Asimov's Pebble In the Sky is set thousands of years in the future. Poul Anderson's Mauri stories are set long after our society has passed-and they're some of the best sci-fi he wrote, IMO. There was a comic book called Magnus:Robot Fighter set a long time from now. It was published in the sixties/seventies. The Xmen had a mini-series about Cable's childhood set in the far future. Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold is set a couple thousand years from now. The Guardians of the Galaxy(original run) comics were set in the 30th century and so is the Legion of Superheroes. Robert Silverberg wrote The End of the Line. Lots of it takes place in the far future. I believe Moorcock wrote something called The Dancers at the End of Time that took place way in the future...
Why? There are some basic constraints, like not setting a novel about the heat death of the universe in the 2250s, or a novel about the first expedition to Alpha Centauri in 2020, but for most works the period could've been chosen by throwing darts at a spreadsheet. Many SF works, most famously 2001, depict futures that are now in our past. Doesn't mean much. Certainly there's nothing in Dune that makes 20,000 years a more or less credible number than 5,000 years or 50,000 years.
wouldn't it be shorter to try and name Sci-Fi works that have NO connection to our future? Seems like every work either references Earth in some way (blew up, takes place there, fleet left from there, searching for it, etc), and even if it's not mentioned, it could be far enough in the past that it's just not talked about. Any Sci-Fi work that COULDN'T be part of the far future of our universe, or have ties to our planet somehow?
Oh, yes you can. In Poul Anderson's Tau Zero, the characters live through the death of our universe and into the next one.
I definitely would recommend these books by Vernor Vinge: - "Marooned in Realtime" spans 50 million years, from the near future to 50 million A.D. - epic! - "A Deepness in the Sky" takes place thousands of years in the future - "A Fire Upon the Deep" takes place 30000+ years in the future
I don't quite get what you're saying. I just liked that Dune was set quite far in the future. I've seen more TV/movies than I've read pure sci-fi so I'm more used to stuff being set in the 3rd millenium.