World Building

A post on Mike Brother’s blog discusses great examples in Sci-Fi world building

Sadly, of those ten I’ve only read Niven’s Ring World.  I’m ashamed to be so sci-fi illterate.  I enjoy the genre, but for some reason I just don’t buy it.  There is always some other fantasy book that attracts me more when I’m at the bookstore.  It is a very interesting post.  It also made me think about the authors I’ve read who have really created something I enjoyed with their worlds.

The top two on my list are of course Robert Jordan and Frank Herbert which may come as no surprise to those who know me.  I tend to yammer about them whenever the opportunity arrises.  Dune was just a fantastic epic.  To this day I still get shivers whenever I hear the litany against fear and think about the nerve induction device the Bene Gesserit use on Paul.  As for Jordan, as far as detail and description go I really don’t think anyone can compare.  Whether or not you liked that about him or not, the world of the Wheel of Time is vast and incredibly structured. 

Now for my lesser known picks….

Kristen Britain’s Green Rider: From what I remember of this book, (And it has been maybe seven years since then, I was in high school.) The magic of the Green Riders was at that time was avery unique idea to me and I was pulled into the world and its history.  Her characters themselves were not as engaging as the world itself being mainly basic archetypes, but the rest was strong enough to make a good read.

Anne McCaffrey (Insert Series Here):  McCaffrey is a wonderful writer and world builder, especially in the early days of Pern.  Until Naomi Novik, no one did dragons better.  I realize that she isn’t one of those obscure writers I promised to blog about in this post, but the my favorite piece of hers is.  Long ago, I picked up a very short novella of hers called If Wishes Were Horses.   It was so short, and yet she told a complete tale.  I felt like the book was twice as long as it actually was.

Diana Wynne Jones for Howl’s Moving Castle:  Yes guys…it was a book before Miyazaki made it a movie.  It amazes me how many of my fellow anime fans don’t even realize that.  Did no one at least wiki it?  As you can imagine the book is fantastic, or it wouldn’t have attracted the great Miyazaki now would it? 

Diadem (series) by John Peel:  This was a YA series from my youth that quite regrettably is now out of print.    Each book took place on a different world as a motley crew of teenagers jumped through portal after magical  portal.   I always thought this series would make a great card game.  It helped too that there was a tribal culture of talking unicorns on one world.

Anyway that’s about all I have to say about that.  If you’d like to read more about world building, Cirellio over on Five Rings has several good posts about fantasy world building in his archives.