during their journey: a quarantine world where medical robots take care of people who suffer from rare diseases, a planet hidden inside a humongous cloud of dark matter inhabited by spherical, bouncy aliens, a faraway planet used as a playground by the children of a race of giants from another dimension...

* In ''ComicBook/TheWarlord'': The Vietnam veteran and SR-71 pilot Travis Morgan passes through a hole in the Earth's crust while flying over the North Pole and lands in the [[HollowWorld underground world]] of Skartaris, a LostWorld strongly reminiscent of Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's Literature/{{Pellucidar}}. There Travis, wielding his [[HandCannon .44 [=AutoMag=] pistol]] and joined by scantily-dressed female barbarian Tara, becomes the Warlord and fights villains such as the EvilSorcerer Deimos and various kings.

* ''TabletopGame/SkyrealmsOfJorune'' had almost unplayable game mechanics, but an overwhelmingly complex and facinating alien world setting that also incorporated AfterTheEnd.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Numenera}}'': Many of the worlds presented in ''Into the Night'' are intended as inspirations for this sort of storytelling. Travel to these worlds is difficult, and can happen just as easily as a result of being flung halfway across the galaxy by ancient {{Precursor|s}} tech as by deliberate starship travel. As a result even simply returning to Earth can take most of a campaign and the story is assumed to focus on exploring a new and alien environment, with its own bizarre native dangers and societies. Notable examples include the dying world of Naharrai, once known as Mars, which was terraformed in the ancient past but is now a dying world that grows drier and colder every year; Urvanas, once called Venus, where a society of humans and aliens inhabits ancient, self-replicating floating cities whose origins none now recall; Perelande, where societies of aliens and machines descended from ancient castaways live on a calcareous crust that covers a global ocean; Xeobrencus, a sunless ocean world home to strange aquatic beings; the Swarmstar, where a human culture lives among the vine-like filaments hanging from creatures that swarm around an alien sun; and the Gloaming, an Alderson disk home to a scattered confederation of alien cultures amides worlds' worth of wilderness. In most of these cases, the societies of the alien worlds are similar to the Ninth World Earth's in being largely medieval, with only scattered access to ancient fragments of advanced technology.

* ''ComicBook/{{Den}}'' by Creator/RichardCorben. A disenchanted office worker builds a machine that opens a portal to another world where a "deposed queen" beckons him to enter another world. Turning into a muscleman on the new world, he fights several monsters.

** After the Hulk returned to Earth for ''ComicBook/WorldWarHulk'', his son Skaar received his own title, also a planetary romance... at least until Galactus showed up to eat the planet.

* A lot of the early, world-hopping stories in ''ComicBook/XMen'' and ''ComicBook/{{Excalibur}}'' are like this, usually written by Chris Claremont and/or Alan Davis, and of course usually centering around Nightcrawler (and sometimes Shadowcat or Wolverine).

SpaceOpera is a closely related genre, but the action and adventure tend to take place more in space and on differing planets. Usually it is set within the context of a [[GalacticSuperpower galaxy-spanning civilization]] and involves at least some [[CasualInterplanetaryTravel travel between planets]]. One distinction is that Planetary Romances are essentially [[JungleOpera Jungle Operas]] in space whereas {{Space Opera}}s are essentially SeaStories in space.

[[folder:Live-Actio nTV]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{Numenera}}'': Many of the worlds presented in ''Into the Night'' are intended as inspirations for this sort of storytelling. Travel to these worlds is difficult, and can happen just as easily as a result of being flung halfway across the galaxy by ancient {{Precursor|s}} tech as by deliberate starship travel. As a result even simply returning to Earth can take most of a campaign and the story is assumed to focus on exploring a new and alien environment, with its own bizarre native dangers and societies. Notable examples include the DyingWorld of Naharrai, once known as Mars, which was terraformed in the ancient past but is now a dying world that grows drier and colder every year; Urvanas, once called Venus, where a society of humans and aliens inhabits ancient, self-replicating floating cities whose origins none now recall; Perelande, where societies of aliens and machines descended from ancient castaways live on a calcareous crust that covers a global ocean; Xeobrencus, a sunless ocean world home to strange aquatic beings; the Swarmstar, where a human culture lives among the vine-like filaments hanging from creatures that swarm around an alien sun; and the Gloaming, an Alderson disk home to a scattered confederation of alien cultures amides worlds' worth of wilderness. In most of these cases, the societies of the alien worlds are similar to the Ninth World Earth's in being largely medieval, with only scattered access to ancient fragments of advanced technology.

* ''TabletopGame/D20Modern'': "The Iron Lords of Jupiter" setting posits that, beneath Jupiter's cloud cover, the planet is solid just like Earth and home to hundreds of alien cultures with Iron Age-level technology, and the player characters are either natives or stranded humans. The reason for Jupiter having the same force of gravity as Earth is left as an exercise for the game-master.

[[folder:VideoGames]]

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' has elements of this at times, albeit ''much'' DarkerAndEdgier. It is not a hard sci-fi; gods, deities, and demons are more of an active threat than the realistic concerns of space travel; most of mankind's enemies are SufficientlyAdvancedAliens, the SingleBiomePlanet is the default and ''everything'' is RatedMForManly. As if to acknowledge the inspiration, the God-Emperor of Mankind in his youth is almost always drawn to look exactly like Conan the Barbarian in golden PowerArmor. If any piece of 40k artwork doesn't look like it could be the cover art of a planetary romance-themed heavy metal concept album from the 80s, it's probably no longer canon. Oh, and Mars is a crucial planet in the setting, that serves as the presumed resting place/prison for a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot robot alien dragon god.]]