James Wilson's Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy"
World-building Fun
I first started creating fantasy worlds at the tender age of 11 when I first played Dungeons & Dragons. I loved looking at the maps, reading about nations that never existed, and strange new races, so I made up my own. I must've created 500 before I turned 18, but I finally settled on two main worlds and worked on them extensively from about the age of 14. They were "Blackroote" and "the Circle." Both of them have since been thoroughly cannibalized into the "Sundered Spheres," where all three of my published novels take place. You can find out more about it at sundered spheres.com if you so desire.
Those early worlds taught me a lot--mostly how much I don't know. I wanted to make up a world worthy of Tolkien, yet I had to work against my indifferent education and grotesque ignorance. I've always been a nerd, though I have tried hard to deny or change it at times, and so I was blessed with the intellectual arrogance that comes not so much with intelligence, but from being constantly informed that one is extremely intelligent.
I suppose I was an exceptional child in some ways; not every nine-year-old reads "The Killer Angels" and not many have read "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad" by age eleven. All my friends had read the last two, so it didn't seem that strange to me at the time.
I also read "The Lord of the Rings" at age eleven, and up to that point I had been a mainly military nerd. I became a fantasy freak from then on. I have read Tolkien at least once a year since that time, so I'm thoroughly acquainted with Middle Earth.
Tolkien's Middle Earth has few rivals. Some of the others who loom large over the world of fantasy didn't really bother much with making their world breathe. Barsoom is a bit of a joke, even though the stories are all kinds of fun, and the Hyborian Age only breathes because Howard was such a great storyteller; he infused life into an indifferent copy of dead cultures by sheer talent.
I don't think I have that kind of talent, so I opted for creating a world that was as realistic as possible outside of the requisite fantasy elements. Getting the balance right is always difficult; in some cases, like Westeros, the world is magic-poor, but still unrealistic in the non-fantasy elements. In others, like Xanth, there are really NO realistic elements and magic is ubiquitous; it's all fantasy (at least after the first book or two).
In my case I decided that magic would take the place of science. I even came up with a magical equivalent of the Industrial Revolution, and my very own version of Adam Smith to get it started. My novel "Errant Knight" takes place towards the beginning of the revolution, though few recognize what's happening yet. And my Adam Smith is set two centuries before that time, instead of causing an instant revolution the way the real person did.
Besides the published works, I've written several other stories and novels with different experiences with magic. Different peoples use and treat magic differently, but even those who try to resist eventually have to take it into account, because without it they are terribly vulnerable, just as science works today. Iran may be trying to maintain a 7th century social system, but they're still building nuclear reactors and trying to build the bomb. The same dynamic works in the Sundered Spheres, that those who refuse to accept the changes that come with entering that world still have to learn the mechanics even if they pretend to disbelieve the fundaments that make it possible.
And then there's the problem of realism: how much or how little? Take Westeros; the cynicism of so many of the characters I find ridiculous; you don't get that kind of hypocrisy without a sturdy religious structure to secretly subvert. The religion on Westeros is scarcely there; it's a warmed-over Wiccan kind of thing, which simply never has had the kind of social pull to bring out that level of rebellion. Pagan was a term of derision from the beginning; it comes from the quaint country practices of the rustics. Earlier tribalist cults also had no means for bringing out hypocrisy to the same degree; they were us/them 'religions' without any real concept of ethics outside of 'don't hurt our side' and 'everyone else is fair game.' It takes a universalist religion that is widely accepted to bring out the secretive wickedness such as is seen in Game of Thrones, yet no such religious social structure exists--and the scale of the nations is such that they simply couldn't exist without such a social structure. It's ten times the size of the Persian Empire without any unifying cultus. The Romans solved the problem with their Pantheon and the Greeks with their version of ecumenism, equating their twelve Olympians with twelve similar deities of other nations.
The religious aspect is seemingly missing from Tolkien, but he solves it with mysticism. The Valar are mentioned, and a few other hints exist, but there is remarkably little overtly mentioned religion in the story. Yet it underlies the story in many ways that are often missed today, and I think in part because it's not enough recognized. A medieval setting really requires an equivalent to the medieval church, but Tolkien is not really medieval. He borrowed heavily from history in many ways, and his world is Eastern Empire/Barbarian West, i.e. the Dark Ages, than medieval. He uses Gandalf as a sort of prophet and Christ figure, returning from death but without what Catholics refer to as the Passion. He's more like an Old Testament prophet, like an Elijah come back to advise a Justinian.
In my world the religion is much more involved than in most, not least because the deities are not deities; they're angels sent from other universes to heal the Sundered Spheres and bring all the spirits trapped there home. When you join their religion, you're not worshipping them; you're enlisting to help them defeat the evil powers in the pocket universe. And still that belief system has spawned a church and a dominant ethical system for people to rebel against. And what's more, one can not only rebel, but enlist with the enemy. The Three Divines are opposed by the Four Malices and the False Three, who run the Cold and Hot Hells respectively, and if you like, you can join their teams instead. They're opposed to each other, as well as the Three Divines, so there's plenty of conflict.
However I didn't stop there. About a dozen other major religions exist in conjunction with the dominant religion, and many smaller cults as well. It required quite a bit of research to create them without simply copying existing religions, which personally I think would be disrespectful, even if I'm think the religion in question I would consider mistaken.
This is just one way of injecting a realistic feel to the fantasy world, and I've spent decades trying to get it right. The Sundered Spheres is still a work in progress, despite published novels that use it for a setting. I may even finish all the background some day; I'm up to 988,000 words in the guide books that will eventually be published only three of the twelve are finished. Then I have more than twice that in other formats that aren't meant for public consumption. It's a LOT of work, and I've been at it a long long time.
It may never equal Middle Earth, but it won't be because I didn't try.
Those early worlds taught me a lot--mostly how much I don't know. I wanted to make up a world worthy of Tolkien, yet I had to work against my indifferent education and grotesque ignorance. I've always been a nerd, though I have tried hard to deny or change it at times, and so I was blessed with the intellectual arrogance that comes not so much with intelligence, but from being constantly informed that one is extremely intelligent.
I suppose I was an exceptional child in some ways; not every nine-year-old reads "The Killer Angels" and not many have read "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad" by age eleven. All my friends had read the last two, so it didn't seem that strange to me at the time.
I also read "The Lord of the Rings" at age eleven, and up to that point I had been a mainly military nerd. I became a fantasy freak from then on. I have read Tolkien at least once a year since that time, so I'm thoroughly acquainted with Middle Earth.
Tolkien's Middle Earth has few rivals. Some of the others who loom large over the world of fantasy didn't really bother much with making their world breathe. Barsoom is a bit of a joke, even though the stories are all kinds of fun, and the Hyborian Age only breathes because Howard was such a great storyteller; he infused life into an indifferent copy of dead cultures by sheer talent.
I don't think I have that kind of talent, so I opted for creating a world that was as realistic as possible outside of the requisite fantasy elements. Getting the balance right is always difficult; in some cases, like Westeros, the world is magic-poor, but still unrealistic in the non-fantasy elements. In others, like Xanth, there are really NO realistic elements and magic is ubiquitous; it's all fantasy (at least after the first book or two).
In my case I decided that magic would take the place of science. I even came up with a magical equivalent of the Industrial Revolution, and my very own version of Adam Smith to get it started. My novel "Errant Knight" takes place towards the beginning of the revolution, though few recognize what's happening yet. And my Adam Smith is set two centuries before that time, instead of causing an instant revolution the way the real person did.
Besides the published works, I've written several other stories and novels with different experiences with magic. Different peoples use and treat magic differently, but even those who try to resist eventually have to take it into account, because without it they are terribly vulnerable, just as science works today. Iran may be trying to maintain a 7th century social system, but they're still building nuclear reactors and trying to build the bomb. The same dynamic works in the Sundered Spheres, that those who refuse to accept the changes that come with entering that world still have to learn the mechanics even if they pretend to disbelieve the fundaments that make it possible.
And then there's the problem of realism: how much or how little? Take Westeros; the cynicism of so many of the characters I find ridiculous; you don't get that kind of hypocrisy without a sturdy religious structure to secretly subvert. The religion on Westeros is scarcely there; it's a warmed-over Wiccan kind of thing, which simply never has had the kind of social pull to bring out that level of rebellion. Pagan was a term of derision from the beginning; it comes from the quaint country practices of the rustics. Earlier tribalist cults also had no means for bringing out hypocrisy to the same degree; they were us/them 'religions' without any real concept of ethics outside of 'don't hurt our side' and 'everyone else is fair game.' It takes a universalist religion that is widely accepted to bring out the secretive wickedness such as is seen in Game of Thrones, yet no such religious social structure exists--and the scale of the nations is such that they simply couldn't exist without such a social structure. It's ten times the size of the Persian Empire without any unifying cultus. The Romans solved the problem with their Pantheon and the Greeks with their version of ecumenism, equating their twelve Olympians with twelve similar deities of other nations.
The religious aspect is seemingly missing from Tolkien, but he solves it with mysticism. The Valar are mentioned, and a few other hints exist, but there is remarkably little overtly mentioned religion in the story. Yet it underlies the story in many ways that are often missed today, and I think in part because it's not enough recognized. A medieval setting really requires an equivalent to the medieval church, but Tolkien is not really medieval. He borrowed heavily from history in many ways, and his world is Eastern Empire/Barbarian West, i.e. the Dark Ages, than medieval. He uses Gandalf as a sort of prophet and Christ figure, returning from death but without what Catholics refer to as the Passion. He's more like an Old Testament prophet, like an Elijah come back to advise a Justinian.
In my world the religion is much more involved than in most, not least because the deities are not deities; they're angels sent from other universes to heal the Sundered Spheres and bring all the spirits trapped there home. When you join their religion, you're not worshipping them; you're enlisting to help them defeat the evil powers in the pocket universe. And still that belief system has spawned a church and a dominant ethical system for people to rebel against. And what's more, one can not only rebel, but enlist with the enemy. The Three Divines are opposed by the Four Malices and the False Three, who run the Cold and Hot Hells respectively, and if you like, you can join their teams instead. They're opposed to each other, as well as the Three Divines, so there's plenty of conflict.
However I didn't stop there. About a dozen other major religions exist in conjunction with the dominant religion, and many smaller cults as well. It required quite a bit of research to create them without simply copying existing religions, which personally I think would be disrespectful, even if I'm think the religion in question I would consider mistaken.
This is just one way of injecting a realistic feel to the fantasy world, and I've spent decades trying to get it right. The Sundered Spheres is still a work in progress, despite published novels that use it for a setting. I may even finish all the background some day; I'm up to 988,000 words in the guide books that will eventually be published only three of the twelve are finished. Then I have more than twice that in other formats that aren't meant for public consumption. It's a LOT of work, and I've been at it a long long time.
It may never equal Middle Earth, but it won't be because I didn't try.
