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The World of Tiers is a series of science fiction novels by American writer Philip José Farmer. They are set within a series of artificially constructed universes, created and ruled by decadent beings who are genetically identical to humans, but regard themselves as superior, and are the inheritors of an advanced technology they no longer understand. This technology enables the "Lords" (or "Thoans", as described by Farmer in his introduction to a role playing video game) to create novel lifeforms, and also to prevent aging or disease, making them effectively immortal. Their technology also allows them to create small artificial universes (see pocket universe), and the planets and stars within them, and modify the physical laws (e. g., changing the behavior of gravity) to create unusual or interesting phenomena within these universes. Instantaneous travel within and between these universes is achieved by the use of "gates" which seem to function as teleportation devices, or as a means of creating wormholes between different regions of spacetime. The overall series title comes from the main "pocket universe" featured in the books. This consists of a single planet with a green sky, shaped in the form of a huge stepped pyramid on five stages, with each stage being a disk or squat cylinder. A small sun and a single moon orbit around this planet (thus, in this universe geocentrism is a correct description of astronomical reality). There are no other stars or astronomical bodies. This world was created by a Lord named Jadawin. The overall storyline of the series follows the adventures of two people from Earth who independently discover gates into the World of Tiers. The earlier books focus on the character of Robert Wolff as he explores this world and tries to discover its secrets. From the third book onwards the action shifts to Paul Janus Finnegan (known as Kickaha, along with many other aliases), who is drawn into a battle between an ancient enemy of the Lords, and ultimately into the feuds between rival Lords as they try to take over each other's universes. A French language roleplaying game, Thoan Les Faiseurs d'Univers, inspired by the World of Tiers, was released in 1995.

The broad setting of the novels is a series of artificially constructed universes. The majority of the stories take place on the world created by the Lord Jadawin. This planet consists of a series of cylindrical layers stacked one atop the other, to form an enormous, approximately conical tower (albeit much broader than it is tall). The top surfaces (levels or tiers) of each cylindrical monolith are densely inhabited, while the vertical sides of the monoliths act as enormous cliffs (30,000 100,000 feet / 9,000 30,000 metres high) which partially isolate the inhabitants of each tier from each other. These cliffs do provide some purchase for climbing, and many specialized creatures live on the cliff surfaces, so this isolation is not complete. There is no diminution of atmosphere from one level to the next, due to Jadawin's manipulation of the local gravitational fields. The various tiers are populated with plants and animals creating different environments. Some of these were abducted from Earth throughout history, while many were created in Jadawin's biolabs. Many creatures have bodies created by Jadawin to replicate mythological creatures (e. g. merpeople, centaurs) implanted with the minds of abducted humans. The various inhabitants are immortal as far as physical aging is concerned, though they can be killed by most other means.

The single moon orbiting Alofmethbin is quoted as being approximately the same size as the planet Mars. The moon as seen from Alofmethbin is described as appearing two and a half times bigger than Earth's moon. If this refers to the moon's angular width, we can infer that the moon orbits Alofmethbin at a distance of approximately 300,000 km.

Robert Wolff is a retired linguistics professor in his sixties. While inspecting a house to purchase and live in during retirement with his wife, a gate to the World of Tiers opens before him. He passes through this gate, arriving on the Okeanos level. There he regains his youth and health, due to the effects of drugs in the water supply provided by the Lord Jadawin. He meets and falls in love with Chryseis, and when she is kidnapped, he sets out to rescue her, ascending the various levels of the planet. Most of this journey is undertaken in the company of Paul Janus Finnegan, aka Kickaha. Wolff and Jadawin are the same person.

Paul Janus Finnegan was born in Indiana in 1918, and served in the American army during the Second World War, driving a tank. In the ruins of a museum in a small German town, he discovered a metal crescent made of an apparently indestructible metal, and kept it as a souvenir. This crescent proved to be one half of a gate to the World of Tiers, the other half belonging to a displaced Thoan who attempted to buy (and later, steal) the crescent from him. Finnegan interrupted the Thoan in the middle of entering the gate and accidentally activated the completed gate himself, ending up transported to the World of Tiers. At the start of the first novel in the series, Finnegan has lived on the World of Tiers for approximately twenty four years. In that time, he has learned many of the local languages, become extremely skilled at knife throwing, archery, and other combat and outdoors survival skills, and lived under many assumed names and identities. In Dracheland, his identity is "Baron Horst von Horstman", whose coat of arms is a red jackass' head surmounting a fist with the middle finger extended. His favourite identity is that of Kickaha (meaning "trickster"), which he uses on the Amerind level. Paul Janus Finnegan shares the initials of the author (PJF). This is also true of one of the main characters in the Riverworld series, Peter Jairus Frigate. In The Lavalite World, Philip José Farmer strongly implies that Finnegan is the great grandson of Phileas Fogg, the hero of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days.

Anana, also known as Anana the Bright, is a Thoan, sister of Jadawin. She is driven out of her own universe by an ancient enemy that threatens to destroy all the Thoans, and takes refuge in the World of Tiers where she meets Kickaha. She is initially arrogant and cruel, as most Thoans are, but is impressed by Kickaha's resourcefulness, and gradually becomes more sympathetic and humane as she falls in love with him.

Podarge, a terrible and extremely dangerous harpy, whose fantastic winged body was created by Wolff during his former life as Lord Jadawin, and who was given the brain of an ancient Greek woman by Wolff/Jadawin, appears periodically as both an ally and foe in the World of Tiers series. Podarge and her huge air armada of giant green eagles (and many of the individuals in it), often play pivotal parts in this story. Podarge's face was based on that of Wolff/Jadawin's sister, Anana the Bright.