SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
Members' Chat
>
Is it true that an author can only create one fantasy world?
Lois McMaster Bujold created one fantasy world for The Curse of Chalion and its companion books, and an essentially different one for the Wide Green World tetralogy. This in addition to a historical fantasy set in Renaissance Italy (The Spirit Ring) and a long-running SF series (assumed, like most SF, to be set in the future of "our" universe).
Margaret wrote: "Lois McMaster Bujold created one fantasy world for The Curse of Chalion and its companion books, and an essentially different one for the Wide Green World tetralogy. Th..."Thanks Margaret, that sounds interesting!
I should have been more clear, though, and I apologize. I kind of lump historical fiction with sci fi and all the other things with more realistic context, since for example here, Italy is not a made-up country and Renaissance is not an imaginary era, so they aren't precisely the sort of "fantasy" I was talking about. I feel as though in historical fiction it's easily justifiable to give different nation or era a unique "world". Likewise in sci fi where you can distort technology from different angles. But I'd be grossly shocked if Tolkien had created a separate world that defies rules in Middle-earth.
Glen Cook: The Black Company, Garrett Files, Dread Empire, Instrumentalities of the Night, DarkwarTerry Brooks: Magic Kingdom of Landover, Shannara
Daniel Abraham: The Long Price Quartet, The Dagger and the Coin
Brent Weeks: Night Angel, Lightbringer
Jim Butcher: The Dresden Files, The Codex Alera
Gene Wolfe: Latro, Wizard Knight
Don't know if this is what you are asking, but lets see...Anne McCaffrey wrote several series I completely enjoyed in fantasy. My favorites were the Pern World series', about dragons and riders and so much more... The Tower and the Hive series, about psychic powers from Telepathy to Teleportation, and space and aliens, both good and bad... And the Ship Who Sang series, about sentient "human" spaceships and their adventures... Not to mention her Crystal Singer series.
L. Rowyn has written 2 different worlds, but only published one, so probably doesn't count, yet.
Mercedes Lackey has a couple of very different worlds. The Valdemar series' world is very different from the world of her Fairy Tales series, and her Bardic Voices series.
David Brin, though more scifi has written a myriad of worlds, Glory Season different from his Uplift series universe, as opposed to the magical The Practice Effect... But I suppose a stretch could be made that they all could exist in the same universe in unrelated galaxies...
Cars, has a universe in which it seems could exist in our future - Ender books, and one where magic is the basis of things-The Red Prophet series.
Those are a few I think could apply... As universes that were different at their core, though I'm not sure if thats what you were asking.
I should have been more specific. While Heiss and Hickman write their books together, for som reasons the link don't show the right authors.Dragonlance Chronicles is one example
Dragon Wing has a totally different world (fragmented ones)
The Darksword Trilogy: Forging the Darksword, Doom of the Darksword and Triumph of the Darksword again entirely different from the first two.
They had one in space too but I can't remember the name of the series.
I think Anne Bishop is a strong example of success with this. Her Black Jewels trilogy is a beautifully built epic fantasy world and her Courtyard of the Others books are an intricate urban fantasy world (it's actually an entirely alternate version of earth, not just earth as it is, but with magic). She also has a few other epic fantasy worlds that I've never read, but they appear to be entirely distinct as well. Anne Bishop
Authors get bored if we have to write in the same universe over and over. It's also why some of us like to switch genres. Some are able to do it quite well, and others struggle with it. Anyway, I think Anne Bishop is a solid example of getting it right.
I think you're bringing up a really interesting point--worldbuilding is such a crucial aspect of fantasy literature, and it does seem like it would be incredibly difficult for an author to do this successfully more than once. N.K. Jemisin is the first author that comes to mind for me. She's created three very distinct and unique fantasy worlds so far: the Inheritance trilogy, the Dreamblood duology, and her new series, the Broken Earth. All of these are very intricately detailed and complex; it's made me a huge fan of hers.
In YA, I think Tamora Pierce is a good example. She wrote a lot of different books set in two separate worlds, Tortall and Emelan.
Virginia wrote: "I think Anne Bishop is a strong example of success with this. Her Black Jewels trilogy is a beautifully built epic fantasy world and her Courtyard of the Others books are an intricate urban fantasy..."Glad you brought up Anne Bishop--I actually really hated the first Black Jewels book, but I do like the Courtyard of the Others series. Initially I was hesitant about checking it out since I hadn't liked Daughter of the Blood, but once I did I was glad. They're very distinct from each other.
Jaleenajo wrote: "Glad you brought up Anne Bishop--I actually really hated the first Black Jewels book, but I do like the Courtyard of the Others series. Initially I was hesitant about checking it out since I hadn't liked Daughter of the Blood, but once I did I was glad. They're very distinct from each other."Interesting! What did you hate about it?
**Disclaimer: I loved it, but I'm not the type to take your dislike of something I loved personally, so no worries on that front. I'm simply curious.** :-)
Mod
I don't have a list of authors who have created more than one world. However, I think there is some stock to what you say. Developing characters is an extensive process, in their personality, origin, motives, moral alignment, abilities, why even the species! And the NAME alone is tough to decide on.
So to develop an entire WORLD, well that is even more extensive! The inhabitants, history, creation, geography, ecosystem, civilizations, societies, laws of nature, and so much more!
And each of those things has additional levels to create, such as what kind of species live on the world and how they survive, what kind of language is is spoken in the societies, what kind of currency do they use, what are the different zones and areas of the geography, climates, historical figures, level of technology, if there is magic- So much. Gets me really excited thinking about it really.
So when an author has to create all that, or at least they should because the world in which their characters interact in needs to be well developed for a story to be of quality (I'm sure there are exceptions), can they really make more than one? Or the better question would be can they do so in a good fashion, for the effort of making multiple worlds and expanding them could instead be channeled into creating one breath-takingly spine-tingling world instead.
I think it is certainly possible, but for many authors highly implausible.
The fact is, though, that most authors' worldbuilding is highly selective; those aspects that are important to the story the author is telling will get more development than those that are irrelevant to it. This is quite natural and right in terms of art, since as a storyteller, the thing that the writer is making is not primarily a world, but a story. Imaginative worldbuilding for its own sake is certainly possible, legitimate and interesting, but it's a different art.
While there are plenty of examples of Fantasy authors who have created more than one world (Richard Matheson's output alone disputes this notion), I take a bit of umbrage at the idea Science Fiction doesn't require as much worldbuilding.That's a ridiculous assertion, frankly.
Dune, Foundation, Eight Worlds, Gaea, Known Space, The Well World, Pelbar Cycle, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Culture, Uplift, Humanx, Realtime/Bobble, Vorkosigan, Destroyermen, Solar Cycle, Xeelee, The Sprawl, Riverworld, Dragonriders of Pern, The Company, Pliocene Exile, Nanotech Quartet... one could go on and on, but all of those have rich, complex worlds with an epic cast of characters. Some of them have more races than many Fantasy series have books.
Margaret wrote: "The fact is, though, that most authors' worldbuilding is highly selective; those aspects that are important to the story the author is telling will get more development than those that are irreleva..."This is very true. The worldbuilding needs to be selective, with the story in mind. In fact, a big challenge for aspiring fantasy/science fiction authors is to not get so caught up in the worldbuilding that they never get around to writing the story!
You can also have a combination of same worlds/different worlds. Brandon Sanderson comes to mind; his different books and series seem to be in different worlds, but I've heard they're all part of the same universe. Also Paula Volsky (no longer publishing under that name and her books are out of print); her books appear to be standalones in different worlds but a later book ties them all together.
I think that for many fantasy and SF writers the 'world' is another character. You get to know them better as you read the book, they might even change as you read, certainly your perception of them will.This links in with Kyra's point about not letting this one character overwhelm the story, or Trike's comment about the sheer number of worlds some authors have created. Think of Jack Vance who could create a dozen in a book :-)
Woah can't believe I woke up to so many amazing responses! Thank you!! I'm going to check out all the works you guys mentioned, there are some really exciting ones in there! And keep it going :)
I will give you something a bit different to think about. How about a bunch of author playing within one world? Since you are new to fantasy, you will want to try and find Thieves' World Series. A group of well known authors work within a world set up by Robert Asprin and move the story arc by writing short stories. they use and killed a few characters by other authors. Absolutely fantastic.
Virginia wrote: "Jaleenajo wrote: "Glad you brought up Anne Bishop--I actually really hated the first Black Jewels book, but I do like the Courtyard of the Others series. Initially I was hesitant about checking it ..."Likewise, I don't want to insult a book you loved! :) For me, certain aspects of the story just rubbed me the wrong way--I felt like the main character had no agency (this probably changes in later books), and I just really didn't like the feel of the book overall. But I'm glad you loved it!
I would be profoundly depressed, if I were limited to creating only ONE fantasy world.It may be worth knowing that not all writers begin by world-building. Tolkien was at one end of the spectrum, creating the languages, mythology, history and so forth. Many of us just begin, without all that.
Brenda wrote: "I would be profoundly depressed, if I were limited to creating only ONE fantasy world.It may be worth knowing that not all writers begin by world-building. Tolkien was at one end of the spectrum,..."
This is true, a lot of authors begin with characters or a story and create the world to go with it.
Jaleenajo wrote: "Likewise, I don't want to insult a book you loved! :) For me, certain aspects of the story just rubbed me the wrong way--I felt like the main character had no agency (this probably changes in later books), and I just really didn't like the feel of the book overall. But I'm glad you loved it!"No worries! That's a very fair point. Despite my love of the series, I have often felt that Jaenelle lacks agency in the first book. Of course, a lot of that comes from the story being told from just about every point of view except hers. Which is an interesting tactic by the author, which I think does a great job at some things (demonstrating the lack of control some of the most "powerful" people have over their lives at times, especially children, and letting us see the effect of that power on a greater number of people) but it fails in other places (by objectifying Jaenelle sometimes instead of treating her as a real person, and by preventing us from knowing how much choice she has in any given situation). Then again that failure may also be intentional.
Anyway, I could go on about those books for quite a long time, and I believe I've gotten us off topic so I'll get back to the original post's purpose and add the following:
I second the notion that Sci-fi takes quite a lot of world building. I'm not sure who suggested otherwise, but honestly, the world building in sci-fi can be crazy and intense in a way that fantasy generally isn't because instead of starting from scratch with a world entirely of your own making you have to create something fictional that still works with actual laws of physics (or at least only plays with the parts we don't understand yet, so as to remain believable). Doing that well is incredibly hard.
And I second the earlier point about a spectrum of world building. Sometimes the world comes to you first, sometimes the characters and story do. Both can result in wonderful, vivid, worlds, but they are very different approaches.
This is very novel-centric too. Though some authors do write all their short stories in one world, a lot don't. Which means new worldbuilding for each short story. One of the arts of shorts is showing the world with few words.But worldbuilding doesn't mean you have to literally design the entire world, anymore than a story about your own life would include everything we know about Earth. Stories can easily get bogged down if an author does try to include everything about everything.
You can create depth to a world by just casually mentioning things in passing. This can give the reader the illusion of depth
I find this topic pretty interesting and wish I had more insight into it. I also wonder if sometimes marketing pressures have more effect on how many worlds an author produces than the difficulty of the undertaking - it seems like most authors become famous for just one book or series, even if it's not the only good universe they created, and it would be easier to sell books if they keep tying them in to the original famous ones.
It is easy to find examples of authors who create a hit fantasy world and rarely or never leave it. (Rowling, McCaffrey, Tolkien) It is also not very difficult to find authors who suck one created universe dry and then move on, or return every now and then to a favorite oldie.If a work is very popular indeed (Sherlock Holmes would be an example) then the author may feel too much market pressure to give it up. But by and large it is author-driven. You write about Pern until you're fed up and then you move on.
I think you've summed it up nicely Brenda. Sometimes you just want to write something else
Silvio wrote: "I find this topic pretty interesting and wish I had more insight into it. I also wonder if sometimes marketing pressures have more effect on how many worlds an author produces than the difficulty o..."I love your point about marketing pressures. I tend to agree with it from this perspective. Publishers sell the most books that they can and they do not want anything that will jeopardize sales. If that means mining a world until it is a husk, then so be it. If it means to open new worlds for new sales, then so be it.
For me, a world should be left or at least abandoned when the same story is told over and over again. The Disc World never had that feeling or the Dark Tower collection either. Pern on the other hand for me died after the third book. I revisited through short stories from time to time and enjoyed them immensely, but never wanted to go back to the world. The Shannara books grew old for me over time, not that they were badly written.
It depends on the author and how deep the roots of the world are, how high the branches reach; world, connected world, etc.Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist is a long-running series exploring the world of Midkemia.
Given that I'm now working on my third world I hope sticking to one isn't obligatory ;-)
Even putting aside the market, there are pressures that keep an author working in the same world. All that work went into it, after all. There's more gold in them thar hills! It is nice and safe here, writing in the same universe that I had a big hit in. So your signature world can become a trap.
My series encompasses one "universe," with seven distinct worlds, three of which will be explored over the course of the series. I guess, strictly speaking, they're technically all still "one creation."
I'm currently writing in two completely different worlds, while editing a third...
Charles Stross has successfully written in several fantasy and sci fi genres and has created several worlds along the way.
An author can create various worlds/universes, but there are advantages to having one and writing many stories within it. You get prolonged character arcs without the downsides of a trilogy, and can give places and people more depth than might otherwise be possible. It also means you get to re-use interesting people and places without committing to a series. I quite like the stand-alone approach, but using the same world (as Joe Abercrombie used for Red Country, Heroes and Best Served Cold, after the First Law Trilogy).
I think this conjecture could only be conceived in a world where numerous writers have written one series with multiple phone book sized entries. Back in the 50's, 60's and 70's a lot of writers built a completely new fleshed out world for each novel they wrote, some more successfully than others. To think a writer should limit themselves to building only in one is shocking to me. The writer that comes to mind is Jack Vance, but I could probably come up with a whole list.
A deeper and truer thing to say would be that the author puts her stamp upon all her work. All of Dickens' novels are visibly Dickensian; everything by J.K. Rowling is very Rowling. It is difficult (although not impossible) to write in a completely different way.
It's up to the writer and if the writer is enjoying the world, then what is shocking about it? At the same time the market and technology want to link everything: The Shining by Stephen King was, for a long time, just "The Shining", now it has The Shining No. 1 added to it. I mention technology because in the real world everything wants to be linked/connected to and the idea extends through everything, or so it seems.
Flash Beagle wrote: "It's up to the writer and if the writer is enjoying the world, then what is shocking about it? At the same time the market and technology want to link everything: The Shining by Stephen King wa..."
The Shining had a follow up story many years later and that is why is has number 1 added.
And another consideration related to the first one I mentioned - I wonder if readers sometimes make it look like it's one author to one universe, even when they go on to write others, by all flocking to the most famous one. I'm thinking of Ursula K. Le Guin, who wrote the Annals of the Western Shore, which is aimed at a similar audience to Earthsea and by my taste is almost as good, and some major science-fiction standalones, but everyone still recognizes her by Earthsea in fantasy and the Hainish universe in sf.As a reader, I like it when an author continues to revisit the same universe, because my taste runs to world-building and generally speaking, the more books there are the more world gets built. The most common pitfall is for an author to come up with new ideas later on that are hard to reconcile with what they wrote earlier, so that there's dissonance or outright contradiction between early and late books.
David wrote: " The writer that comes to mind is Jack Vance, but I could probably come up with a whole list. ..."Jack Vance was the master at it :-)
I was going to mention Vance, LeGuin, and Wolfe. While a number of Wolfe's tales could (or could not) be related to the Solar Cycle, others are decidedly their own animals. The same is true for many authors, so no, I don't think there's a cap on how many worlds a writer can dream up.
I think Brandon Sanderson is a great example that it's indeed possible. The Stormlight archive & Mistborn universe are both complete different from our world & each other and they're both amazing(he created two complete different world's with unique plants, animals, landscape, traditions, culture and a "magic system") he wrote another series but I can't speak for it (haven't read it yet). It's possible but must be very hard to write both at the same time without getting confused with each other!
I like it more to read about one good universe than two badly done one's.
Brandon Sanderson has made what seems like a dozen if not more worlds so I would say no
Nonsense I've created half a dozen over the years for my RPGs. Its difficult to create a really effective, distinct, and fully fleshed out world more than once, but definitely possible.
Good gracious. Of course more than one world is possible! I confess, before I read your comment on "I know this is a silly question", that really was the word that came to mind on seeing the thread name. Sorry.Regarding Lois McMaster Bujold, whom you dismissed so quickly and casually: she wrote precisely one novel in the history of this world, and as the original commenter said, she has created other worlds essentially out of whole cloth for her other works. The Wide Green World quartet are set in one entirely original world, while the Five Gods trilogy (to be a quintet in time), also known as the Chalion books, are set in a world that's more or less analogous to mediæval Spain but reads like an entirely new place to those without much familiarity with that country's history; and the space opera Vorkosigan saga, which has entries in the double figures, may as well be an entirely new world in itself, as only one book in the series to date is set on Earth and most of the rest never even mention the place (the principal planet of the series being Barrayar, and that is a created world, though put forth as one that evolved through migration of Greek, French, Russian and English-speaking settlers who were then cut off from the rest of the universe for centuries, before even terraforming was completed, and left to evolve a culture of their own).
Thing is, you talk about writers creating worlds that have nothing to do with ours, but you also name Tolkien as one of those. And you're wrong. Tolkien created a lot, certainly, but he also based a great deal of what he wrote on the truly ancient myths and legends, and borrowed from so many cultures to create Middle-Earth - for example, the Rohirrim speak a language directly derived from Old English (hence all the Éo- words, for a start).
Most fantasy authors, even the highly talented ones, base their works on what we perceive as the "real world" and its history, even if it happens to be on bits of it with which the reader(s) are unfamiliar enough not to recognise. It really isn't anything new or uncommon, so I hope you won't mind my saying that it isn't really a criterion upon which you should choose what to read. If you did that, I am sorry to say there would be very little fantasy you truly could add to your reading list.
So there's Bujold, whom I have now mentioned. I second the suggestions of Tamora Pierce, Scott Lynch and N.K. Jemisin strongly. Otherwise, Diane Duane (specifically the Tale of the Five books, as the Young Wizards and Cats of Grand Central books are mainly set in our own present-day world (with the exception of "Wizard's Holiday", set on another planet entirely) and the Raetian Tales in Middle-Ages Switzerland-to-be). Helen Lowe; Trudi Canavan; Ellen Kushner; Diana Wynne Jones; Raymond E. Feist; David Eddings (and with his wife, Leigh)... For some reason GR won't let me add any more author links, but also David Gemmell, Gregory Maguire, Kate Elliott, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Laini Taylor... and they're just off the top of my head. I could give you many more after some thought.
It looks like this thread was dead for a while and is now being revived. It's a good topic because even though the answer is obviously "No, many authors have many worlds in them." It makes one wonder about examples of authors who don't as opposed to those who do? What does it mean when a writer gets stuck in one continuity, and even when they try to write something different it doesn't work and they get sucked back in? This year and beyond I've decided to devote a significant amount of time to writing parodies of Brandon Sanderson's works. I picked him partly because while his worlds are diverse, his style of storytelling carries over through all of them, ripe for the picking on!
I'm glad a couple other people mentioned Brandon Sanderson in this thread. I'm making a grand hobby out of chatting about him in online forums! I'd like to add a little detail. Sanderson ties together some of his different worlds in an overarching universe called "The Cosmere" revealing connections between worlds that seemed entirely separate in earlier parts of their respective series. The fun part is that these connections existed back when his first few novels were released, and are being gradually revealed years after in new novels!
Then of course to mix things up, some other worlds he creates have no connection whatsoever to "The Cosmere".
And then there's the final book of "The Reckoners" series, which is driving me batty because the titular character seems to relate to a common connection across "The Cosmere" books, though it's a different universe entirely?
Sarandon wrote: "I'd like to add a little detail. Sanderson ties together some of his different worlds in an overarching universe called "The Cosmere" revealing connections between worlds that seemed entirely separate in earlier parts of their respective series. The fun part is that these connections existed back when his first few novels were released, and are being gradually revealed years after in new novels! "Stephen King did this, to magnificent results. The Dark Tower series (which is itself related to a rather dark poem by Browning) is King's Magus Opus and in it he hints the connections between his stories. All of King's novels are interconnected and intertwined.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Shining (other topics)Magician: Apprentice (other topics)
Thieves' World (other topics)
Dragonlance Chronicles (other topics)
Dragon Wing (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Trudi Canavan (other topics)Diana Wynne Jones (other topics)
Ellen Kushner (other topics)
David Eddings (other topics)
Diane Duane (other topics)
More...
That said, I wonder if it's more logical for an author to create one fantasy universe and write many stories about it? World-building is so important in fantasy novels (compared to thriller, sci fi etc.) and I just feel like two distinct worlds created by one person would bear such a dissonance. I tried to think of a well-known fantasy author who's produced equally successful, but different worlds, and I couldn't think of any. I was hoping you guys could correct me. If you know a writer who's accomplished this I would very much like to read their works.
Or let me know your thoughts on this one. Thanks!