Created Worlds

[Zeb_Carter]

What was it about these worlds that captivated you?

Well almost anything sci-fi is of interest to me. Fantasy? As in the Dragonriders of Pern usually doesn't interest me but in this case the preface is what drew me in. The regression of a high tech society back to the basics of an agrarian based society, with the apprentice, journeyman, master concept of halls. And then there were the dragons, friends for life and staunch defenders of the world they lived in.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I love the concept of the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer. The first couple of books were wonderful, but I think the idea was too big for the author and got away from him. The series kind of ended with a whimper. But whenever I think of it, I wish I'd come up with it. I could spend the rest of my life writing stories in that world.

For those who haven't encountered it:
Everyone who ever lived on Earth is resurrected along the banks of a river. The majority in any one area are from one time, a minority from another, and a small spattering from any time. Any deaths are resurrected the next morning in another spot along the River.

There was a mini-series based on those books done here in the US quite awhile ago. I watch parts of it but could never get into the whole thing. There was a boat that traveled the river, was there not?

 

[Tricialen]

My favorite created world is the one I'm creating right now, Hattusa. Actually, it's a true place from the ancient world. The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa (Hittite URUḪattuša) in north-central Anatolia ca. the 18th century BC. Some researchers believe they came from central Europe.

I took some of what is known about them and created my characters and other creatures to inhabit their world. It's not the same as creating a world from scratch, but for my first try, I think it's good.

Ancient civilizations have always fascinated me and I wanted a place that was not well known. I added in the Altai Mountains that range from Russia to China, have been home to mankind for thousands of years, and have their own legends.

Writing this is giving me many ideas for unknown worlds that are waiting for their own stories.

 

[AvoidingRealWork]

The easiest way to create a new world is to have the same world as we live in with a couple of minor differences. Exploring what effect those differences can have is an interesting exercise.

I do this with my Nude Pioneer story.

 

[scheherazade_79]

Thank you for all your comments and examples. Absolutely brilliant. Lots and lots of food for thought. And it's reminded me of how much I love the human imagination

Couldn't have asked a better bunch of people.

 

[oggbashan]

How about Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire series?

The first three books were written in the early 1950s. The later books came out in the 1980s/90s.

I also like E E (Doc) Smith's Lensman series even if the plot tends to be: "I've got a bigger gun than you. Oh no you haven't - look what I've just invented/found - mine is now bigger than yours..." and so on for seven books.

Og

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Actually, my favorite McCaffery is The Ship Who Sang.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Actually, my favorite McCaffery is The Ship Who Sang.

 

[KLCK]

My favorite piece of world building is the Battletech series of books. The Clans were an especially interesting creation.

I liked it because it allowed the writers to create great characters. I was especially caught by Ulric Kerensky, a man forced to lead a war he opposed.

When I was little I used to love playing Mechwarrior. Pretty awesome series which I believe was based off battletech.

My favorite worlds/universes:
-Alagaësia from the Inheritance series. 80k foot tall mountians were awesomely described. Sucks that the movie was COMPLETELY different from the book.
-Jack McDevitt stylized human civilizations in space. Humanity has space ships that can travel faster than light but transporting just handful of people takes massive resources for the most part. He usually takes the same universe and tweaks it in some ways for each series of Novels.
-Enders game universe.

 

[rgraham666]

When I was little I used to love playing Mechwarrior. Pretty awesome series which I believe was based off battletech.

Yep. I had MechWarrior 2 which was the only one that came out for the Mac.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Another world that I created that I like is my "Cosmic Wars" world.

Basically, the Cosmos is governed by a race called the Elohim (Hebrew for Gods). The leader holds the office of El Shaddai (Supreme Being or Almighty God). For most of their history, the Gods give a kind of semi-feudal allegiance to this Shogun-like ruler of the Elder Race of the Universe.

However, after a while (a few billion years), there breaks out a Cosmic War between the faction of Elohim who want to mix their DNA with mortals like humans and those who view such creatures with disgust. The former are led by Belial, chief God of Justice, while the top War God, Jehovah, heads the latter group. Jehovah has the upper hand at the present, but it is precarious, and he could be easily toppled if Belial gains a sufficient advantage. All Gods have angels, too.

To make matter worse, there are some neutral Gods, such as Prometheus, Ishtar, and Osiris. And there are rogue angels, celestial free agents, including servants of dead Gods and fallen angels like Satan (a former adherent of Jehovah, of course). These are almost as powerful as the Gods.

Also dangerous are the demons, who are undead Gods (all dead Gods become demons or undead Gods unless those demons are also killed).

The Elohim are shapeshifters, of course. The only way to kill them is to force them to stay in one shape for too long. Then they die and become Nosferatu, or demons.

The Nephilim are a particular breed of angels of mixed human and divine stock. And they are all anti-Jehovah, since Jehovah opposes their existence and sent the Flood in a vain attempt to exterminate them.

As you can see, I blended classical mythology, the Bible, and Jewish legends into a sci-fi tale of sorts.

As to if it is fiction or fact, well, that's a matter of faith.

 

[starrkers]

There was a mini-series based on those books done here in the US quite awhile ago. I watch parts of it but could never get into the whole thing. There was a boat that traveled the river, was there not?

There were many boats, but two in particular feature in the books. Both paddle steamers, one owned and operated by Samuel Clemens and I don't recall who had the other ('tis quite awhile since I read the series).
The first book is IMO by far the best, and then the author started to get sidetracked by all the possibilities of all the famous folk at his disposal, and the behind the scenes story of why everyone was resurrected (which wasn't a bad idea in itself).
As the series continued, it got silly and the back story became ridiculous until it all kind of collapsed at the end. The last couple of books weren't good.
But the concept!

Oh, and another one - Gene Wolfe's world in the series (dammit can't remember the series name) that kicks off with Shadow of the Torturer.
Terry Goodkind's got a beauty too in the Sword of Truth series.
And I've always been a sucker for Michael Moorcock's fantastical worlds (particularly the Elric and Hawkmoon books).

 

[scheherazade_79]

I'm adding another to the list, which falls under Og's category of just changing one or two things and seeing the effect they have on society - Children of Men. No woman can get pregnant anymore, and Britain has closed its gates to all immigrants.

The book is better, but the film is still stunning.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

How about Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire series?

Well, it ain't War and Peace, but I'll tell ya one thing, it's one hell of a long and fun read. The Mule was what kept me turning the pages.

 

[scheherazade_79]

Well, it ain't War and Peace, but I'll tell ya one thing, it's one hell of a long and fun read. The Mule was what kept me turning the pages.

What's the background scenario?

 

[Le Jacquelope]

What's the background scenario?

There's a great galactic human empire that has formed, and then there's this scientist who whips up some "calculus" formulas that accurately predict the future, and he finds that in his formulas, the Empire's gonna collapse.

So he forms this Foundation organization to safeguard certain resources and carry out certain plans for when the empire falls, which it inevitably does.

Then the friggin Mule comes along and goes outside the box and dashes their plans all to shit.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Hey, isn't anyone going to mention Superman's Bizarro world where everyone's a Superman and does everything backwards?

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Aside from Tolkien... I don't recognize even one of these. :x Can ya tell I don't read much other-worldly stuff? (I love horror, but could take or leave sci-fi/fantasy... and usually leave it... obviously!) I guess what gets me, in terms of "other" worlds, is how totally foreign they seem. I don't recognize anything - it's disconcerting and actually rather disturbing to me.

 

[Corylea]

Aside from Tolkien... I don't recognize even one of these. :x Can ya tell I don't read much other-worldly stuff? (I love horror, but could take or leave sci-fi/fantasy... and usually leave it... obviously!) I guess what gets me, in terms of "other" worlds, is how totally foreign they seem. I don't recognize anything - it's disconcerting and actually rather disturbing to me.

Ah, but Selena, all science fiction/fantasy is about people, and not just any people, but about those who were alive when the book was written. A lot of Tolkein is based on his experiences in World War I, for example. Different worlds alter the parameters under which people live, sometimes just for fun, but usually to point up something interesting or important about human nature. One thing I think is fascinating, for example, is that old science fiction almost always has contemporary sex roles in it. They may live on another planet, there may be aliens co-existing, but the man goes out to work, and the woman keeps house. *rolls eyes* Their imaginations could stretch so far in some areas, but in other areas, they had really glaring blind spots.

Somebody gave the example of the Lensman series, and since that series brought my husband and me together, I'll always have a soft spot for it. (We were discussing SF at the party where we met and both confessed that we had a somewhat shameful love for this series. ) The series started with the third book in the series (he went back and wrote prequels later). In the third book, we meet two important people, both the product of millenia of breeding.

Two very long-lived, very advanced races of creatures are at war with one another, and the good guys, the Arisians*, set up a secret weapon in the form of two very, very long lines of humans. Careful breeding means that one of the long lines culminates in the most wonderful possible human male and the other in the most wonderful possible human female. When these two lines are bred together, an entirely new type of creature will arise, one that can get rid of the bad guys for good.

So what do the most wonderful possible man and woman look like? The most wonderful possible man is both amazingly great physically -- strong, agile, fast, with astonishing reflexes, and amazingly great mentally -- very intelligent but without the emotional instability that often attends great intelligence. This guy can be either a one-man army or a one-man think tank, whichever you need at the moment. He holds a job that puts him in charge of humanity's efforts to keep the bad guys at bay, not surprising when you consider that it's the most important job in the world, and he's the best man in the world.

The most wonderful possible woman is ... a nurse. Oh, she's a really great nurse, and really great nurses are wonderful creatures; I'm not knocking nurses. But somehow, it's hard to see her as the ultimate anything, since in Doc Smith's era, great women didn't DO, they just WERE. Oh, she's a woman of spirit, and she's athletic enough to like going on hikes, but what she's best at is loving the world's greatest man, and when they get married, she gets very into what she's going to wear to the wedding. *yawn*

No matter what the setting, Selena, it's all about us -- even when it's about aliens, it's about what the author wishes humans would be or cautions humans against being or something like that -- authors take their humanity with them everywhere they go.



*I live in Boston, and our local science fiction convention -- held every January -- is called Arisia, and now you know why. The Arisians are very, very advanced good guys.

 

[Corylea]

Actually, my favorite McCaffery is The Ship Who Sang.

That was really good. I think mine is Crystal Singer; at least, it is until she meets the man of her dreams and stops acting like a strong, independent woman and gets all mushy and subservient. I thought the idea of tuning crystals by singing at them was really cool.

 

[oggbashan]

The start of E E (Doc) Smith's Lensman series was originally published in 1934 in Astounding Magazine.

It isn't surprising that the women's roles reflect that era. In the last book, Children of the Lens, the two daughters take on more active roles, but even they, and their mother, are considered unusual females.

The Lensman series are almost space-westerns and how many women have strong roles in the traditional western?

The Lensman series are historic curiosities compared with more modern world-building stories.

Og

 

[Corylea]

The start of E E (Doc) Smith's Lensman series was originally published in 1934 in Astounding Magazine.

It isn't surprising that the women's roles reflect that era. In the last book, Children of the Lens, the two daughters take on more active roles, but even they, and their mother, are considered unusual females.

The Lensman series are almost space-westerns and how many women have strong roles in the traditional western?

The Lensman series are historic curiosities compared with more modern world-building stories.

Og

Yes, Og, that was the point that I was making -- the setting may seem strange, but people take their current values and attitudes with them.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

No matter what the setting, Selena, it's all about us -- even when it's about aliens, it's about what the author wishes humans would be or cautions humans against being or something like that -- authors take their humanity with them everywhere they go.

It's just a "to each his/her own" thing I guess. I can't seem to get past the settings TO the characters... or they don't seem real to me because of the setting? It's hard to explain. I get what you're saying, and I know people love it (obviously - it's a popular genre!) I just... don't. It's very rare that something in sci-fi/fantasy will appeal to me. Part of it is the fact that world-building usually requires lots (and lots and lots and LOTS) of description. I read Tolkien, but my god, four PAGES on the rolling shire hillside? Dude! Enough already! Tell me what Frodo is DOING, wouldja??

 

[gauchecritic]

my god, four PAGES on the rolling shire hillside? Dude! Enough already! Tell me what Frodo is DOING, wouldja??

I think short sci-fi is best at this, they don't have time to go into the background the short story is almost always about the people.

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale and Nightfall to name a couple.

 

[rgraham666]

I think short sci-fi is best at this, they don't have time to go into the background the short story is almost always about the people.

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale and Nightfall to name a couple.

'Repent Harlequin!' Said The Ticktockman and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream are two of the best short stories in the English language. And they're both SF.