Words And Worlds

I have been in the middle of several books for a while now and was just thinking what it is that makes me fall in love with a book.  I love books that immerse you into their world, when I get into a book and look up and it is hours later and I don't know where I am, that my friends is a good book.  Many things go into making a book unputdownable (I should make my own dictionary of my reading words).  Plot, characterization, sheer horror at  the unimaginable mess the author is making (seriously bad books can be perversely entertaining, but more on that in another post).  One thing to me that can sometimes trump almost everything else is world building.  No matter what genre you are writing in, building a world a reader can mentally inhabit is key.  Here are just a few of book/series that can make me believe I am somewhere else.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making-This book is just spectacular in it's world building.  Not only because the author is not afraid to use big words, but because of the sheer imagination behind it. The problem that many authors fall into when trying to make a imaginary world of this scale is that they get overly descriptive, but since words are an actual part of this stunning world, it works to its advantage.  I know for a fact that the author did a fantastic job on creating a world people can get into when my two young nephews, to whom I was reading parts of it too, started incorporating pieces of the fairy world into their games.  The world in this book, even just a few pages here and their made enough impression on these guys that they kept it in their heads.  This is a book I go back to whenever I want to go back to that place where I lived when I was a little kid, you know the one where anything is possible and you can think of an explanation for anything.

The Harper Hall Trilogy- Any book set in the Pern series...heck any book written by Anne McCaffrey in general has the most amazing ability to make your forget that these places are not real.  The Harper Hall trilogy in particular has always fully immersed me into this weirdly non-magical yet entirely fantastical, but also sci-fi world.  My favorite part about the world building in the Harper Hall books is that it gives you a glimpse of everyday life.  Instead of telling us every detail about this world, you learn about customs, rituals, food, jobs, family units, language and all that just through watching these people live a normal life.  By the time I was done with these books, I had a hard time looking around me in the "real" world and realizing that the one I had just finished reading about, did not actually exist.

The Night Circus-This book was effective for almost the exact opposite reason that the Pern books are.  This book was as fantastical as they come.  The author used an unusual technique of blending pure descriptive passages of the various circus acts and places with little personal vignettes and the occasional crossing of the two.  The real power in these descriptive passages was two-fold.  One, it felt more like you were being shown these amazing acts and attractions instead of just a rote recitation. Two, more then just words seemed to be used, I could actually smell the slight burn of the carmel used in the carmel corn, I could see my breath in the Ice Garden,  I wanted to see how high I could climb in the Cloud attraction. I could feel the texture of the fabrics, feel the heat from the central bonfire, hear the birdsong more then just reading, it was experiencing the words.  The way this was written really engaged you to use all of your senses, making it a shock when you finally came up for air that you were not actually there.  All of this was so fantastical that I knew it could never really exist without magic, but still...

Harry Potter Series-The strength of world building in this insanely popular series comes from the way J.K. Rowling uses three perspectives to show us this combo fantasy/contemporary world.  We get to see the wizarding world through Harry's eyes, and as he has never been a part of it, or even knew of it's existence it gives the reader a chance to learn along with him.  Our own dreary world that us readers think we know so well is shown through Ron's perspective, showing us as Muggles and even pointing out a type of "magic" that the wizarding world does not possess (think electricity and cars).  Then we have Hermione who is kind of the translator between both worlds, she was raised a mundane Muggle, but has known and studied the wizarding world.  She is our link between these two different worlds and helps Harry and Ron and subsequently the reader learn all about, well pretty much everything in a way that makes everything so very very very real.

Stardust-Here is another book that contrasts our world with a fantastical parallel one. Neil Gaiman to me has always had a way with filling his fantasy world with the most amazing details.  This book in particular has some great little gems.  To me the best part was the description of the Fair on the other side of The Wall.  I have not wanted to just wander around a place so bad in a long time.  This is a place you feel like you could explore forever and not once be bored.  Utilizing a wide variety of places, from a Victorian village, to a flying ship (I need me one of those so bad!) to an a palace on top of a mountain.  This world of Stormhold will constantly surprise and delight you.  I have read the book as both a plain paperback and as an illustrated book (by Charles Vess) both of them are wonderful and while the illustrations are amazing and awesome and I love them, they are not needed to complete the world the author has created.

I could go on and on, I can think of several other books and authors who do just as good a job with world building, but I want to go finish what I am reading now, so maybe I will do a follow-up post later with some of my other favorite worlds.

Which book/series/author do you think does the best job in creating a world?  How essential is a well-built world to your reading enjoyment?  Do you ever spend more time thinking about the world you just left in the book then you do your real life?