When we asked our friends to name their favorite swashbuckling heroes from SF books, first we had to figure out what exactly we meant by "swashbuckling." Here's what we came up with: A swashbuckling hero doesn't necessarily need to pack a sword — although it certainly doesn't hurt. A certain dapperness comes with the territory, or at the very least a unique sense of style. Words starting with "D" came up a lot, including dashing, debonair, defiant, dapper and daring.

What we found was that fantasy is full of swashbucklers — it's one of the hallmarks of the genre — but there are some amazing swashbucklers in science fiction too. (And we threw it open to include "urban fantasy," or anything which takes place in something akin to the modern world or the future.)

Here are our favorite swashbuckling heroes from science fiction books:

John Carter Of Mars (A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs)

He's got the sword and the steely gaze, not to mention the old-school charm, and he's also got the mad adventures — the seemingly immortal Virginian gets zapped to Mars upon his "death" and wins the hand of the princess, Deja Thoris. He leads a company of Tharks to defeat the city-state of Zodanga, and then sacrifices his own life to save the atmosphere on Mars. (But then just winds up on Earth again.)

Here are some great Princess Of Mars covers and images, including some great art by Frank Frazetta:

Jack Half-A-Prayer (Perdido Street Station and Iron Council by China Mieville):

Even amongst all the other memorable and weird characters from Mieville's Bas-Lag universe, Jack Half-A-Prayer stands out, with his weird sense of style. One of the Remade, he's got a giant praying mantis arm, but instead of becoming downtrodden and full of self-loathing, he becomes a freedom fighter and a legend, until it finally catches up with him. Here's a great illustration of him that artist Nicholas William Kole created. (More of Kole's great art here.)

"Slippery" Jim DiGriz (The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison):

The first person that came to mind when we thought of this category — a grifter and adventurer who's always twenty jumps ahead of everybody else. Even though the love of a good woman softens him slightly, he never stops being a scoundrel. Still, if he ever runs for president on your planet, you'd be crazy not to vote for him.

Frank Rozvar (The Skies Discrowned/Forsake The Sky by Tim Powers):

As Earth's empire crumbles in the distant future, Frank Rozvar sees his father murdered, and is forced to flee to Munson Underground, the city under the planet's surface. He plots revenge — and it's a good thing he's an expert fencer as well as a stylish bastard. Although, as my friend Bill notes, Powers' early heroes tend to be more "grim and gritty" than "dashing and dapper."

The Librarians (The Greatwinter Trilogy by Sean McMullen):

Many buckles are swashed by these dragon librarians in a post-apocalyptic 40th century setting. They're forever fighting ritual duels, including battles (with very strict rules) in airships. These books are packed with derring-do and Errrol Flynn-esque feats of bravery and cunning.

Duncan Idaho (Dune by Frank Herbert):

This swordmaster in the service of House Atreides is a ladies man and an expert student of the Swordmasters Of Ginaz. The Harkonnens kill his parents and raise him to be hunted for sport — but he gets away. One of Duke Leto's right-hand men, he trains Paul in the arts of war. And when he gives his life to defend Paul and Jessica, he takes down no less than 17 Sardaukar soldiers.

Cugel The Clever (The Dying Earth books by Jack Vance):

A thief and scoundrel, Cugel displays tons of rambunctiousness and skullduggery. But he's also a dab hand with a sword, and he's very dapper with his triple-tiered hat, adorned with a "foppish bedazzlement." His roguish ways and indefatigible charm have won him his own Facebook group.

Speaker-To-Animals (Ringworld by Larry Niven):

One of the coolest of Niven's Kzinti, Speaker-To-Animals is slightly less likely to kill you on sight than other members of his race, but he's still a superb fighter and a total badass. He's too honorable to kill Louis Gridley Wu for meat, even when he's starving. Typical line: "I have a variable sword. I urge calm." Bad. Ass. (Art by A.C. Farley.)

Anthony Villiers (Star Well by Alexei Panshin):

A former viscount, Villiers gets fobbed off by his family and travels around the universe in the company of a giant toad named Torve, having crazy adventures. He's always getting himself caught up in duels and assassination plots, as he moves through the highest levels of galactic society without ever quite having enough money on hand. He's foppish, following the motto "Live as you dress" and doing both of those things well.

Drake Maijstral (Crown Jewels, House of Shards, &Rock of Ages by Walter Jon Williams):

Maijstral is an Allowed Burglar in a distant future when the human race has been conquered by aliens called the Khosali, who have subjected us to their regime of High Custom. Under this complicated set of rules, you can steal — as long as you hang on to the merchandise for 24 hours without getting caught. (One of the Khosali emperors was a kleptomaniac who wanted to legalize theft, hence the odd compromise.) Since all of Maijstral's exploits are recorded and broadcast, he becomes a huge celebrity with a great sense of verve and style.

Hiro Protagonist (Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson):

Protagonist's business card says it all: "Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world." He learns of the existence of a new drug called Snow Crash, that's both a computer virus and a reality-altering substance. He's the undisputed champion of in-Metaverse sword-fighting, because he helped write the code which makes swordfighting possible.

E.C. Gordon, aka Scar, aka Oscar (Glory Road by Robert Heinlein):

This war veteran answers an ad that asks, "Are You A Coward," placed by a beautiful woman. Then he goes on a quest and crosses swords with the Never-Born aka the Eater Of Souls, the guardian of the Egg of the Phoenix in Mile High Tower. (For some reason, the Eater Of Souls appears as a 17th century swordsman.)

Beka Rosslin-Metadi (The Price Of The Stars by Debra Doyle and James D. McDonald):

Okay, just look at the jacket, and the red eyepatch. And she's an amazing space pilot, freebooter and spacer by trade — who's turned her back on her famous military family. Until her mom is assassinated, and her father gives her the best spaceship around, the Warhammer, to look for the assassins. She leaves "a trail of kidnappings and corpses across four star systems," and blows the roof off the strongest private fortress in the galaxy. Rock on.

Pham Nuwen (A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge):

Pham grows up in a post-apocalyptic Canberra that's similar to the Middle Ages, complete with swords, daggers and poison. Then the Qeng Ho arrive and he leaves with them. He becomes a legendary commander and Programmer-At-Arms. At one point, Pham Nuwen is held prisoner by some idiots, and he realizes that the computers on the ship had used smart dust long ago — which means he can hack into the computers by blinking, without anyone noticing.

Ed Chianese (Light by M. John Harrison)

Thrill-seeker, adventurer and virtual-reality addict, Ed Chianese "owes money to everyone in the universe." Writes Harrison, "From an early age, Ed Chianese had been some kind of drifter and sensationist. He couldn't remember what planet he came from. 'Maybe it was even this one!' He laughed." With his peroxide hair and cheap tattoos, he's dapper after a fashion.

Giraut Leones (A Million Open Doors by John Barnes):

Giraut lives in Nou Occitan, which is sort of like medieval Europe, with the dueling, the chivraly and the artistic dabbling. But then he goes to live in another one of the thousand human cultures in the far future — the sterile Caledony, which is like a McCarthy-ite, Christian repressive world. So he becomes the rebellious, sword-fighting hero of this crazy world.

Jay Kalam and his cohorts (Legion Of Space Series by Jack Williamson):

Kalam is commander of the Legion, and just in case you miss the Three Musketeers-i-ness of his group of stalwart fighters against the renegade Purple and the evil Medusae, one of his friends is named Samdu (an anagram of "Dumas.")

Owen Deathstalker (Deathstalker by Simon Green):

Heir to a warrior name, Owen Deathstalker lives a quiet life as a historian, until the Empress names him an outlaw, and he's forced to flee, and help organize the rebellion against the Empress Lionstone.

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff. Thanks to Bill Brickman, Jed Hartman, Chris Hsiang, Andrew Liptak, Dennis Woo, Wayne Nix, Angela Cooper, Zack Stentz, Tim Jones, Jonathan Korman, Tom Marcinko, Espana Sheriff, Richard Kadrey, Chris Hall, Allan Ebalo, David J. Schwartz, @RainOnRoof, Jenn Reese, John Klima, another Tim Jones, Cheryl Morgan and anyone else I missed for the suggestions!

Panspermia is the term for the most scientifically plausible version of this concept, but it isn't necessarily what science fiction usually presents. The panspermia hypothesis holds that the building blocks of life are not found exclusively on planetary bodies but are instead found scattered throughout the cosmos, and it is these spaceborne particles that are at least partly responsible for life on Earth. There's a little circumstantial evidence for the theory (although far, far more to support the reliable old "Life comes from Earth" hypothesis), and there is something undeniably fascinating about the subtext – the aliens are already here, and we are they. But science fiction barely ever depicts the actual theory of panspermia, mostly because it's just a physical process that takes billions of years to play out and is pretty boring unless you're willing to get really mystical.

What science fiction more properly deals with is exogenesis, which simply states that humanity or its genetic ancestors didn't always live on Earth. That generally means one of two things – either an ancient alien race introduced life to a previously dead Earth (sometimes as part of a larger directed panspermia project) or a bunch of humans from some other civilization colonized Earth, a fact that somehow slipped the minds of their descendants (you know…us). Plenty of science fiction deals with both, including two of the big science fictions works currently in the news. (The occasional spoiler may lie ahead.)

Outlander
One of the most satisfying little details of everybody's favorite Vikings vs. aliens epic is its answer to why Jim Caviezel's character, the alien Kainan, looks exactly like the Norsemen and how he can possibly speak their language.Outlander solves both of these problems by revealing Earth is an "abandoned seed colony" of Kainan's spacefaring civilization. Unfortunately, the whole notion that Earth was colonized by an interstellar race really opens up a far bigger plot hole than the one it was meant to fill. After all, Kainan's people would have had to have "seeded" Earth eons ago. If they could pull off planetary engineering on that sort of scale way back then, you'd think they wouldn't have so much trouble with a bunch of bioluminescent dragons. In the end, it's probably best not to think too much about the logistics of the whole abandoned seed colony concept. Because, ultimately, the very inclusion of the idea in the first place is, like so much of Outlander, awesome.

Battlestar Galactica
In both the original and new versions of the series, humans originally came from Kobol, the legendary planet of the gods, and Earth is just the fabled lost colony. The new series is busy dealing with Earth, so it's entirely possible a couple "What the frak?" moments still lie ahead that will reveal humanity actually did come from Earth. The original series, however, left no doubt that Kobol was where we all came from, as the no-budget god-awfulness that is Galactica 1980 established contact between the Galactica and contemporary Earth. Flying motorcycle chases ensued.

Star Trek
The Next Generation episode "The Chase" sought to acknowledge and explain the genetic improbability of a galaxy full of nothing but humanoid aliens with rubber foreheads. The solution – ancient aliens who, upon finding themselves all alone in the galaxy, seeded various planets with their genetic codes – is surprisingly deft, and actually turns a three-decade failure of imaginations and budgets into something almost elegaic. As one would expect, Picard takes this existence-altering revelation in his usual stride, while the Cardassians look a bit grumpy.

Stargate
Honestly, between all the genetic engineering, forced relocations of ancient humans, and universe-altering civil wars between godlike aliens it all gets a bit difficult to keep track of which species actually came from where. In short, a bunch of plague-decimated demigods maybe used this thing called the Dakara superweapon millions of year ago to shoot their genetic information throughout the Milky Way, which maybe had something to do with humanity's evolution. Or maybe not.

Babylon 5
Since we might as well finish off the sweep of nineties science fiction, the Centauri initially tried to dismiss Earth as one of their lost colonies. Sure, this probably wasn't true, but how else are you going to haze the new interstellar species?

Isaac Asimov
Most aliens seem to create life on Earth for slightly more practical (well, relatively speaking) reasons than the Star Trek aliens' "monument to our existence." Asimov imagined Earth as an eons-old alien experiment not once but twice – in "Jokester", the aliens did it to explore the concept of humor, while in "Breeds there a Man…?" the aliens are engaged in a more vague exercise in genetics. There’s also "Death Sentence", where an anthropologist for the Galactic Federation discovers that a previous civilization created a planet of robots as part of a larger psychological experiment. Realizing the Federation will surely have to destroy the planet as a potential threat, he decides to take his dire warning to one of the robots' biggest cities: New York.

Wildstorm Comics
The Kherubim people sent their genetic seed throughout the universe in a bid to conquer the universe without their genetic descendants even knowing it, which they then followed up by actually conquering much of the universe.

Ringworld, by Larry Niven
It turns out we're all part of a larger plan by the Pak race to create a galaxy full of ultra-lethal, ultra-intelligent superhumans. Apparently, the plan failed because there wasn't enough of the right kind of fruit.

Mission to Mars
In this Brian de Palma stinker, a bunch of Martians that didn't flee their dying planet shot the neighboring Earth – then a barren chunk of rock – full of the building blocks of life because…um, because they wanted to take Gary Sinise on a tour of the universe? (And that was probably the least nonsensical part of that movie.)

Salvage Rites, by Eric Brown
One of the very few times when a race made from directed panspermia confronts their creators, this short story finds a group of Benedictine monks in a cathedral-shaped starship seeking out what is, for all intents and purposes, God.

South Park
In easily the most awesome use of the concept, the anniversary episode “Canceled” revealed Earth for what it really is – one giant reality show. At least in South Park, someone is actually bothering to watch.

Starliner, by David Drake
In this 1992 novel, the narrator explains that no one bats an eyelid at botanists cross-breeding plants from different worlds because panspermia is "no longer a hypothesis but simple observation." Not the most earth-shattering application of panspermia, but still.

Ej-es by Nancy Kress
A rather less mundane spin on that same idea, as members of an interstellar marine corps realize a deadly plague on one planet threatens all the intelligent species in the universe – because panspermia makes them all genetically related.

Doctor Who
The classic "City of Death" features a more accidental case of aliens creating life on Earth. In the midst of all the ridiculously complex art forgery, random acts of violence, Monty Python cameos, and endless location shots that prove the thing really was shot in Paris, writer Douglas Adams somehow squeezes in the origin of all life on Earth. As it turns out, an exploding Jaggaroth ship kickstarted the whole "life" thing. That was nice of them.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Speaking of Douglas Adams, his most famous work envisions the noblest version of the alien-built Earth. Indeed, the emphasis here is on "built", as Earth is not a planet at all but instead a ten million year old computer program supervised by hyper-dimensional mice designed to determine the question to life, the universe, and everything. Of course, as is so often the case, this wondrous philosophical pursuit was interrupted by a bunch of hairdressers, TV producers, and telephone sanitizers from the planet Golgafrincham, who obliviously managed to replace the native humans and almost wreck the entire program. All of which rather neatly leads us back to wandering, forgetful colonists.

The Hainish Cycle, by Ursula K. Le Guin
In ancient times, colonizers from the planet Hain came to Earth and, for a time, coexisted with its native hominids. Whether the settlers ultimately killed the native Earthlings or simply bred them out of existence is anybody's guess, but the Hainish now consider modern humans their descendants.

Women of the Prehistoric Planet
This MST3K entry builds a whole parable of post-War American-Japanese relations around two rival alien races, time dilation, and giant iguanas, with plenty of sixties-era chauvinism left to go around. After a whole lot of silliness (as that previous sentence probably suggested) the marooned lovers Tang and Linda settle down on the titular prehistoric planet, which they decide to call…well, I think you can guess, but it rhymes with "Mirth."

Earthsearch
The classic BBC radio series had one of the best twists on this idea, as the four teenaged survivors of the massive starship Challenger search for Earth-like planets to colonize. It's slowly revealed that the planet they call Earth has some rather unrecognizable geography, but that the Earth-like planet they finally do discover, with its saltwater oceans covering two-thirds of the planet, sounds very familiar.

The Twilight Zone
But stories don't get much more familiar than the 1963 episode "Probe 7, Over and Out." Astronaut Adam Cook finds himself stranded on a faraway planet just as nuclear war is breaking out back home. He encounters Eve Norda, an alien who cannot understand his language. The pair ultimately agrees to start a new life together on the planet that Eve keeps calling "Irth." Judging by their first names, I’m guessing they'll do just fine.

Miranda

Mongo

Vulcan

Naboo

Zanak

Ring World

Tollana

Krypton

Fyrine IV

Camazotz

(Note: If I left someone out, chances are it's because I couldn't find any data. Feel free to add your own in the comments!)

The Enterprise-D, from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Power source: matter-antimatter reactor.
Energy output: 6.8 x 10^16 joules, based on the amount of energy it would take for the Enterprise to do significant damage to a Borg cube, according to this guy.

The Narn's Q'Guan Heavy Cruiser, from Babylon 5.
Power source: nuclear fusion.
Energy output: 7.08 x 10^22 joules, according to this site.

Omega Class Destroyer, from Babylon 5.
Power source: four General Fusion 650 high-energy fusion reactors, using gelled deuterium as fuel.
Energy output: 1.83 x 10^23 joules, according to the Cycrow site again.

Colonial Battlestar, from Battlestar Galactica.
Power source: Tyllium reactor.
Energy output: 4.6 x 10^24 joules, according to the Battlestar technical site.

Babylon 5 Station, from Babylon 5.
Power source: eight fusion reactors.
Energy output: 2.5 x 10^24 joules, according to several sites.

Zero Point Module, from Stargate.
Power source: Vacuum energy, from a pocket of subspace.
Energy output: 10^28 joules, according to this guy's back-of-the-envelope calculations.

The Death Star, from the original Star Wars.
Power source: Some kind of "hypermatter" fusion reactor.
Energy output: It would need to generate 2.4 x 10^32 joules of energy to destroy a planet such as Alderaan. Upper estimates of its power run to around 10^38 joules, or as much energy as our sun generates in 8,000 years, according to this site.

Ringworld, from Larry Niven's Ringworld novels.
Power source: Solar energy, collected by "shadow squares."
Energy output: To keep the whole shebang spinning at 770 miles per second, you'd need 1.6 x 10^39 joules, or our sun's output over 130,000 years, according to this site and a few others. We have a winner!

5. Sun of Suns, by Karl Schroeder. Rebel, former pirate, and kickass airbike rider Hayden lives in Virga, a giant bag of air floating in space, built by a post-human society. The air is heated by high-tech suns dragged around by city-states that create their own gravity by building on the inside of vast, spinning tubes. Virga is a kind of eighteenth-century world of kings, despots and pirates, and many of the city-states horde sun power — they'll attack out any nation that tries to assert independence by building its own sun. Most people remain dependent on a few big sun-owning nations for their warmth; those who refuse to toe the line live in the cloud-draped sunless reaches of "winter." Hayden, whose mother was killed after she built a pirate sun, is out to change all that, even if it means killing the leader of Slipstream, one of Virga's most powerful nations. The characters may be a little two-dimensional, but you'll keep reading just to visit the vast, globular floating oceans, the strange cities, and bizarre barren outposts in Virga. Plus, pirate battles in zero gee! Sun of Suns is the first in a trilogy, and the second novel just came out in hardback.

4. Ringworld, by Larry Niven. A classic 1960s world-building epic about aliens on a quest to find out more about a vast artificial Dyson ring built around a dying sun. This is the novel that inspired the people who created the game Halo, which also takes place on a ring world. Expect strange weather, bizarre vistas from on and below the massive structure, and alien encounters that feel very Star Trek (but at a time when Star Trek was still the shit).

3. Lilith's Brood, by Octavia Butler. This trilogy of novels by MacArthur winner Octavia Butler is about what happens to humanity after earth is destroyed in some kind of nuclear apocalypse, and all the human survivors are rescued by powerful, mysterious aliens called the Oankali. Three-sexed, the Oankali reproduce via a third sex called the TK, which mixes genetic material inside its own body and creates offspring. All their technology is biological too. Lilith, one of the human survivors that the Oankali enlist to help them deal with the other human survivors, discovers that the Oankali recreate their species every few hundred years by merging their genetic material with other species. And the humans are next on their list of species to merge with. Set aboard vast biological ship-words and a newly geo-engineered Earth, Lilith's Brood traces three generations of humans and Oankali as they have children together — children who grow more alien to both species with each generation. Yes, it's a very complicated and subtle allegory about colonialism. And yes, it's an amazing tale of the unknown. Enjoy it for either, or for both.

2. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville. It's a world where bureaucrats raise demons with steam-driven machines, and "thaumaturgists" remold human bodies with their hands. A strange kind of species-transforming weather called The Torque occasionally rips through, converting humans into half-insects, half-birds, half-seamonsters. It's been years since a Torque came through, and all the different post-Torque human groups live separated into nineteenth-century style ghettos in a city whose polyglot heart is in a train station called Perdido Street. Everything is steaming along normally in the city — anarchists print subversive pamphlets, artists date across species lines, and scientists study winged creatures from around the globe. But trouble comes to town in the form of dream-eating moths who suck people's minds out, and the only creatures who can stop them are a mad scientist, his half-insect lover, a sentient garbage dump, and a trans-dimensional spider.

5. The Dispossessed, by Ursula LeGuin. A classic novel by one of the supreme world-builders in SF, The Dispossessed is a tale of two planets: one is a lush, economic powerhouse ruled by greed, consumerism, and a rich elite; the other a desert planet full of the descendants of rebels who fled the first planet two centuries before. It has scant resources but is governed by a feminist-anarchist belief system that preaches collective ownership, gender equality, and sexual liberation. Shavek, a physicist from the anarchist planet, is one of the first to visit the home planet in many generations, and his experiences traveling between worlds reveal chinks in the Utopia he's left behind — and unexpected benefits on the corrupt home world, where scientific innovation flourishes in an atmosphere of capitalist competition. What's stunning about this novel is that LeGuin avoids simplistic judgments, and shows in honest detail how even the most progressive culture can be corrupt. And even the most corrupt culture can foster creative brilliance.