Freelance scribbler exploring worlds real and imagined
Chris Tarry 128 pages Red Hen Press (2015)
Read this if you like: Kelly Link, Raymond Carver, Haruki Murakami tl;dr summary: Quirky merger of cryptids and fantasy with real-world settings and emotions.
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One of my favorite things about Jordan Peele’s movies as a whole is that they don’t fit neatly into any genre box. A big reason for this is Peele’s worldbuilding style and prowess. His films take place in worlds that are just slant of reality: normal on the surface, but with one strange, horrifying difference lurking below—quite literally, in the case of Us, and metaphorically in his debut Get Out. It’s a similar thought experiment model that underpins many episodes of Twilight Zone, and it makes sense that Peele is at the helm of that reboot.
(Note: Thar be spoilers past this point. If you haven’t seen Nope and care about such things, probably best to stop reading now.)
Monica Byrne 608 pages Harper Voyager (2021)
Read this if you like: Maya civilization, anarchist utopias, long-view fiction tl;dr summary: A story across three timelines spanning 2,000 years, from a dying dynasty in the Maya empire to a nomadic far-future civilization and a teenager on vacation in Belize in the middle.
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One of my favorite things about the Star Trek franchise is the way they never let a good piece of worldbuilding go to waste. There are tons of examples I could cite from the latest slew of series, but the one I’m most tickled by is the resurrection of Captain Pike.
(Note: Thar be spoilers in this post, so if you haven’t watched Discovery or Strange New Worlds and care about such things, probably best to stop reading now).
In English, linguistic gender and natural gender are the same thing. Words aren’t masculine or feminine—the people or things they represent are. Even cases where inanimate objects are given a gender, like calling a ship “she”, are a form of anthropromorphization, not a grammatical feature of the word.
Valerie Valdez 416 pages Harper Voyager (2019)
Read this if you like: Antihero starship captains, space romps, galaxy-scale worldbuilding
tl;dr summary: The misadventures of Captain Innocente and her crew, combining all the fun and action of sci-fi adventure pulp with relatable characters and next-level worldbuilding.
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It's hard to believe 8 series and a dozen movies later, but the Star Trek franchise nearly failed in its first season. Not only was the pilot widely regarded as a flop but by the mid-point of the first season they'd run out of episodes to film. Since almost nobody had watched the original pilot, anyway, Gene Roddenberry made the economical decision to re-purpose it, adding new material to stretch it into two full episodes. The resulting two-parter, “The Menagerie,” received a far better reception than the original pilot, evening winning a Hugo Award in 1967 for Best Dramatic Presentation.
As a modern viewer (read: binge-watching TOS on Netflix) “The Menagerie” gives you a feeling of déjà vu. Not only did I watch the pilot already, but I just watched it a few nights prior; the skillful re-use of the material, in this context, loses some of its brilliance. It also opens the two episodes up for more comparison and analysis.
The term worldbuilding is very familiar to most genre writers, especially those working in sci-fi and fantasy. A basic definition is that it’s the work of creating the reality of your story. Realistic fiction writers do this, too, the great ones often with the same methodical approach and depth as any genre writer. Despite this, worldbuilding isn’t taught as a crucial skill for those working in the real-world.
Christine Rice 361 pages University of Hell Press (2016)
Read this if you like: Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, Alan Heathcock’s Volt
tl;dr summary: Life in New Canaan, MI is shitty, and lots of different characters tell you why.
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The overlap between DS9 and TNG that was mentioned in part 1 of this post allowed for the further development of many races. The Cardassians and Bajorans mentioned earlier are joined by plotlines that showcase Klingon, Romulan, and Trill culture in new ways. As interesting as all of these developments are, the treatment of the Ferengi and the Breen are especially noteworthy from a world-building perspective.