A view of Hawaii's Shoreline
Greetings! Louisiana is not known for its cold winters,
but you cannot put Mother Nature in a box.
It was 32 degrees at my house this morning, and three days ago got all
the way down to 19 degrees. I have been
in mountains after it snowed and it was not that cold. I am starting to wonder if I will see dogs
and cats living in peace and pigs with wings.
(I can see geese and cows out my window though.)
As I have mentioned before, I am
a big fan of science fiction and fantasy.
I am writing a fantasy series currently and hopefully by the end of this
year I will have the first book published.
One of the reasons why I like writing is the puzzle that world-building
presents itself as. Now, some people would
say, “Wait a second, you are writing fantasy.
Can’t you just make everything up?”
That statement is partially true.
In general, epic fantasy (which is what I am writing) involves an author
creating an entire world system. So yes,
I can make up whatever I want. However, if
you want your world to be believable, it must be logical and have believable places
and people in it. And dare I not say, a unique
but logical magic system.
George R. R. Martin, Robert
Jordan, and Tad Williams are three of the best modern fantasy world
builders. (I mention them because I have
read their books and I liked them. It’s
my opinion and since it’s my blog I can say whatever I want.) They both created worlds that are alien to
our own and yet very familiar. Their
worlds are familiar to our own because they look and feel very similar to people
and places from various times in Earth’s history. In addition, Martin has said on several
occasions that he considers his books historical fiction, which means that he
borrows heavily from history. In Martin’s
world of A song of Ice and Fire, the continent of Westeros history closely
parallels with that of western Europe. However,
the king of England did not have to fight ice zombies or fun dragons to ride.
The late Robert Jordan was a
master at world building. In his The
Wheel of time Series (WoT), Jordan showed his brilliance in combining familiar
cultures from earth into new entities and by inverting millennia old
tradition. The Aiel are a people that would
look familiar to most these days. They
are tall, thick muscled, have a propensity for blond or red hair, and have blue
or green eyes generally. This sounds a
lot like the Germanic peoples of Northwest Europe. However, Jordan made their culture something
of a cross between American Indian and the Zulus of South Africa. If WoT were pure historical fiction,
this type of experiment could never take place because there is no historical
record of a Germanic tribe that was culturally related to the Zulus living a
desert.
Fantasy authors can make these
fun thought experiments all the time because of the flexibility that world
building presents. Almost any type of world can be created if an
author follows one of the golden rules of fantasy; is fantasy world believable?
Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn (MST) presented a believable world
with a feeling of deep history and lore. Within the first few pages The Dragon Bone
Chair, the first book of the MST series, the reader is immediately thrust
into a rich world that feels three dimensional and ancient. Williams brilliantly borrows from history and
some very familiar religions to almost make the reader second guess if they are
indeed reading a story about our own world.
If you boil it down to its core, fantasy
asks a simple question. By crafting a
certain comfort level and curiosity within the reader’s imagination, the author
creates the irresistible trail for the reader to follow. And what is the creative force behind the curiosity
that fuels the reader down the trail of imagination? That force is a simple yet infinite question. What if…?
JAQ
