An Adventure-Friendly World, which, no matter how Technology Marches On, remains firmly rooted in the cultural and political sensibilities of the age of Wooden Ships and Iron Men. Many works of modern fantasy or speculative fiction are set in a mostly watery world, or a mostly watery part of a world where the rest isn't of much matter, with distant islands connected by trade routes, ships sailing back and forth, different types of City on the Water, and mighty colonial nations.