Mandy Says: A World Away...

I’m a huge fan of a well-built world in the books I read. I love jumping in feet first, deep into an unknown culture, where everything is different; the language, the people, the clothing, the food, where a chair is not always just a chair and anything can and does happen.

All writers spend time and effort on building a believable world to set their story in, even if it’s a story set right here on earth in 2011 at your local high school. But it’s those worlds that are so different to our own that I admire so much. To pull a reader into their made-up world and suck us in, to want to be there as well-loved characters tell their stories – well, that’s a real skill, something not all authors are able to pull off successfully.

Burn Bright is an awesome example of successful world building. We can all imagine through Retra’s eyes the clubs, the churches, the landscape of Ixion. But that’s not all that goes into building a fantastical world. Think about the Gangs, the Night Creatures, the Ripers and the Uthers. So much goes into an author’s thought process, the linking of all these elements. Would Retra’s journey to Ixion touch our hearts in quite the same way if we couldn’t imagine what it would be like to grow up in the strict, suppressed Seal compound? Of course not. All these tiny pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together to build a world so many of us loved (and can’t wait to get back to again!)

Along with Burn Bright, some of my favourite worlds to get lost in between pages include Karen Brooks’ Venetianesque Serenissima in The Curse of the Bond Riders trilogy (Tallow book 1 and Votive, book 2 are both available now). It’s a place full of secrets and canals, danger and magic.

Alison Goodman’s duology EON and EONA are set in a land full of elemental magic in an alternative ancient China / Japan. Not only has Goodman given us the landscape and the magic, but characters that tell the beautiful (and sometimes horrific) story and history of her world.

In Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy, we’re faced with a dystopian world where teens are forced to fight to the death as entertainment for Big Brother and the masses.

And in Isobelle Carmody’s classic Obernewtyn Chronicles, we are thrust into a complex land of politics, religion, Misfits and heroes. Carmody’s world in particular is just incredible in its depth and attention to detail over many years and volumes.

What about those worlds that are just a step to the left, a little off centre? Think Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely series, where the Fey live among us, here and now in the contemporary world. The same goes for Holly Black’s White Cat and of course… JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books – it’s a world that exists right under the noses of us mere Muggles. These stories might be set in the ‘real’ world, but they also have their own mythology, their own rules that each author has to write, and then abide by. In turn, we, as readers, reap the benefits of all this hard work and wonderful imagination.

So tell me, what are some of your favourite fictional worlds to get lost in? Do you prefer the futuristic, the completely fantastical, the dystopian (the nightmare world) or the utopian (the ideal society)? Do you sometimes think: Huh? Where did that come from? Or do your favourite authors sweep you along for the ride, their worlds so well described and established that you can’t help wishing you were there too?