I'll Show You A World

Authors of fantasy and science fiction (sometimes horror) engage in world-building. It is one of the most enjoyable aspects of writing speculative fiction. You get to be God, create a universe, populate it with people, and supervise the course of its history and the evolution of its populace. There are no limits to what you can do. Anything from talking trees to beings who can transport themselves from place to place can inhabit your world--vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, highly advanced or primitive peoples, or a combination, can live there. It can be utopian like the clean, gleaming worlds of Star Trek; or dirty and dystopian like the worlds Ripley navigates in the Alien films or the oppressive, poverty-stricken states of Hunger Games.

Many speculative writers have read Aldous Huxley's futuristic novel Brave New World. He takes the title from Shakespeare's The Tempest. Miranda has been raised on a desert island. The only human being she has ever seen is her father (or, if you've watched Helen Mirren's version of the play, her mother). There are two spirits there, but they don't rate as people. Then suddenly she sees some human beings--among them, a really good-looking guy. "O brave, new world that hath such people in it!" she exclaims. "Tis new to thee," is her father's dry observation. Our worlds should be just as exciting and extraordinary to our readers.

Rather than pontificating about how to create a good world, let me do two things:  1) invite people to tell about how they create worlds in their speculative writing; and 2) talk a little bit about a couple of my creations. Since #1 needs no elaboration, here are just a couple of notes from the worlds I've made.

In the universe I created for my story "Mother Hulda," which is based on one of Grimm's fairy tales, the Terran Alliance has spread out from Earth and gained power and influence in much of the galaxy. But the Terran Alliance does not look like what you see in most of contemporary sci-fi worlds. For one, its demographic isn't like that of the United States, with a majority of white people and a smattering of black, native, Asian, Latino characters. In my universe, the majority race in the Terran Alliance comes out of of India. The planets are named things like Rama, Lotus Eyes of Lord Shiva, Planet Agni; the spaceships have names like the Durga and the Gandhi. There is a substantial European minority, so some influence is present there (there is a Space Station Alan Shepherd), but India dominates and the space culture is shaped by the culture of the subcontinent back on earth.

This is a way of "showing a world"--using elements of the present but altering history just a bit in a way that (at least I think) is innovative and challenging. In my sci-world, too, there are still nation-states on earth. Italy, which encompasses modern-day Italy and large sections of France, Southern Europe, and Argentina, is one such nation state. It has its own space fleet and colony planets. The same is true of China. Once more, it seemed fun to upset an existing sci-fi norm (that all planets are single political entities) and have characters say, "The Alliance rules that planet. The Golorians and Mervogians are fighting over this one. The third planet in the system is part of the Italian League."

My fantasy novel The Sorceress of the Northern Seas uses conventional history, taking place in the days of Roman Britain. But there are differences and they impel the story.

Yours? If anyone wishes to describe their worlds, please make a comment.

The Sorceress of the Northern Seas