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).
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 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.
As far as I'm concerned, the Star Trek universe represents world building at its finest: strong internal consistency, complex thought experiments, and a host of well-populated planets. The main difference between Deep Space Nine and the other series in Star Trek is conveyed in the name. Deep Space Nine is a space station in a continuous orbit around the planet Bajor, not a ship on a mission of exploration like the other series. Most of the action still takes place in the confines of the vessel with occasional jaunts to new and unique landscapes (similar to the away mission trope of other Star Trek series), but this change allows the show to delve deeper into the cultural and spiritual worldviews of non-Federation entities. That aspect of DS9 is what makes it especially valuable from a world building perspective.
Star Trek consistently takes a human-centric approach to science fiction. There are a multitude of species and worlds but the focus stays with Starfleet and its predominantly human-crewed ships. More unusual compared to other sci-fi universes, artificial intelligence is almost non-existent. In the Star Trek timeline, the first android wasn’t created until 2330, hundreds of years after technology like the transporter and warp drive. Compare that to, say, Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, where robots are common in the 21st century, but space travel is still limited to the immediate solar system.
Vernor Vinge 774 pages TOR Books (1999)
Read this if you like: Hard sci-fi, world building, the Foundation series
tl;dr summary: Long-view space opera with deep political undertones that presents a unique viewpoint on both technology and time.
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In the first half of this review, I looked at the physical content of Frank Herbert's created universe in Dune, but that is really only half the story. The politics and religion of both Arrakis and the rest of the Imperium are the ultimate driving force of the narrative, serving as both setting and plot.
The first Dune book spends more time exploring the Fremen than it does the Landsraad and the Imperium. The Fremen are more unique to Dune and therefore both more interesting and in need of more introduction. Herbert starts with them knowing the reader will take longer to understand them and doesn't drop too many details on the Imperium in the first book, saving that discovery for later installments in the series.
Dune is one of those books it’s effectively useless to review in a traditional sense. It doesn’t really matter to anyone if I like the book or not. It’s a classic, and it’s canon, and close to required reading for anyone who wants to write science fiction. I did my most recent re-read of Dune in this spirit—enjoying the story, sure, but trying to look beyond the story and see the underpinnings of Frank Herbert’s world and the way that he created it.
Because there's a lot to look at with this world, I've split the post into two parts. This first post will look at the physical aspects of the invented world of Dune, while the next will explore the culture.
Jadzia Dax’s death in episode 6.26 of Deep Space 9 (“Tears of the Prophets”) is one of the few scenes from the series I have clear memories of watching as a kid. It was shocking, and crushing, on the first view—this is Star Trek, after all, not a show generally inclined toward killing off its main characters, and Jadzia was far from a red-shirt. I could never warm up to Ezri Dax my first time with the series. Like Worf on the show, I looked at her and could only see how much she wasn’t Jadzia.