SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Hi -

There is always so much weight put on the task of world-building in fantasy and sci-fi novels. So my question is, who do you think does it best? Who does it the least successfully? Have some authors nailed it with one series and failed with others?

A few of the best 'worlds' I can think of -
Harry Potter
Anne Bishop - Black Jewels (but i didn't appreciate it as much in her other series)
Tolkein
Jim Butcher
Jasper Fforde

I havent read many of the heavy hitters, so I would love to be able to concentrate future reads on the stories with the most fully-developed/well-written worlds.

Thoughts?

I can't think of a better world builder than Tolkien. He is a master of description of the world of Middle earth. From describing a simple woodland brook to a grand fortress Tolkien sucks the reader right into the realms of Middle Earth. Not to mention his rich character building and extensive development of culture and language that permeates throughout every aspect of, in my opinion, the greatest fantasy story of all time.

Amen to that. Tolkien has always been and always will be my favorite author in any genre.

Hello,
I too love when the author builds a fantastic and believable world.

Some of my favs are:
Known Space (Larry Niven)
Discworld (Terry Prachett)
Robert Asprin (Myth Series)
Pern (Anne McCaffery)

I find that if the author doesn't spend the proper time fleshing out their world it shows in the final product and leaves one feeling like there is something missing.

Stephen

Jacqueline Carey in the Kushiel's Legacy series -- you should definitely like this, given you already like Anne Bishop's Black Jewels novels. (Some of the same concepts are in play, but Carey is a better writer all around -- better world, better characters, better prose, IMHO.)

Lois McMaster Bujold in either the Vorkosigan Saga or the Chalion novels (the first are great space opera; the second great epic fantasy). She doesn't spend a ton of time just exploring her worlds like some authors do; all the world-building goes on in the margins of the pages, but it's all incredibly consistent and well-reasoned, and she really highlights the ways that the worlds create her characters.

Roger Zelazny, particularly in Lord of Light and The Great Book of Amber.

Iain M. Banks in the Culture novels. Start anywhere, though the one whose world-building really stood out to me was one of his most recent, Matter. (I adored the Shellworld concept!)

And I haven't read it, but as far as I've heard pretty much the only reason TO read it is the world-building: Ringworld, by Larry Niven. Classic hard SF world-building.

Phoenixfalls wrote: "Jacqueline Carey in the Kushiel's Legacy series -- you should definitely like this, given you already like Anne Bishop's Black Jewels novels. (Some of the same concepts are in play, b..."

I have read the first in the Kushiel's series and remember liking it, but never pursued it. Maybe I'll give it another chance.

Havent read any of these others, though I have been eyeing Discworld for at least a year or two.

Phoenixfalls wrote: "And I haven't read it, but as far as I've heard pretty much the only reason TO read it is the world-building: Ringworld, by Larry Niven. Classic hard SF world-building..."

I wouldn't go quite that far. I really liked Ringworld, but the rest of the books in the series were mediocre. As far as world building, the Ringworld is fascinating. I wish there could be more stories about the Ringworld that were good!

Bridgit -- If you're really into world-building I do suggest reading on in the Kushiel series; the world Carey explores just keeps getting bigger. In the second novel she gets into quite a few Mediterranean cultures, and in the third she even goes into Africa (and explores more the of the skewed Judaism/Christianity stand-in Yeshuities).

Stephen -- Ringworld is on my TBR stack. . . like I said, I haven't *actually* read it myself, that's just what I hear. Glad to hear somebody saying it's better than I thought! Maybe I'll move it up on the stack. . . ;)

A song of Ice and Fire is incredible

Bridgit wrote: "Hi -

There is always so much weight put on the task of world-building in fantasy and sci-fi novels. So my question is, who do you think does it best? Who does it the least successfully? Have so..."

Kinda tough without defining 'world building' a bit better. For me, Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity is awesome hard physics/geology/biology world building.
Mission of Gravity
The Niven/Pournelle classic The Mote In God's Eye builds two completely different societies - one large, one small but deep and is even more awesome, but completely different.
The Mote in God's Eye
Fantasy wise I was always partial to the Guy Gaviel Gay World Tree series for it's complexity and believability. The Ill Earth series was pretty good that way too.

The Summer TreeThe Illearth War

Agree that it depends on what you mean by worldbuilding. If you mean "pages and pages of expository detail about the setting" I try to avoid that; if you mean "consistent, plausible and engrossing setting" I'd second the recommendation of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series. (I very much enjoyed the first two Chalion novels, but I don't know if the world gripped me quite so much.)

John Scalzi's Old Man's War series is pretty good too.

Sorcery and Cecelia, by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, is pretty good for this. Also Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics. I guess I'd put these under the category of "giving enough atmospheric detail to make you feel like you were there and enjoying the events of the story." I may think of more of these and come back to post them later.

I'm not sure if I'd like to be a Barrayaran, Betan or on one of Miles' ships, but yeah, I'd really like to live in a world with the Vorkosigans in it. That's Shards of Honour or Cordelia's Honor or Test of Honor (Omnibus: Shards of Honor \ The Warrior's Apprentice) or The Warrior's Apprentice.

I'd like to live in Newford too. It's Charles de Lint's fantasy world, or one of them, that's like a Canadian city and like an American city, but there's magic there, if one can or will see it. With these there's no one place to start, but Someplace to Be Flying, Trader and Moonlight and Vines are each very good.

NIven of course.

Glenn Cook does a very good job, as does Steven Brust.

Peter F. Hamilton - very ambitious.

Harry Turtledove.

I've reread the thread, and can't think of anyone I'd add, but must say how happy it makes me to see a little love for the Thieves World series.

Among more modern authors in science fiction, I'd have to say Paolo Bacigalupi. I found The Windup Girl incredibly immersive - so much so that I dreaded picking it up at times, even though I enjoyed it.

For fantasy I'd maybe go with Scott Lynch. The Lies of Locke Lamora had great world-building.

After Tolkien, my favorite world builders include:

Janny Wurts and her Wars of Light and Shadow series (which starts with The Curse of the Mistwraith)

Robert Jordan (and now Brandon Sanderson) with the Wheel of Time series (which stars with The Eye of the World)

L.E. Modesitt Jr. and his Saga of Recluce (The Magic of Recluce) or Imager Portfolio series (Imager).

And just about anything written by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Robert Jordan (and now Brandon Sanderson) with the Wheel of Time series (which stars with The Eye of the World)

And now Brandon Sanderson with The Way of Kings
Wonderful

In the world-building department, one writer no one's mentioned yet is John Varley.

Whether he's making worlds which are outlandish and wild like his Gaea series (Titan, Wizard, Demon) or his super-cool "Eight Worlds" future history where humans have been kicked off of Earth by inscrutable aliens (Ophiuchi Hotline, Steel Beach, Golden Globe, etc.), I think Varley crushes it.

Varley's Eight Worlds is one of the few I'd compare favorably to Niven's Known Space. It's mostly confined to our solar system, but no less epic. And the writing is similar.

Oh! Another great world-builder is Robert Charles Wilson. He's really created a tremendous variety of weird and interesting worlds which are all different from one another but share a similar theme of some huge and inexplicable event changing the world.

So far I've enjoyed all of the books I've read by him.

Ursula Le Guin is also fantastic at world building, without overly minute details (excepting Always Coming Home, but that is sort of the point of it ;)).

I, too, love GGK, GRRM and Iain M Banks for world building. :)

Alice wrote: "
And now Brandon Sanderson with The Way of Kings
Wonderful"

You have no idea how much I agree on this! :D

Trike wrote: "In the world-building department, one writer no one's mentioned yet is John Varley.

Whether he's making worlds which are outlandish and wild like his Gaea series (Titan, Wizard, Demon) or his supe..."

Absolutely agree.

In fact, I agree with many of the already named series/books/authors.

I would add (unless I missed it and someone else did already) Helliconia Spring (and sequels) by Brian W. Aldiss.

I still gotta go with GRRM on this one. Simple world, yet complex people in it.

NYKen wrote: "Has anyone here read any old Forgotten Realms books back in the 90s when it was the franchise that took up shelves and shelves of space in the bookstores?

I read three books from all those series...."

Oh, sure. I was a huge R.A. Salvatore fan in middle school, before I became too pretentious for sword and sorcery. Homeland was the first book I ever read twice. I think Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance are gateway drugs for a lot of fantasy readers.

Peter V. Brett and Patrick Rothfuss have to be in the discussion now

My fav's at this time are:
-McCaffrey's Pern (Dragonflight series)
-Anthony's Xanth (The Source of Magic, etc.)
-Philipson's post-apocalyptic Earth (Children of Destruction)
-Kriss Erickson's Land Behind the Veil series (Brownbird's Luck, etc.) and
-Sam White's Anything Goes Fighters (AGF: The Gathering).

I never thought of it in that particular manner. If an author's "world", be it entire star systems or just another version of Earth, is complete and I feel "comfortable" in it (I know what it's all about and what to expect from the environment and the society), then I give the author credit for good world-building.

The books/series I mentioned do that, each in its own way. For instance, if it's not a pun, it probably doesn't exist in Xanth, Dragons are tame on Pern, people are in short supply in Children of Destruction while aliens are plentiful and have a different set of values than we do. And so on.

For me the one that takes the price is The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson Not only is the world building fantastic but the magic system is both complex and refreshing.

Wow, some great names and lots of new names for me. Always good to see what else is out there.

However, imho Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series has the most complete and complex worlds I have ever read. He was an archaeologist and anthropologist and has really used his 20 years expertise to our advantage. Super real, super human, but very far out fantasy.

And as a cherry on top, he's a excellent writer, one of the best alive imho.

Enjoy

It can be argued that for F&SF, setting is core. (Whereas in romance character is king, and in mysteries plot rules.) Thus there are SF works that are just about all setting, with only a thin layer of plot and charcter to hold the work together. The best-known of these might be RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA. An utterly cool setting, but you would be hard-put to name the characters, and the story revolves merely around exploring the setting.

NYKen wrote: "May I ask what about a particular part of the author's world-building appeals to you most, and why do you suppose that is so?"

I believe worlds need to appear homogeneous on the surface, but as the characters interact with it they discover the magic within. Tolkien's work contains long passages describing tedious hikes, punctuated by the discovery of such a special or magical (both good and evil) locale.

Examples include: Old Man Willow & Tom Bombadil's house
Weathertop
The Gates of Moria
Rivendell
Lorien
Mirkwood

Just when you feel as weary as the Fellowship, you stumble first upon a magical enclave in his world and soon after the action starts.

Tolkien was good but when it comes to prose he wasn't the best. Then again, we aren't talking about prose we're talking about World Building.

Ahhh....I got to go with Frank Herbert only because he built a world/galaxy/universe just as brimming with depth as LOTR but it also took him considerable less time to write Dune then it took Tolkien for LOTR.

Another one would have to be Gene Wolfe. Talking about prose again, no one is better then Wolfe except maybe Dan Simmons. Wolfe's worlds, as far off in the future as he writes them, is extremely believable.

That is my two cents.

Most of my favorites have already been mentioned, MacCaffrey's Pern, Bujold's Chalion and the Vorkosigan series. Another I like that I don't see mentioned is the "500 Kingdoms" series by Mercedes Lackey which starts with The Fairy Godmother

I've always thought that world building in a single book is even more difficult than that in a series, if for no other reason than the author doesn't have as much time for development. One of my favorite single-book worlds is that in War for the Oaks

For me, it would have to be Peter F. Hamilton.

I don't think anyone's mentioned Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space universe. The rule of no faster than light speed, wormholes, or other sorts of "space folding" creates some fascinating scenarios involving relativity. Peter Hamilton is also a pretty good world creator, but I personally feel his descriptions can be a little too long winded at times.. but that could just be my lack of patience.

NYKen wrote: "Richard Knaak had two books that resonated within me in my younger years. They were The Legend of Huma and Kaz the Minotaur. I just loved the journey in those two books. The world was at war, and there were both good and evil gods, evil magicians and scary creatures of all sorts, and other great characters. The journey allowed me to see the world as the two would see in their eyes. It was fantastic"

these are novels that take place in the Dragonlance Dungeons & dragons world.

All the tie ins to roleplayworlds have very well developed worlds. These worlds are mostley developed by other people than the authors, so i'm not sure it they fit in this tread. But Jim Butcher developes his worlds by writing up a first draft, than play roleplaygames in them for a few years, and then write the novels. And there are other fantasy writers who use their rpg world in their work as well (Feist and Martin are two of the more well known examples)

So if a detailed and well worked out world are important to you try roleplay tie in books like:
dragonlance books
Pathfinder tales
Eberonn books
the forgotten realms
dark sun

btw: you can also just by a world book for these settings, if you are only interessted in the world and not the (somewhat pulpy) writing

I just finished Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan, recommended by someone here (I believe). Excellent book, excellent world-building - I especially liked the way Morgan dropped us into the story and revealed the world without resorting to the dreaded info-dump. I'll admit I had a bit of trouble keeping the players straight toward the end, but over all very enjoyable.

I love Brandon Sanderson's "Way of Kings" world building - one of the truly original current authors in the realms of fantasy in my opinion.

Some all time favourites of mine though are Anne McCaffery's Pern, JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth, and Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

I am really impressed with the world Suzanne Collins created in The Hunger Games. She addresses many socio-economic and class issues without being preachy. Quite an accomplishment.

Most of the good authors have built worlds, but I keep going back to Darkover (Marion Zimmer Bradley),

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess is one of the most astounding examples of world building through language. The way Burgess combined Russian words with English and future slang implied an alternate history of events that had devastated England. Tolkien also used invented language with ancient roots to create a sense of history within middle earth.

GRRM is a motion I second. As much as I prefer sci fi, his setting and the way he writes his characters is second to none. If Im wrong, point me to the right direction!

In both genres (more so in fantasy), the universe/world of the books is crucial to the story. I utterly enjoy well-built, expansive and consistent worlds when I read my books. Naturally, the most remembered worlds come from series, so here are mine, even if I repeat the obvious and already mentioned:

- JRR Tolkien: Not so much for LOTR, but for this incredibly full and ancient world he unveils through The Silmarillion, other legends, the language and the adventures
- GRRM: Maybe he is more of a character-builder but his augmented medieval world is such a believable setting!
- Frank Herbert: building a world through philosophy! He might have one planet and one planet only but it is a world and history in itself
- Terry Pratchett: his books might mostly be self-contained stories but the Discworld is a winning setting. Sits on top of 4 elephants on top of a giant turtle; I mean, come on! :)
- Isaac Asimov: Through Foundation, Empire and Robots stories he writes the history of mankind's future. It is hard to follow but fascinating nonetheless

And I am sure I am missing some...

Herbert did a lot more than Dune. Grab a copy of Whipping Star, for example. Awesome backdrop!

I just finished Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. Some fantastic world-building for not only a far-future human culture, but also in making the "spider" aliens thoroughly alien *and* sympathetic at the same time. Highly recommended.

Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear.. Toward the end of the book the reader comes into contact with a planetary system that houses the machines that destroyed Earth.

The world building was simply breath-taking, considering what happens at the bitter end to the trillions living there.

I don't know why this slipped my mind, but one of the coolest world-building exercises has to be Jack L. Chalker's Well World. The idea that a super-advanced race felt there should be something "more" to life so they built an entire world as a test bed for other types of aliens is epic.

(original) (newer) - Midnight at the Well of Souls is the first book in the series.

An oldie -- C.S. Lewis' "Perelandra" books. He has some lovely descriptions of strange planets, which stayed in my mind for a long time afterwards.

A part from Tolkien and Martin, I think that China Miéville is great at creating fascinating worlds.

Trike wrote: "I don't know why this slipped my mind, but one of the coolest world-building exercises has to be Jack L. Chalker's Well World. The idea that a super-advanced race felt there should be something "mo..."

Sounds interesting. I just checked my local library and they only have 'Twilight at the well of souls : the legacy of Nathan Brazil' (Pub Year: 2005).