During the first decades of science fiction, Mars was the most common planet and the most romanticized of our solar system whose surface conditions seemed closest to being amenable to life. Percival Lowell's idea about canals of Mars[?] was taken at face value then. Currently Mars in depicted mainly as a target of terraforming.
See Mars in fiction for more details on the red planet's numerous roles.
During the early-to-mid 20th century, Venus was also a popular subject. Venus is very similar to Earth in its size and surface gravity, and its surface is hidden by a thick cloud layer. Venus was usually depicted as a warm, wet, jungle- and marsh-covered world where life was plentiful, with often thinly-veiled allegories of the European colonization of Africa. Venus is in fact an inhospitable world -- the clouds are sulfuric acid, the atmosphere is hundreds of times thicker than Earth's, and the surface temperature could melt lead.
See Venus in fiction[?] for more details and particular works.
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Some Fantasy Worlds are also depicted as alien planets.
In addition, some writers and scientists have speculated about artificial planets or planet-equivalents; see Larry Nivens Ringworld or Freeman Dysons Dyson sphere.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump