Fantasy series that are both character-driven and with great worldbuilding

[HairBearHero]

34 minutes ago, End of Disc One said:

I guess that's one way to put it...Michael went from not even existing to being a character in book 3.

Michael appears in Fool Moon doesn't he?

May well be wrong, as previously mentioned it's been a while!

[Gasp of Many Reeds]

On 4/29/2016 at 1:09 AM, R'hllors Red Lobster said:

Thomas Covenant, yo 

What's great about Donaldson is that he wins either way on the issue of worldbuilding - the Land can be a very immersive country to visit, but where the magic is thin and the clichés thick, he can say 'Ha! But what if the thinness of the world is because it is a product of Covenant's delusions?!'

To go back to the first page, there's a Bakker vs. Erikson fan feud? I like them both greatly, if for different reasons.

Opinions on Wheel of Time requested - I think Jordan should be congratulated for the depth of much of his world-building, and he cannot be accused, as Erikson can, of creating cultures that are indistinguishable. He also has a sense of historical direction absent from Martin (history still works across millennia, but only one is permitted per age, not 5 or 6). But then his cultures are often distinguished by arbitrary stereotypes, and this adds to the thinness of his world at times. As for characters, well, the same problem often applies. Each character has their own style and identity but most of them rarely breach the third dimension. 

 

[Richard Writhen]

On ‎5‎/‎5‎/‎2016 at 4:03 PM, Gasp of Many Reeds said:

 there's a Bakker vs. Erikson fan feud?

One has giant hounds, one does not. You do the math ...

[Pilusmagnus]

On 6/5/2016 at 11:41 PM, Wrycthen said:

One has giant hounds, one does not. You do the math ...

Which one has them?

[Richard Writhen]

7 hours ago, Pilusmagnus said:

Which one has them?

Malazan. But it was a joke, I haven't read either.

 

Nvm. * returns to FLT *

[Contrarius+]

On 4/29/2016 at 3:04 PM, Darth Richard II said:

I have a better idea. Don't read Dresden, because it's shit.

Hey! Them's fightin' words. My little Lego Harry Dresden avatar is glaring at you threateningly.

 

As for character/world books that haven't been mentioned yet (I don't think), consider Carol Berg's books. She's intensely character-focused, and I'm usually impressed by her worlds. IMHO, her weakness is plotting.

[Darth Richard II]

My hatre3d for Dresden is well documented at this point I think so I wont continue.

Berg has been on my hey i need to try that pile for a while.

[Zorral]

The Inda series by S Smith has both great world-building and is character driven, with a variety of well-rounded characters who continue to develop.

 

[Darth Richard II]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

The Inda series by S Smith has both great world-building and is character driven, with a variety of well-rounded characters who continue to develop.

 

Tha'ts another one I need to check out.

[TrackerNeil]

On 4/29/2016 at 2:23 AM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

So things like oak trees growing north of the Wall, and large animals surviving multi-year winters don't bother you? Or the fact that Dornish people and Wildings share a common language in a pseudo-medieval world? Or the North's incomprehensible lack of a navy (a naked plot device)? Or the idea that a family can rule for eight thousand years in a setting that prides itself on "realism"? Or the awkward orientalism of Essos? None of that can count as great worldbuilding.

Actually, none of that stuff bothers me, because it just doesn't matter to me in terms of the story in general. If oak trees north of the Wall are unrealistic, so are dragons and ice demons, and I've accepted that. (Honestly, I didn't know that about oaks, which I suppose demonstrates how little it mattered to me. Maybe lots of other readers were outraged by that, though.)

I agree that Martin's world isn't the most inventive I've ever encountered, but it is immersive, which brings me to my second point...

On 4/30/2016 at 2:40 AM, Pilusmagnus said:

I think that by "worldbuilding" what I actually mean is "immersion". I don't really ask that the world is profound and deeply developed to call it great worldbuilding. I just want it to feel real, that it's a real place I could live in. But I feel that somehow it is connected with worldbuilding.

This is an excellent observation, and one I'd like to pursue. I think it's fairly easy to invent a bunch of places and names, and then throw in some customs that seem strange to modern readers, but what really matters (IMO) is if the reader gets a feel for that world. I confess that I cringe at the term "worldbuilding", because that so often means that the author will spend paragraphs detailing architectural styles or describing battles ten thousand years before the beginning of the story. I think it's much more important to get the readers to feel what the world is like--the details aren't all that important. 

[Zorral]

Exchanging immersive for world-building is a productive method for examining what work (is good) and what doesn't work (is not good).

The fantasy writer, Peter Higgins (The Wolfhound Century trilogy) mentioned earlier this week in the UK Guardian that the fantasy impulse is always to build out, to take time, to linger. This can hang up authors forever -- continuing to world-build, to amplify, finding ever new elements to explore about what in already in the text, continuing to research. Thus the narrative stays in a bog, does't actually move on, and the author is spared the creation of the crucial points of arrival for both characters and readers, i.e. satisfaction. Thus immersion can get in the way of narrative points, pacing and structure.  OTOH, when done well, rules a reader's imagination for years.

It was admirable too, in the article, his demonstration of how much thinking he'd done concerning his choice to marry the Fantasy and Thriller genres -- how they can work together and do it well for both of them. Whereas something as randomly chosen like murder mystery and Pride and Prejudice, even when done by a mistress of the mystery like P. D. James is just ridiculous -- Death Comes to Pemberly.  Austen herself showed how silly it was to push the supernatural and horrific into the realistic world in her early novel, Northhanger Abbey.(Just another reason to admire Austen the writer -- she understood what she was doing and why and how.)

[The Marquis de Leech]

On 30/04/2016 at 5:44 AM, Liver and Onions said:

Sarah Monette's Labyrinth Doctrine (I think that's the title, first book is Melusine) is very character focused with some decidedly interesting world building. However, that unconventional series isn't everyone's cup of tea, and I think the second book may still be out of print. 

I'm currently reading the series (I'm onto the fourth and final book now). Yes, it's character-driven with great world-building (there's some real thought put into the magic system, and I just love the weird stuff like the calendar and the Titan Clocks). I can't quite make up my mind about Felix - I currently view him as toxic, and poor Mildmay needs to get the hell away from him, but no-one can doubt the depth of his characterisation. My complaint thus far revolves around the sodding plot, or lack thereof.  

[Jo498]

On 11.5.2016 at 2:01 PM, TrackerNeil said:

Actually, none of that stuff bothers me, because it just doesn't matter to me in terms of the story in general. If oak trees north of the Wall are unrealistic, so are dragons and ice demons, and I've accepted that. (Honestly, I didn't know that about oaks, which I suppose demonstrates how little it mattered to me. Maybe lots of other readers were outraged by that, though.)

I do not remember the oaks and the point is not a botanico-geographical detail but that Martin toys around with a somewhat original idea (odd seasons, especially long winters) without bothering to make it important for the world. The wildlings are just random barbarians, they would have to be much closer to e.g. inuit and it would even be more plausible if they could not survive at all in such numbers north of the wall.

I think there is a difference between going with some unrealistic tropes for simplicity (e.g. common tongue for a whole continent, uncommonly high literacy levels etc.) and introducing some strange climate and then not bothering with the consequences.

[Jiriki]

People have recommended Janny Wurts, but I could never get through any of her books. Nor did I find them to be great worldbuilding.

Jordan's Wheel of Time has great worldbuilding, but I found most of the characters annoying as hell. Definitely Nynaeve and Egwene. But later even Mat and Perrin and Fail and Min and all the Aes Sedai characters. And almost everyone else. Most of the characters eventually just seemed to merge into one very annoying character. No idea how or why that happened.

Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn has very good worldbuilding, and the only annoying character for me was Marya (at times). Unlike Jordan, I never felt like Williams was purposely making the characters annoying, or that the characters were annoying each other on purpose. And I felt like the worldbuilding was exceptional: based on European and Asian culture, but with some interesting takes.

Elizabeth Moon's The Deed of Paksenarion series is well-written, and has decent world-building. I don't remember all the details, now, but I'm difficult to please, and was pleased by this series.

 

 

 

[Richard Writhen]

I think ASOIAF, while heavily influenced a number of other writers, features both great worldbuilding and great immersion.

 

 

Definitely some of the series' strong points.

[TrackerNeil]

16 hours ago, Jo498 said:

I do not remember the oaks and the point is not a botanico-geographical detail but that Martin toys around with a somewhat original idea (odd seasons, especially long winters) without bothering to make it important for the world. The wildlings are just random barbarians, they would have to be much closer to e.g. inuit and it would even be more plausible if they could not survive at all in such numbers north of the wall.

I think there is a difference between going with some unrealistic tropes for simplicity (e.g. common tongue for a whole continent, uncommonly high literacy levels etc.) and introducing some strange climate and then not bothering with the consequences.

That's a fair criticism. Maybe the reason will become clear as the series wraps up.

[Wilbur]

On 4/29/2016 at 9:17 PM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

... one might be C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy.

My memories of reading the Coldfire Trilogy was that the characters drove the story, and the world they inhabited wasn't the most interesting one I had read about.  Often I felt like anything other than the main characters' wishes and motivation was rather sketched, but that is just one person's perception.

A stronger performance of world-building to my taste was Lois McMaster Bujold's creation of the Chalion universe, which does a very nice job of invoking a southwestern Mediterranean world of just before the Renaissance, avec fairly light magic.

• The Curse of Chalion (2001)
• Paladin of Souls (2003)
• The Hallowed Hunt (2005)

[Set in the same universe was  "Penric's Demon" (2015).]

Also, while I agree with the earlier posts about Janny Wurts as a stand-alone writer not always being interesting to me, her collaboration with Raymond E. Feist produced the truly good Empire Trilogy, set in a feudal Korea or Japan.  Their collaboration is, in my mind, the best work either of them ever has done.  The characters are sharp, their motivations well-constructed, and the world is elegantly described and inhabited.  Furthermore, the books are well ahead of their time in terms of the treatment of women and foreigners.  Once again, magic exists in the world of the books, but is not a main driver of the plot.

• Daughter of the Empire (1987)
• Servant of the Empire (1990)
• Mistress of the Empire (1992)

 

[Darth Richard II]

Don't be silly, Feist only wrote five books then retired.

[Jo498]

4 hours ago, Wilbur said:

A stronger performance of world-building to my taste was Lois McMaster Bujold's creation of the Chalion universe, which does a very nice job of invoking a southwestern Mediterranean world of just before the Renaissance, avec fairly light magic.

• The Curse of Chalion (2001)

I have only read this one by her but it is very good. While the world is in some respects modelled closely after medieval Spain (turned upside down and on a southern hemisphere), it has one of the best treatments of religion in fantasy I have encountered (and it's rather different from medieval catholicism) and it is considerably more realistic than most others in such that in a geographical region about as big as the Iberian peninsula, distances are real and relevant for military strategy and a princess has to be tutored in two or more foreign languages because there is no continent-wide common tongue (although there even was to some extent in the Western European middle ages).

[Gormenghast]

So, while elsewhere I use to sing praises to Erikson I'm also one of the rare cases of readers thinking Erikson is not good at worldbuilding at all (or at least not specifically remarkable for that). In fact I'm always contrary to ideas such as making an RPG with the setting or some encyclopedia. It just wouldn't work.

The problem is Erikson has a terse style of writing and there's very little space left to flashing out all the aspects that correspond to good worldbuilding. I'll probably write more about this when I write my review of The Bonehunters, but the way Erikson strings events and scenes, the fragmentary constant cycling of PoVs, they all lead to a lackluster feeling of a believable, solid, alternative world that continues to exist even when you're not looking. (besides, above I read about "aspects of daily life", in Malazan there's essentially NONE of it)

For me Martin excels at that, and he excels specifically because he has a rich style of writing, with flowing descriptions that help sinking in the fictional world and immersion. And because dialogue and characters are so natural, the resulting picture is the most believable out of any other writer I can think of. Besides, Martin obsesses over details. The world and characters continue to exist off the page. The only problem with Martin is that he writes mostly historical fiction that was slightly warped to look like fantasy, so as an exercise in invention and creativity it's fairly poor, and that would be an area where Malazan wins and hits it out of the park.

Janny Wurts main series is also excellent. Jordan I guess is another with a rich style of writing, though the overall worldbuilding is fairly questionable. Sanderson does interesting things too, even if a bit "plain" as everything else. Bakker is, I don't know, very limited in scope, but what he does he does exceptionally well. But still, it's not the worldbuilding the reason why you'd read his books.