Great Worldbuilding

[MinDonner]

At the moment, reading Factotum (third part of the Monster Blood YA series), and as ever with this series I am blown away by how detailed and believable the worldbuilding is. Now, I know we all disagree on how important this is to a story, but IMO, seeing it done so well and so thoroughly is quite a joy in itself (from the book notes, it looks like the author spent many years developing the world before even starting to write a story based there). The map is incredibly detailed and well-drawn; there's whole networks of roads and shipping routes, and the towns and cities are sensibly placed; the politics and social structures seem realistically complicated; there's a whole miscellany of specialist steam-punk-y gadgets and processes based around the world's monster-hunting requirements (for example, certain types of monster-hunter have major surgery to allow them to shoot lightning, and then have to live on a special diet afterwards); and the author's even gone to the trouble of inventing his own sayings and aphorisms instead of relying on, er, Earth-cliche ones, just to add some extra flavour. In worldbuilding terms, it knocks Tolkien into a cocked hat (what DO the elves in Rivendell live on, anyway?)

So, who gets your prize for Best Secondary World?

[Datepalm]

I've got to complain about WOT a bit, in the sense that detailed =! good, always. I'll give it kudos for being extremely immersive and layered - names, foods, fashions, etc - it really is possible to tell where a character is from by their description - but at the same time a lot of it dosen't make a lick of sense in terms of the shapes of everything from mountain ranges to countires to trade routes. (Yes, I know, its becuase of the dark one. Still.)

[MinDonner]

detailed =! good, always

Oh, totally. I'm talking accuracy, not just overcomplication. And "a wizard did it" is never a good excuse.

[delete this account pls]

It certainly isn't the best, but as I'm rereading Altered Carbon right now I'm struck anew by the subtelty of Richard Morgan's worldbuilding. It's very much in the background, but over the course of the novel he gives a fairly in-depth summary of Harlan's World, homeworld of the protagonist Takeshi Kovacs, which is all the more remarkable for the fact that only a single chapter is actually set on Harlan's World itself, with the remainder of the story set on Earth. There's never any egregious info-dump or long expositionary sections, just a bunch of little and big details that accrue over time to give a detailed overview of this alien planet, it's culture and it's history. He also establishes a very clear picture of a future Earth, and gives an interesting flavour for a bunch of other worlds and organisations.

It's exactly the kind of worldbuilding I like. It's revealed through the characters - their history, their habits, their memories, but it's no less concrete and detailed for that. GRRM is also very very good at this, now that I think about it.

[Datepalm]

Oh, totally. I'm talking accuracy, not just overcomplication. And "a wizard did it" is never a good excuse.

I suppose I could buy it if it added up - say, the village is poor because the wizard caused a drought - but in WOT it never does. We're told half the continent is lying all but abandoned from human habitation and so much as a symbolic claim by any nation because "The dark one is backing away mankind" (Or something) but its never actually shown. Andor is wealthy, powerful and prosperous. The Two Rivers (Its most remote, ungoverned area, mind) have universal literacy, multi story homes, feather matresses, at least a horse in every household, excellent healthcare, good roads, a reliable ferry. Why are the children (who have a very low mortality, that we hear) of these people (who rarely die in childbirth, apparently) not claiming more farmland? Why is only one merchant a year showing up to this place with its world famous luxury export? Why does no one ever leave!? :bang:

I, uh, needed to get that out.

I don't mind something like the worldbuilding in the Painted Man, where its very clear all the weridness is magical, but because it actually makes sense rather than because the author said so, and because its less hugely detailed so theres less room for it to go wrong. Come to think of it, i'm very fond of the worlbuilding in Avatar as well - not a lot of detailed trade routes, but a wonderful and immersive atmosphere nontheless.

[Chris Wooding]

You're talking about the D.M.Cornish books, right? I want to read these now...

:read:

[Jussi]

Tad Williams is one of my favourite world-builders. I read Shadowrise a few months ago and really got absorbed in it. Williams' worlds feel like real places to me.

[MinDonner]

You're talking about the D.M.Cornish books, right? I want to read these now...

:read:

Yes indeed. The story is a little YA-tastic (orphan finds he is Speshul and has to deal with Cardboard Grownup Enemies) but the worldbuilding more than makes up for any plot shortcomings.

[Zach H]

As far as relishing in the portrayal of a setting and how it interacts with the story it belongs to, I'd probably go with the Whorl in Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun. For a few reasons I'm not sure that addresses the "best secondary world" question, but in general I'm of the belief that world-building is just another name for setting development.

[fionwe1987]

I suppose I could buy it if it added up - say, the village is poor because the wizard caused a drought - but in WOT it never does. We're told half the continent is lying all but abandoned from human habitation and so much as a symbolic claim by any nation because "The dark one is backing away mankind" (Or something) but its never actually shown. Andor is wealthy, powerful and prosperous. The Two Rivers (Its most remote, ungoverned area, mind) have universal literacy, multi story homes, feather matresses, at least a horse in every household, excellent healthcare, good roads, a reliable ferry. Why are the children (who have a very low mortality, that we hear) of these people (who rarely die in childbirth, apparently) not claiming more farmland? Why is only one merchant a year showing up to this place with its world famous luxury export? Why does no one ever leave!? :bang:

I, uh, needed to get that out.

While I respect your right to vent...:)

Where is it said that the declining population is the Dark One's work? Was it some character that said it? In that case, pay it no more mind than the statements that the Dark One sent the Aiel, the Dark One sent the storm, the Dark One caused my mom to see me stealing the pie... you get the picture.

The one instance where we get discussion on the regression of human population, we have Loial and Ingtar discussing the end of Hardan, which lay between Cairhein and Shienar. Loial explains that most of the nations that faded did so because something failed in a major way, like crops, trade, etc. and people just moved away to stronger nations, leaving behind isolated farms and tiny villages. Cairhein made a claim to Hardan, but was never able to enforce the claim strongly, and the Aiel War finally ended that pretense.

I won't argue this is a great explanation, but its certainly better than "the Dark One did it".

There's also this to consider... there were some huge forced migrations during Hawkwing's reign, and that cannot possibly have helped the countries that had to endure them. I'll have to check, but I think that's how Caralain ended up as a dead country.

[Datepalm]

I do recall it being stronly intimated that the reason there was so much fallow ground (much more than one drought here or one frost there can account for over thousands of years) was because the dark one/forsaken (Ishmael?) was influencing the world.

Hawkwings time was a thousand years earlier.

Theres just no convincing reason why these nations aren't capable of holding onto more lands. They have wealth, technology, strong central authority and powerful militaries and they're not usually at war with anyone. Maybe I could be convinced the borderlands are busy focusing all their energies to the north (And they actually have more convincing worldbuilding, giving a sense of emptiness and defensiveness of the population.) but why are Andor or Cairhein, throught which we traipse through at great length and which are almost universally shown as rich, stable, and prosperous (ridiculously so for the peasants) not expanding north?

Sanitation is great, food is great, health is great, most of the population are farmers and the increasing entry of women into highly educated white collar proffessions is notably absent - why are these people not having lots of children?

[fionwe1987]

I do recall it being stronly intimated that the reason there was so much fallow ground (much more than one drought here or one frost there can account for over thousands of years) was because the dark one/forsaken (Ishmael?) was influencing the world.

Like I said, that seems more like superstition to me.

Hawkwings time was a thousand years earlier.

And?

Theres just no convincing reason why these nations aren't capable of holding onto more lands. They have wealth, technology, strong central authority and powerful militaries and they're not usually at war with anyone. Maybe I could be convinced the borderlands are busy focusing all their energies to the north (And they actually have more convincing worldbuilding, giving a sense of emptiness and defensiveness of the population.) but why are Andor or Cairhein, throught which we traipse through at great length and which are almost universally shown as rich, stable, and prosperous (ridiculously so for the peasants) not expanding north?

Are we reading the same books? Cairhein and Andor have had peace with each other only for the past twenty years. That is why Tigraine married Taringail in the first place, to promote peace between Andor and Cairhein. They were second only to Tear and Illian in the number of wars they've had. Tarabon and Arad Doman have also had tons of wars. So, six of the wealthiest nations with the greatest amount of trade were at war multiple times in the past thousand years.

Not to mention that these nations didn't just come into being. It took around 300 years after Hawkwing's death for most of the current nations to be consolidated and moderately stable. How do you think Cairhein was to maintain its claim on Hardon, for example, when it was busy warring with Andor and Tear?

How is Andor to keep the Two Rivers and the mine areas under complete control when most of its resources are spent on the opposite border?

And Andoran peasants are rich and stable now. Are you saying this was always the case in Andor for the past thousand years?

Sanitation is great, food is great, health is great, most of the population are farmers and the increasing entry of women into highly educated white collar proffessions is notably absent - why are these people not having lots of children?

Who says health is great? The Two Rivers was lucky that their Wisdom happened to be a Wilder with amazing skill with Healing, which she was able to use without killing herself and her patient. That is not the case in other villages, as is amply shown in the books.

[MinDonner]

Oh yay, this has turned into another WoT thread. :rolleyes:

[fionwe1987]

Oh yay, this has turned into another WoT thread. :rolleyes:

Sorry!

As to your original question... Dune has pretty great worldbuilding. You get a sense for the place, an idea of how it works, and loads of atmosphere.

[Arthmail]

Its funny, i was talking with my girlfriend last night at supper about the Lord of the Rings movies, which she is watching for the first time, and she was asking any number of different questions. Like if the Elves are basically eternal, why are there not a few billion of them, why do they seem so scattered and divided, and why is there an ascendacy of man when the Elves seem so much more powerful.

And something that struck me is that we so often comprimise rational thought in fantasy novels simply because "magic did it." Erikson is a good example of this, where with all of the Wizards and armies of undead and whatnot roaming around, how do markets for grain and such remain stable? Who the fuck wants to leave their house to go to market if there is a good chance that some 100,000 year old Jaghut (or whatever the hell the name was), is going to come along and kill everyone. And its not like its a rare occurance.

As was mentioned, what happened over the intervening thousand years in WoT? And this goes back to Erikson and others. We have these huge lengths of time, thousands of years, or in the case of Erikson, fucking hundreds of thousands of years, and yet nothing changes. There is no reason given for technology becoming stagnant for so long, or the reason why cities survive so long.

Of course, everything that was said about Wheel of Time is correct, despite fionwe's assertions otherwise. Jordan had a good sense of each culture, but the feeling that the nations had developed into something from the ruins of Hawkwings empire was never really there. It always felt like they just sprang up, and simply listing an intervening amount of time between nothing and full stabalization means very little.

That being said, i'm still willing to make some major allowances. Because after all, magic did it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Arthmail,

The Elves look human, but aren't. Their motivations, therefore, will not be the same as human motivations. For example how much of the human drive to reproduce comes from our awarness of our own mortality. A child is a means of self-continuity after we,ve died. Elves don't have that difficulty. Therefore, they don't feel the ure to reproduce in large numbers.

If Tolkien had a flaw it was making the Elves seem too human. I thought Tad Williams did a great job in "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorne" of making the Sithi seem very non-human.

[wolverine]

Arthmail,

The Elves look human, but aren't. Their motivations, therefore, will not be the same as human motivations. For example how much of the human drive to reproduce comes from our awarness of our own mortality. A child is a means of self-continuity after we,ve died. Elves don't have that difficulty. Therefore, they don't feel the ure to reproduce in large numbers.

If each elf pair reproduces one, or even every other pair has one child there would be a lot of elves if they are nearly eternal. How many kids did Elrond have?

WOT was the first fantasy I read since Tolkien in high school and the world building really pulled me in. Things like the Aiel, Seanchan, and other cultures along with the magic system worked very well. Is it all perfect? No. But I loved the detailing and feel of the world of WOT. One I always wondered about was how huge societies of Aiel survived in the waste.

WOT is still my favorite world building of all that I have read. It might partly be because I think the magic system is so believable.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Wolverine,

Three over the course of millenia. Those kids are thousands of years old and, to our knowledge had no kids of their own when LOTR took place.

If that's typical for Tolkien's elves then they have a low and very slow replacement rate. The deaths of Elves during the wars of the first and second ages would account for much of the population reduction. Don't forget the large scale emigration of Elves from Middle-Earth to Valinor.

[kungtotte]

For the last couple of centuries the Elves have been going west across the sea, that's why there aren't many of them around in Middle Earth. I forget why they're doing it though. :\

[wolverine]

Wolverine,

Three over the course of millenia. Those kids are thousands of years old and, to our knowledge had no kids of their own when LOTR took place.

If that's typical for Tolkien's elves then they have a low and very slow replacement rate. The deaths of Elves during the wars of the first and second ages would account for much of the population reduction. Don't forget the large scale emigration of Elves from Middle-Earth to Valinor.

I am not a huge Middle Earth expert by any means (have only read The Hobbit and LOTR once and nothing else) but that would make some sense. How old are his kids? Do they mature like humans at all or get to like 30 and stay that way? Elrond seems older and Galadriel younger, in human terms, but I don't know if that is from the movie or the book.