Why I don't like Science Fiction and Fantasy books
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ย. 2024
- Join my Patreon community to support the channel and get additional perks www.patreon.co...
Join my Discord community to chat books and stuff: / discord
_____
Other ways to support the channel (if you want to, honestly, just you watching my videos is amazing):
- Visit my bookshop and support me and indie bookstores
UK: uk.bookshop.or...
US: bookshop.org/s...
- Check out my Amazon wish list: www.amazon.co....
- Mail me things:
Olly Clarke
PO Box 2225
SHOREHAM-BY-SEA
BN43 9GT
United Kingdom
- Shop for CriminOlly merch: criminolly.cre...
________
Music: Who's Afraid of Halloween by Alfred Grupstra from Pixabay
Personally, I love fantasy and losing myself in worlds created by the author. But I totally get why others would be completely put off by the same things that draw me into fantasy worlds. I just love the escapism of it.
FR! I love fantasy but not a big scifi guy
Interesting response. Honestly a fantastical setting is one of the main reasons why I am drawn to fantasy and why I loved Tolkien, Feist and Eddings so much when I was younger. In my opinion, the setting can almost become a "character" in the book if the world building is effective. For example, I recently read Perdido Street Station by China Mieville,, and although being more weird fiction, the city felt like a living, breathing organism to me.
You spoke my mind! I always think that I struggle to grasp this world, let alone another one. If it has a map at the front... I'm out! 😅
I'm one of those who loves worldbuilding in fantasy but have found that I always struggle with it in sci-fi. After hearing your thoughts on how fantasy worldbuilding like George R. R. Martin's consists basically of taking what existed in the past and then expanding on that, I think that is exactly why I find it much easier and more enjoyable to read about rich fantasy worlds compared to sci-fi, which usually needs to be fully made up from scratch and takes so much brainpower to even understand what's going on.
Samesies! I *knew* it was going to be world-building from the jump. I don’t read a lot of fantasy/science fiction for that exact same reason. I like sliding into stories with worlds much like our own. - MJ
I'm with you on the worldbuildong thing. Dune did it well though - it doesn't spell out the worldbuilding for you. It drops you in it instead, and you learn the world by "living in it," so to speak. Plot comes first. It makes it hard work to begin with though, I'll concede that.
Good video and very well articulated. As an aside, I'm stunned by how many books you've read this year! How do you find time to work?
I think you've pointed out the thing that's always put me off Sci-fi. I loved Michel Faber's Under the Skin, but couldn't finish The Book of Strange New Things, and I think the answer is that Under the Skin is set in a very recognisable modern day world and then goes weird. I think it's just a personal quirk, like how some people are religious and others not.
I am so happy to find someone who feels the same way about world building!! Pulls me right out of a book and often bloats the size of a book.
Totally agree!
One scifi and one fantasy for you:
I think the Area X (Southern Reach) Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer is a good example of a hybrid world that is close to ours. They are fantastic books, too. The Hike, by Drew Magary is a good short one. Both contain crossovers from our world, and both are fun!
Most people: I read to go into a fantasy and escape the "real world."
Olly: Fantasy is too much Fantasy and not enough "real world. "
Pfft! My sister and I have this discussion all the time. She prefers Fantasy and superhero escape stuff, and I prefer a more "realistic " setting. She rolls her eyes and says if she wants to watch cr@ckhead$ she can go argue with the neighbours!
Honestly I don't mind having to try and figure out a books world. It's something new to learn and appreciate. That's how I see it myself. Like when I read Trollslayer by William King that opened up the world of Warhammer to me and I've never ever looked back since then.
For SF I recommend The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It’s told through the perspective of current day people and any world building is seen through those characters eyes. Really great literary sf.
I _loved_ that book! _The Sparrow_ is fantastic, if dense.
Among my favorite books. In my top 10.
I read mostly fantasy but I can totally relate to this sentiment. I’m currently reading Mistborn for the first time and I’m enjoying it immensely, however I’m constantly forgetting which metals produce which powers and which terminology is applied to which type of allomancers. And it’s constantly brought up in the series as if I should just remember what these things mean and it’s like bro I have already forgotten, I’m just following along with the plot, I don’t have time to study your made up science and magic lol I can definitely see the fun of getting deeper into it though, it just feels so secondary to someone like me, a plot and character driven individual.
Yeah I think that’s it exactly. It feels so much less important than the key components of a book
regarding your point on Becky Chambers, I agree. I've read her other books and it always feels like even though the world building isn't simple, it (along with the plot) is always in service of the characters, for better or worse.
It's great how reflecting on our reading taste can teach us about ourselves.
I get it -- some SF worlds can be difficult to imagine, especially if the author avoids info dumps in favor of "immersive" literary prose. On the other hand, SF keeps me coming back for more because of fresh concepts while I sometimes feel that crime fiction is just recycling the same concepts over and over again (serial killers, heists, etc.)
Such an interesting realisation! I personally love Tchaikovsky and Jemison, but can see how you would struggle if you aren't into world building! Maybe Kazuo Ishiguro would be worth reading if you haven't, as his SF is set in a slightly tweaked contemporary England. Gideon the ninth might also be good as the characters are awesome, the plot is cracking, and it has quite a bit of horror.
I feel the exact same way. Tried getting through LotR as a teenager but came to the conclusion that it isn't for me after the first book. And it's for the same reason you mention: I can't connect to the imagined world of the book so I get bored and frustrated.
I’ve never felt more seen in a video lol
Ha ha
Same.
I don't read much science fiction or fantasy. If I'm reading either genre I'm usually picking up something that is translated because a lot of translators just cut through and clarify. There is also the fact that I don't necessarily know that much about the culture of the writer's country so all the worldbuilding gets kind of lumped together. A bit ago I read The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei. It's a slow starter but I thought it was interesting overall.
I feel you. Just started reading "Till We Have Faces" by CS Lewis and the first few pages were just worldbuilding. Lewis felt the need to invent a fictional kingdom with a fictitional language and customs and whatnot and all I can think is "dude, you are not JRR Tolkien". I think the main problem is info dumping just to get the audience up to speed. If it is done gradually and subtly then I'm fine with learning all the names and jargon and history and stuff. Not a book, but WALL•E is rightfully known as one of the best examples of world building because it just let's you soak in the setting and infer things very naturally with hardly any dialogue.
I hear you. I have tried to read The Fifth Season twice and couldn't get into the story. I'm still in self analysis and introspection and haven't reached definitive conclusions about myself as a reader. I look forward to a day when I can articulate intelligently as you did that a type of fiction is not for me and why. I do find that sci fi and fantasy novellas and shorter books have more success with me. Cheers!
I love lots of detail as long as I can just let it wash over me. But if the author expects me to remember it all, I'm sunk. The big reveal in the last fantasy novel I read hinged on remembering the heroine's hair color mentioned 300 pages before.
I haven't read any fantasy novels that have come out recently, so I can't really comment on those. I'm a huge fan of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series though! 😁
I mostly read fantasy, and I totally get what you mean. I'm not usually turned off by too much world-building, but I can relate to your feeling of redirected focus, having to constantly remind yourself of the world and how things work instead of keeping your mind on the characters and their path through the story. Sci Fi books are hard for me to get into because of this reason, as they tend to--out of necessity, understandably--go into great detail about technology that is completely foreign to me. At least with fantasy, it's mostly things I can already imagine, like swords, castles, magic, etc.
I started my re-introduction with reading with fantasy and I agree with you! I started off with the modern stuff because I do enjoy reading about a new world with imaginative settings, and it was the most readily available stuff in bookstores. But, I have come to find that I mostly enjoy the plot of fantasy, and characters being a close second, rather than the world being the focus of the book, which explains my love for sword and sorcery, where the description of lands and kingdoms is fairly light and easy to understand, relative to other fantasy at least. The Ballantine adult fantasy series from the 70s published a lot of stuff like this, I have discovered(or at least the 10 or so from the series that I have read so far are like this). I suppose this discovery mostly puts me in the boat/restricts me to reading older fantasy books(1930s-1970s) rather than newer ones, which is fine by me, and the cover art is so much better to boot!
Interesting talk. I can understand how you feel - I grew up reading SF when there was practically no fantasy or epic world-building (LORD OF THE RINGS hadn't yet come out in paperback!). I remember HG Wells once said that to write SF (though he didn't call it that) you should take the real world and make one change. If you look at most of his famous stories that's what he did.
Great video. I’m a bit like you. I do like science fiction, but I don’t really trust it in literature, especially more recent books- those many volumed, doorstep books always seem unwelcoming and that the super-dense storylines appear to be more important than the characters. That’s my fear. I am going to read more science fiction, but they’re going to be vintage stuff. But I do really like watching Booktubers who cover science fiction like Moid on Media Death Cult, Bookpilled and Secret Sauce of Story Craft strangely enough
my favorite genre is fantasy and Science-fantasy, I never really have an issue with world building but lot of the stuff I read is very pulpy not overly long anywhere from 200-600 pages long.
I absolutely love fantasy! 😂
I like the feeling of being someplace completely different.
Well..we don't all have to have the same taste. I still like your channel😁
Ps; tchaikovsy can be very longwinded...
I love the Kingdom of Grit trilogy by Tyler Whitesides (consisting of The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn, The Shattered Realm of Ardor Benn and The Last Lies of Ardor Benn).I think the world building is kind of Medieval-ish, mostly. The characters are fantastic and the stories are very clever and hilarious. The magic system is brilliant, based on dragon poo :)
Lovecraft actually did character and worldbuilding extremely well... I know, just hear me out. He didn't do much good dialog, but the characters feels are very real. If you read The Whisperer in Darkness or the Dunwich Horror or Reanimator. Herbert West, Wilbur, Wilmarth are all very well realized as the reader really get to know them.
The First Law is pulp. Modern pulp. Logen is a Conan pastiche. It takes around 150 to 200 pages but the world building drops off and becomes more character and plot focused. The second and third books don’t even feel like fantasy. It feels like dark medieval blood and guts. You may like Abercrombie’s standalones better. The Heroes is a war novel. Best Served Cold is a revenge/espionage novel. Red Country is a gory western featuring Logen.
I hate fantasy but fell in love with ambercombie, he is more character focused for sure
Wow, this was interesting! I would argue that ASOIAF has excellent world-building, and Martin often achieves this in a matter-of-fact manner. Examples include seasons lasting many years, the idea that a young teenager is considered “woman grown” or “man grown,” the Wall used to keep out the Wildlings, or history such as the “Doom” mentioned in passing. These are not things that exist in our world or real history, but we can easily accept them as fact in that secondary world.
That said, I can understand feeling bogged down to understand the world in order to connect to the rest of the story. It can add an extra layer of complexity. Great video! 😊
Thanks Johanna, I probably gave GRRM a bit of a hard time, but maybe the reason his writing works for me is that the world-building doesn't feel like world-building
@@CriminOllyBlog totally agree! He presents it in an organic way that you don’t have to work hard to keep a bunch of details in your head. It’s one of my favorite series, so I’m glad it worked for you!😊
@@Johanna_reads I need to read more of them. I still have one or two to go but I figure I’ll wait until he finishes it (if he finishes it)
I was expecting to disagree with you when I saw the title but after listening to your points I agree. I do like Sci-Fi (not so much Fantasy) but only ones which have a dystopian element to them and in which the setting isn't something really unfamiliar (I also like PKD for this reason). I think some authors use really complex world-building to compensate for a mediocre plot, and with modern fantasy it's so hard to find standalone works with minimal world-building and that aren't part of a 5+ book series.
I've always had trouble getting into sci fi/fantasy for the reasons you noted. Especially fantasy. I have to have something that seems related to my real world in some way and also not over complicated with too many new words, people, etc. Strangely, even though not a fan of David Lynch's Dune movie (forgive me, I know many loved it) I did love Frank Herbert's whole Dune series and read them all within a few months. He was great at making his characters so real and relatable. (Not a fan of his son's continuance of the Dune world though). Btw Denis Villeneuve's version of Dune was beautiful, looking forward to the second part.
SF doesn't really have world building. Well, perhaps 5 percent of it does, but these are mostly recent works unnecessarily influenced by fantasy
Jim butcher dresden series is my second favorite series of all time
I had to know I was having trouble defining this as a search engine query. My brother really hates it and just loses his mind whenever I watch whatever I want and it is very hard for us to relate to each other and I really don’t know how to respect somebody else’s opinion.
I like classic sci-fi and fantasy, pulp stuff where the books were short and to the point, but am not huge on gigantic epics.
I don't know maybe it is more about how the world building is done. To fully test this you could try Tad Williams who is heavily world built but has amazing prose. Or otherwise you could read Guy Gavriel Kay whose fantasy worlds are built on historical places and times -, with him though I liked him more when I was in my twenties...
Dune and A Fire Upon the Deep do it very well, although AFUtD can be difficult to understand at times, it has a GREAT plot and characters. I think too much scifi and fantasy, the author comes up with the world building, the scifi, the concepts (call it what you will) first, then builds a plot around it. Should be the other way around obviously, but it's rare. I think horror suffers from the same thing btw. 🤭🤭
I don't think I'd really been able to put my finger on why I really struggle to get into a lot of fantasy and sci-fi until I heard your take on it, but I can definitely relate! My brain just doesn't seem do well trying to process a whole new world at the same time as following the story and getting to know the characters! I do like stuff set in our world or a version of our world with fantastical elements (I guess what can be called 'low fantasy;), and I like magic realism, but I'm not a high fantasy fan at all in general, though there are a couple of exceptions to that rule (The Hobbit and Legends and Lattes being notable examples). Similarly I like sci-fi that plays with and builds on real world concepts/theories and tech etc (stuff like time-travel, alternative/parallel realities, or A.I. - stuff like that) but I've never been able to get on with space operas and sub-genres like that. Great video, Olly 🙂
You're much more articulate about this than I could ever be. I just don't think I have a mind for science fiction or fantasy. Some of it strikes me as pretentious and Brandon Sanderson makes me laugh (and not in a good way). When I hear him talk about writing, I'm interested, but I don't like the books. I've just started watching Star Trek for the very first time (which is unusual for someone of my older generation) and finding it entertaining. I'm also reading a non-fiction book called "Astounding" which is about William Campbell, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and L. Ron Hubbard. I'm really enjoying it.
Hmmm. I love SFF but don't like intense world building either. Especially those that require an additional manual for definitions and characters. But I do enjoy the banter and humor of Terry Pratchett. I just skip over the Discworld descriptions - lol. (Kinda like I skip the sex scenes of JD Robb). You might enjoy the Death ones. Start with Mort. I enjoy the witch ones. Equal Rites was fun!
I've been waiting on The Blade Itself for weeks from the library. Hope it won't be disappointing 😕.
Fantasy and sci-fi are genres I like to read a few times a year. I like being immersed in a world, but not every time I pick up a book.
I couldn't finishThe Broken Earth series because of that reason--ugh! I don't want to work that hard when I read. What about short pulpy fantasies like Conan or Moorcock?
Moorcock I do like, there is worldbuilding, but he doesn't get bogged down in it
China Miéville effortlessly builds a dystopian Steampunk world, but that may be because I am an amateur historian and he pulls a lot from Victorian and Edwardian vibes. Then mix that with DMT and take a big hit and that's Perdido Street Station.
I agree with most of what you said here. I find both genre’s to be slow going for me.
Interesting take!
I like Sci-fi, but I'm also not the biggest fan of fantasy. Yes, mostly due to world building being exhausting most of the time and also really long series. I like standalone fantasy or magical realism, which is more grounded in reality. The only real fantasy series I fully read was The Witcher, because The Witcher 3 is my favorite video game lol (The duality of my media taste, I guess). But there, the characters and plot are also more important for me than the medieval setting.
I feel like most fantasy settings are very copy and paste, there is rarely anything different, new or exciting. Also, I prefer real life settings, because characters tend to be more emphasized due to not needing extensive world building.
As a writer myself, world building is just very intimidating xD I prefer to write stories set in the real world.
The ag that I do like tends to be earlier stuff from 60’s and seventies. Had a good time with PKD and also enjoyed some of Robert silverberg but he is a very patchy writer. Ursula k le guin too. Edit - the SF that I like…
I think George RR Martin should be praised for drawing inspiration for his world from history, although I don't know if I needed to know the exact design on every shield in the book.
Tolkien to me created the most solid world which in The Lord of the Rings is communicated with just the right amount of detail.
Glad you are enjoying Berserk
I love F & SF--but tend to be drawn to books that are more literary AND are set in a world very close to our own. In fact, a lot of the books I think of aren't even considered fantasy or SF by most genre readers.
Like Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson and Little, Big by John Crowley or Declare by Tim Powers
And I adore John Crowley's Aegypt cycle. It's set in the real world with some magic and historical fantasy (dealing with folks like John Dee and western hermeticism). They are sometimes challenging in the intellectual sense, but I love the way these books capture the feeling of magic in the ordinary. Of sensing that there's something wonderful behind the mundane.
I'd say that none of those have more worldbuilding (and generally less) than, say, Clive Barker's horror books. (And a great deal less than Imajica.)
Interesting video, Olly. I wonder what you would think of a book like In Ascension by Martin Macinnes, which is a cross between sci-fi and literary fiction. It is set on present-day Earth, but has some speculative elements added to it.
I personally love the mind expanding inventiveness of well written SF & Fantasy. Started reading these genres when I was 10 years old and still reading them today as I near 60 years of age :)
I agree, also for me it is the length and time you have to invest in these books. Why can't fantasy writers write one off stories? Why does every book have to be anywhere from 3 - 15+ books each 600+ pages long? That is why I don't read a lot of fantasy.
I think it's an interesting point to make. My view on the matter is to point out the unique role setting often plays in both plot and premise within the speculative/fantasy fiction genre(s). It is often utilized in ways more akin to a plot device or catalyst for character development by SF/Fantasy writers, I would opine.
Take, for example (ignoring that this is not a literary one), the film Dark City, staring Refuse Sewell, William Hurt and Jennifer Connelly. The reveal of the setting is the primary plot twist/pre-climax to the tale. While not necessarily standard procedure, it seems to me far more commonly intrinsic to certain SF and Fantasy stories than to other genres like horror, mystery, romance and so on.
I agree with you on world building. It is work. I do like sci fi and fantasy but i like minimal world building so my brain dont explode.
Have you read any Jack Vance? I love the cloisonne worldbuilding in his books which are mostly short as they originally appeared in Amazing or whatever pulp.
Hmm….it seems from at least some of what you’re saying in the video that you do like science fiction but just don’t like too much world building. Your very positive about the science fiction you’ve read this year and in general I’ve seen you be positive about science fiction. I can see that fantasy tends to have more world building in it but you might like shorter fantasy works (which is not the bulk of fantasy) - same with science fiction, although there is tons of shorter science fiction. Earlier science fiction tends to be shorter with less world building and more pulpy. So you might not like Alistair Reynolds but you might like Le Guin. Incidentally you might like Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
"World-building" has become way too central to modern sci fi and fantasy. I usually prefer older sci fi, from the 70s or before, where I feel there was more attention given to plot and characters.
That's a fair reflection
Dogs of War, by Adrian Tchaikovski might suit you, Olly. Very short, not much world building and with a great narrator in Rex, the bioformed dog soldier. It has one the best first two sentences in a novel I've ever read: 'My name is Rex. I am a good dog.' 😂
More and more often do I hear the hypothesis that a lot of people progress from simplified failry tales as children, to action/fantasy/Scifi as teens and young adults and eventually there is a breaking point where they start appreciating history, classics and literary etc more and more. And almost always, that point is past the 30th birthday, sometimes even much later than that. My main observation is that teaching classics in highschool is completely futile given this timeline...
Being 33, I am still a 99% fantasy reader but I am descending deeper and deeper into drama and history aspects of that fantasy scene, and I find worldbuilding more and more frustrating and want lighter and lighter magic in my fantasy as time goes on... Fantasy pieces I loved for their world ten years ago I can no longer get into as I see them as flat and the characters not complex and engaging enough.
With youtubers, I do see these trends also mapping loosely but noticeably on their age ad focus. older men especially seem to move away from fantasy even if they started a channel with a sole fatasy focus. Someone should seriously research this 😀
I had a friend who was pretty much on the same line. She said she couldnt get into a book with character names that are not english based because of the extra work to process them. On an other hand she is a massive fan of Harry Potter so Im not sure I see the logic.
My question would be is the issue similar with historical fiction or book that are set in foreign culture that are quite exotic to you?
Interesting discussion. I find we can also find world-building in historical fiction as well, especially if it involves a time or culture the target readership may not be overly knowledgeable about. A prime example would be Shogun by James Clavell. There are some classics out there that don't have world-building but probably need it because of how far removed we are from that time period.
I believe the best kind of world building is dropping the reader into the world. Show what the world is like it's as normal as someone shopping. Don't try to explain everything with exposition. I think A Song of Ice and Fire makes world-building history and cultures just as interesting as the main plot, but GRRM doesn't hit us over the head with exposition. Neither did Herbert with Dune. But anytime you have a non-contemporay culture or world, it needs some explanation, and the best do it in a show (don't tell) way. As long as the author doesn't go overboard woth showing me the world, I can handle the world-building.
I can agree with this also. I will add having to remember and try to pronounce weird Sci fi and fantasy names. Like Dune or Game of Thrones. To many weird spellings and I cam never remember who is who.
Would Flowers for Algernon count? I guess that fits into the 'real world sci fi' category though.
I am the same way. It feels like work instead of escapism for me. My biggest problem with fantasy, in particular, is if there are flaws in the world building or if I am asking "why" too much, my brain refuses to buy into it. I'm better with sci-fi, but I can't do the big epic sci-fi stories.
I enjoy some sci fi, but i can't be doing with fantasy at all. I read the blurb and it says 'dragon rider' or 'fae' and i start to feel sick...
I wonder what you would think of Atta (1953) by Francis Rufus Bellamy, where man's best friend is an ant.
I love world building when it’s drip fed to me. What I cannot stand is when the first 200 pages are nothing but information I have to learn before the story starts. That’s asking too much from the reader I think.
Dune (the novel) does world building extremely well. I would say.
I did read that (back when I liked that kind of thing) and remember really liking it. Have been meaning to try it again
@@CriminOllyBlog I'm not a massive Sci fi fan myself, but it's probably my favourite Sci fi novel. I think the first half of the book is stronger than the second,
Personally, I love sci fi and fantasy for the reasons you dont 😂
Crime and mystery books used to be a love but now are a like because they get a little same-y.
Horror is still up there with fantasy and sci fi tied as most read!
I think you would like Lois McMaster Bujold. Try The Vor Game. It's not too long, and the world building is less important than the characters and plot. Miles Vorkosigan is one of the greatest characters in SciFi.
I’ve never given it a thought, but “world building” probably is a turn off for me too, for similar reasons.
Have you tried the Rifters trilogy? It's set like twenty minutes into future and the only deviation of that world from ours is that it's falling apart. Otherwise it's a great cyberpunk techno thriller with biological theory being important part of the plot .
I haven’t. That sounds fun though!
I think the worldbuilding might be the reason behind so many sci fi and fantasy books being in long series...the writer creates a world and doesn't want to put all that effort into one book. I was put off fantasy because so many of the books are part of long series and I don't want to make that commitment. I did read a token Brandon Sanderson (Edgedancer) because so many people on the fantasy side of Booktube rave about him, I can see why they like him but I don't want to invest that effort into getting into the world's he has built and the series of 1000 page tomes that are part of that experience. Like you as a teen I devoured a diet rich in sci-fi and fantasy. I do enjoy some fantasy where the world building aspect is quite like, for example the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and it is also a standalone novel.
i have the same point of view man! and i have never found many people sharing it...thank you for the video
I have never been into reading fantasy ( enjoy watching it) because like you, there was just too much going on, too many characters or a overly complicated magical system.
However, childrens fantasy book are great!
I do enjoy some sci fi books, have you read The Themis files? They are easy sci fi books to read.
I love crime novels too :)
Yes everyone needs to do this!
A take so controversial somehow my TH-cam automatically unsubscribed. I fixed that, but weird.
Ha ha - thanks for resubbing!
We will support you no matter what. Keep working hard.
Thank you!
My favorite genre is science fiction, and generally I don't like fantasy. The best sf is set in our universe, and plays what if games. I am currently reading Mercury Rising by R. W. W. Greene. Some of the what ifs in this book are: what if JFK survived, what if Oppenheimer invented an advanced rocket engine, and what if hostile aliens showed up in 1961. This book mainly takes place in the alternate version of the 70s, resulting from those what ifs. But I prefer books set in our future, not our past. The complexity of the world building depends on the complexity of the what if games that the author wants to play. Pulp usually gets the physics and technology wrong. Horror and fantasy just makes stuff up, and anything goes, so generally nothing to tickle the brain.
It occurs to me that your dislike may point to one of two things. Please don’t think what I’m about to say is a criticism it’s just an observation, I’m not trying to be disrespectful or put you down.
The 2 things are :-
1) you may be reading stuff too fast (a skim reader) and not taking ideas and concepts in properly
2) you may have the kind of mind that is more practical than imagianative
Nothing particularly wrong with the second but the first may mean you are not really concentrating on what you are reading and so really missing out on what the author is trying to say.
I'm with you, for the most part. I find SF and fantasy lore pretty much always boring, even when it's not just long expository passages. And I have little patience for, or interest in, backstory, so "worldbuilding" is right out for me. I'm sure there must be some good stuff out there, but I'd much rather read about this world.
I have to try and steer you away from AsOiAf. Yes you are correct about the World building on a macro level but George focuses on the micro to an excruciating level so unless you are after 1,000 page novels where you will find whole paragraphs and pages dedicated to pondering about heraldry, politics and economics I would steer well clear 😅
I like near-future thrillers with a science fiction element. Far-future sf and fantasy is often boring to me and difficult to read. Often DNF.
Excellently summed up my feelings on the matter. Subscribed.
Welcome aboard! And thank you!
Fantasy frustrates the hell out of me… I find a quest in every book…it seems all the writers are copying each other…. At least sci-fi tries to say something about our world..be it the future..or how we deal with others…. I love the Conan books though…
Thousand pages a book and twenty books in a series? No fantasy genre, I'll pass.
Well, now. MANY thoughts. too many for a comment, I'm afraid. But I'll throw a few at the wall. First, I am sort of thinking through how you're defining "world-building," because ... I think almost all authors do it. In almost all books. Its kind of a requirement, to define and limit the subsegment of potential detail surrounding a story that the author uses to focus the story. So, in McBain's books, he's created a version of NYC, or a version of what we now call Gotham (and McBain may have gone first with it, before the comics did - I'm not sure). He's done it partly to show off specific places for his story settings, but ALSO to exclude other bits that readers would fetch along mentally if he used the real NYC. Maybe he wants to use a park. If he stays in NYC, a lot of his readers are going to have mental maps of various parks there, and he'll have to contend somehow with those actualities in his story, or have some of his readers ignoring the story because there's not really a lake where he's put a lake and the corpse it contains. It's clutter, and it's not important to the story, and it's a problem. So, all authors have to find a way to focus on the points they want included in their story's world, and eliminate those they want ignored. So I'm being pedantic, but world-building just has to happen. HOWEVER, it is still perfectly legit not to enjoy being too aware of that happening, which is often the case in science fiction and fantasy, when the rules of what the author wants to create go against expectations. So, maybe an author wants to eliminate gravity in their story. They need to convey this, and also show how things work without gravity. It can be done smoothly, or it can clunk really hard, but it has to be done. And sometimes it pulls readers out of the story, so that can be a hitch. It's not usually fun to read User Manuals, and when you feel like big chunks of a book are essentially User Manuals for the rules of a setting, it's messy and unpleasant. And if the story takes place in a weird setting that diverges from the expected, but there aren't explanations, people get confused. So your issues do make sense - you don't enjoy the mental gymnastics of wrestling through those issues, and something in your head calls out those details to you as alerts. For me, it's less problematic to run into those alerts in settings and basic functionalities (like how magic is done in certain novels) than it is to run up against conflicts with reality in books that have real world settings - like if, in a romance set in Regency times, a heroine is in a scene where she leaves her upper class house in Mayfair and catches a cab to the nearest high street and pops into a nice restaurant for a meal, during which she is interrupted by a meet-cute with a shady but dashing hero. This breaks a book for me, because no. It wouldn't happen. (Such scenes have been described in some novels, but I can't with them.) We all have our breaking point, where the author has lost either our attention or our trust, and we snap out of their story and dont care any more because It Isn't Real in our minds.
So now I'm worried about those other books I sent. Still thinking.
This definitely has a complicated world and is on the longer side, but Book of the New Sun has some of the best prose and subtext of any science fiction series I've read. Better than most literary prose in my opinion.
I read that back when I was into that kind of thing and really loved it
@@CriminOllyBlog Glad to hear! I'd recommend it to anyone who usually isn't into regular fantasy or sci fi.
I think it's a waste of imagination to limit our creations to the real world. I do tend to prefer science fiction based on the 'soft sciences' but I love SFF in general, even when it has complex worldbuilding, although I can see why that would put people off. A recent short fantasy which does good world building in few words I would say is Piranesi by Suzanna Clarke.
I'm in this camp, too. Sometimes these books make me feel so disoriented. I like to know where I am.
I kinda see your point but I don’t fully agree with it or disagree with it. It’s kinda unfair to let off an entire book because it’s “hard” to get into the world building. But at the same time world building can be done sloppy and bad (that’s a given and any aspect of a story can). But idk if you play or ever played a video game before but the souls games (set in the medieval fantasy worlds or most of them really. And are actually inspired by Berserk a little bit) their called have really immersive and immense world building in dialogue of characters and item descriptions. And it would be such a let down and detriment to give up the entirety of that games story just because you just find it easier for a modern setting because you know everything. But yeah I see what you mean.
If it is shown to you you understand it at least that is how it is with me of course I'm from the U.S.A. and on the autism spectrum.
The worldbuilding barrier is definitely a real thing. Foundation and Neuromancer is a good example of this; one is easy to understand the other is all over the place; including a digital place. And Neuromancer doesn't communicate "scene" very well.
I didn't like Weaveworld due to it's characters, but I also think that the "weaveworld" was a barrier to the book(I won't go into detail in this comment), there are so many little things wrong with that book. I really just wanted another Thief of Always. And I think that if Weaveworld was written for children, with kids in the lead roles, it would've been so much better. But I digress.
I don't like fantasy because I'm just tired of the medieval setting with a magical system. And I don't think magic is a good story element.
Hmmm... come to think of is... Discworld may be the only good Magical world that doesn't seem silly. Which of course ironic, cause silliness is at the core of the subtext.
I think I've always liked SF in theory more than in practice, and I simply haven't read enough fantasy over the years to really make a judgement.
I've never been a fan of series or books that rely too heavily on world-building in place of telling a good story. Entirely too much emphasis is placed on that, and in many cases, I think it's used as a crutch; The writer saying, "Look at this brilliant world I've created. Isn't it awesome," while completely bailing on plot and characters. Yes, create a believable world, but G.R.R. Martin created some great stories while using some real-world influences as the basis. I think I saw an interview with him where said he took that inspiration from Robert E. Howard, who created his Hyborian world by doing the same thing and not being bogged down with "world-building" at the expense of all else.