TTT: Fictional Worlds

Top Ten Tuesday is a blogging meme, blog hop, whole lot of list fun hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every Tuesday, someone there posts a list topic, and participants blog their response and join the linky list on TB&TB’s blog. The topic for today’s Top Ten is:

Top Ten Most Vivid Worlds/Settings In Books

One of the things that annoys me is when the setting of a novel is not clear and I can’t picture where the action is happening. I especially don’t like it when I have to keep flipping back to see where the characters are (“Is this happening inside the car?” “Are they under the tree or in the tree?–did he say there were trees?” etc.). Sometimes this is just the result of my inattentiveness as a reader. Other times, it’s because the writer didn’t do a good enough job of describing the world, and making sure I have enough information to see the world in my imagination. So, it’s a notable thing to me when an author does a good job of world-building, such that I can easily follow the story without having to ask “where am I?” and “where did that car come from? I thought we were in the woods?” Here are ten books I think are good examples of excellent world-building (and I don’t mean this in a strictly fantasy or sci-fi sense; I mean in the sense of giving me a good idea of place, whether it’s a distant planet, a magical world, or a modern suburb). Click on the images for the Goodreads description of each:

	The HARRY POTTER Series J. K. Rowling’s epic saga of the boy wizard has an equally epic world, which Rowling describes in amazing detail. The result of years of careful planning, plotting, sketching, and dreaming, there are few literary worlds that seem so real.
	The LEVIATHAN Series I’ve said it more than once, but this is one of the best–if not the best–series I’ve read since Potter. The tale of a Austrian prince and a Scottish female midshipman disguised as a boy in the British Air Force, set within a steampunk alternate World War I. There are beautiful illustrations accompanying each novel, but my imagination didn’t really need them to put visual form to Westerfeld’s words.
	THE HUNGER GAMES Series Whether in District 12, the arena, or deep in the woods, well before the movie came out, I had Katniss’s world in my head. And I think it bears testimony to Suzanne Collins’s descriptive ability that the version on-screen wasn’t too far removed from what I imagined.
	The DIVERGENT Series (so far) From the drabness of Abnegation, to the faction selection ceremony, to the underground world of the Dauntless, Veronica Roth does such a good job showing us her dystopian Chicago in her seemingly-effortless prose.
	NEVERWHERE Speaking of underground domains, Neil Gaiman constructed a wonderful hidden world of strange people under the streets of London in NEVERWHERE. Read this, and you’ll never look at homeless people the same way again!
	THE SHINING Stephen King’s vivid imagination takes the mundane, like an ordinary motel, and does weird and wacky things with it. From the disturbing rooms, the bar, even to the topiary outside, King’s descriptions are never cluttered, but are clear–which makes his world all the more disturbing!
	1984 I had to include Orwell’s classic dystopian because this was another book I read prior to seeing the movie (the 1980s John Hurt and Richard Burton version), and the movie setting matched pretty well what I had in my head as I read.
	BREATH, EYES, MEMORY Edwidge Danticat’s novel set in New York and Haiti. This is such a beautifully-written book, and the scenes in Haiti evoke the sounds and smells of the country such that I can put myself there, even though I’ve never been. A team from our church made a trip to Haiti recently. I should have one of them read the book and compare it to what they experienced. From the things they’ve said about the people and the culture, it seems spot on.
	THE COLOUR OF MAGIC This is the first of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. The creative ways in which Pratchett marries ancient myth and social parody into his fantasy world can only be admired. Pratchett says there are no maps of Discworld: “You can’t map a sense of humour.” And yet others have managed to create maps of the various countries, which says a lot about how well-realized Discworld is in the author’s head.
	JANE EYRE I had to include this Bronté classic on the list because it’s probably my favorite classic novel (so far, at least). When I approached reading this book, it was with a certain trepidation. For a start, it’s not short. Also, I’ve found that often, writers of old get overly flowery and detailed in their descriptions, and such detail can actually get in the way of the story, and make it harder to keep track of what’s going on, and who’s where, etc. Not so with Charlotte Bronté! I found this book to be very easy to read in terms of picturing locations, and keeping up with the story. I though she evoked the worlds of harsh boarding schools, affluent estates, and humble schoolrooms simply and with style.

What books do you think do a great job of world-building? Comment, or take part in The Broke and the Bookish‘s Top Ten Tuesday bloghop!

Note: I have included pictures of the book covers for informational/promotional purposes only, and not for my own financial gain. If you own the copyright to these pictures and object to me using them, please let me know be fore you sue me. I’ll be happy to comply with any removal requests without the need for lawyers and fines that I can’t afford.