A companion volume to the Language Construction Kit, this book explains everything you need to know about creating your own world with its own geology, creatures, cultures, religions, technology, and styles of war- plus how to create maps, illustrations and 3-D models. An essential whether you're writing science fiction or fantasy, designing RPGs, creating movies or video games, or remodeling a spare asteroid.
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About the Author
Mark Rosenfelder is a conlanger, creator of zompist.com and author of the Language Construction Kit.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The worldbuilder has a lot on his or her plate. From deciding whether the planet should be Earth-like or something completely different, to creating continents with their own geology, climate, flora, and fauna, to peopling the world with new cultures of humans (or something else), to inventing religions, histories, systems of government...not to mention things like magic, psychic abilities, advanced technology, and other deviations from the mundane world. Rosenfelder addresses all of these areas in this volume, offering insightful and often surprising details and points of advice. He even manages to cover mapping and illustration.
The book seems to focus on steering the reader away from cliches and other mistakes, sparking creativity, and providing a range of options in places where the reader might get stuck. The amount of details provided is remarkable, but the level of detail is uneven--in a given subject, we might get a general overview, a fine level of attention to certain specifics, or sometimes both at once (determined, apparently, by the author's interests and level of expertise). This is probably unavoidable, given the ambitious scope of the book, which is both its strength and its weakness. Rosenfelder's last book, The Language Construction Kit, was devoted to the single subject of inventing languages, so it shouldn't be surprising that a book on inventing "everything else" should have some gaps. I wonder, for example, if he would have been better off doing one book on planets and another on cultures.
A word about the section on illustration and 3-D modeling: first of all, this section covers pages 298-347, so keep in mind (if this stuff doesn't interest you) that before you get to that section, there are 297 pages worth of content devoted to other subjects. The illustration section is aimed at people who want to draw pictures of their world, but have little or no artistic ability. I think this target audience will find it useful; others probably won't.
Overall, consider this a crash course on a ton of different subjects that one should know about in order to create a fictional world the right way. If that's what you are looking for, then I recommend this book. It has its flaws, but overall I consider it a good resource and a good value.
A personal note: I'm in the later stages of creating my own fantasy world. I did it the hard way--which involved spending several years researching nearly all of the subjects this book covers. If that appeals to you, then you can probably skip this purchase. As for me, I don't regret doing the legwork, but if I had had this book a long time ago, I could have focused my research more effectively, and saved myself a lot of time and effort!
The book seems to focus on steering the reader away from cliches and other mistakes, sparking creativity, and providing a range of options in places where the reader might get stuck. The amount of details provided is remarkable, but the level of detail is uneven--in a given subject, we might get a general overview, a fine level of attention to certain specifics, or sometimes both at once (determined, apparently, by the author's interests and level of expertise). This is probably unavoidable, given the ambitious scope of the book, which is both its strength and its weakness. Rosenfelder's last book, The Language Construction Kit, was devoted to the single subject of inventing languages, so it shouldn't be surprising that a book on inventing "everything else" should have some gaps. I wonder, for example, if he would have been better off doing one book on planets and another on cultures.
A word about the section on illustration and 3-D modeling: first of all, this section covers pages 298-347, so keep in mind (if this stuff doesn't interest you) that before you get to that section, there are 297 pages worth of content devoted to other subjects. The illustration section is aimed at people who want to draw pictures of their world, but have little or no artistic ability. I think this target audience will find it useful; others probably won't.
Overall, consider this a crash course on a ton of different subjects that one should know about in order to create a fictional world the right way. If that's what you are looking for, then I recommend this book. It has its flaws, but overall I consider it a good resource and a good value.
A personal note: I'm in the later stages of creating my own fantasy world. I did it the hard way--which involved spending several years researching nearly all of the subjects this book covers. If that appeals to you, then you can probably skip this purchase. As for me, I don't regret doing the legwork, but if I had had this book a long time ago, I could have focused my research more effectively, and saved myself a lot of time and effort!
15 of 20 people found the following review helpful
By David
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book follows the model of Rosenfelder's Language Construction Kit; it's basically a worldbuilding reference guide meant to help writers, GMs, and other creators.
I bought it mostly for the portion literally referred to in the title: the physics of designing a planet with proper geological, meteorological and astronomical details. The chapter on Astronomy and Geology is actually rather short. It gives a lot of information about plausible planetology, but rather than helping you simply answer questions like "How can I design a believable desert world?" (other than the note that planets shouldn't be monoclimates) or "What if I have a planet orbiting a red sun?", you actually need to work out all the details of axial tilt, rotation, and the like, plus there is a section on designing your planet's tectonic plates. (!) If you are that sort of absolutely thorough designer who wants everything specified down to the last detail, the PCK won't leave any area unaddressed, but it's not a quick reference for sketching out a few quick details about your world.
That's the major flaw with this book: it's a kitchen sink with everything. There are chapters on designing the physical planet, creating maps, designing life forms (sentient and otherwise), societies, histories, military and religion, technology, and so on. There is a lot of salient information here, but it comes in the form of long essays and examples from Earth's history and the author's own fantasy world. There's nothing much here that you can skim quickly to answer a few questions about the world you're building; it's more like a textbook than a reference guide.
Overall, I found it pretty well written and often interesting, but Rosenfelder could have used some serious editing to chop this book down to a much more concise volume with the same amount of information. The last few chapters actually talk about illustration and 3D modeling -- seriously, there's a "How to draw people" chapter! That's 30+ pages that could have been replaced with a couple of references in the bibliography. No one is buying a Planet Construction Kit because they want drawing lessons.
Worth the money? Yes, but I was a bit disappointed as the Language Construction Kit, while also a bit bloated, stuck more closely to its topic. The Planet Construction Kit is very bloated, and requires a whole lot of reading to extract the nuggets of information you want.
I bought it mostly for the portion literally referred to in the title: the physics of designing a planet with proper geological, meteorological and astronomical details. The chapter on Astronomy and Geology is actually rather short. It gives a lot of information about plausible planetology, but rather than helping you simply answer questions like "How can I design a believable desert world?" (other than the note that planets shouldn't be monoclimates) or "What if I have a planet orbiting a red sun?", you actually need to work out all the details of axial tilt, rotation, and the like, plus there is a section on designing your planet's tectonic plates. (!) If you are that sort of absolutely thorough designer who wants everything specified down to the last detail, the PCK won't leave any area unaddressed, but it's not a quick reference for sketching out a few quick details about your world.
That's the major flaw with this book: it's a kitchen sink with everything. There are chapters on designing the physical planet, creating maps, designing life forms (sentient and otherwise), societies, histories, military and religion, technology, and so on. There is a lot of salient information here, but it comes in the form of long essays and examples from Earth's history and the author's own fantasy world. There's nothing much here that you can skim quickly to answer a few questions about the world you're building; it's more like a textbook than a reference guide.
Overall, I found it pretty well written and often interesting, but Rosenfelder could have used some serious editing to chop this book down to a much more concise volume with the same amount of information. The last few chapters actually talk about illustration and 3D modeling -- seriously, there's a "How to draw people" chapter! That's 30+ pages that could have been replaced with a couple of references in the bibliography. No one is buying a Planet Construction Kit because they want drawing lessons.
Worth the money? Yes, but I was a bit disappointed as the Language Construction Kit, while also a bit bloated, stuck more closely to its topic. The Planet Construction Kit is very bloated, and requires a whole lot of reading to extract the nuggets of information you want.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By Tagath
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Being new to con-worlding, I think this book is a pretty nice introduction to that specific hobby. It gives good advices on what not to do (copy Lord of the Ring, medieval England and modern USA) and lots of interesting information on pretty much everything.
But while it makes you ask yourself the right questions about how countries and cultures work, it doesn't always gives you much to answer those questions. Most of the information given is trivia, and you still have to do lots of research to really find how to make things works.
And there's that part on drawing and 3D modeling. I... really wish that part of the book didn't exist. It's one thing to draw for yourself and show it to people and say "I did this". But if you want to tell people how *they* could draw, you need to be good, really good. And while Mark Rosenfelder is talented in many things, his drawing are far from perfect and I'm not sure I want any kind of drawing lessons from him.
As for the 3D modeling part... yeah. No. Using textures? I don't think that was needed. I would have liked the book much more if those two chapters hadn't been there and if other parts had had more pages (like the Astronomy&Geology part which was too short for my tastes)
Still, a nice book, full of ideas on how to make your world work, and that's all I wanted.
But while it makes you ask yourself the right questions about how countries and cultures work, it doesn't always gives you much to answer those questions. Most of the information given is trivia, and you still have to do lots of research to really find how to make things works.
And there's that part on drawing and 3D modeling. I... really wish that part of the book didn't exist. It's one thing to draw for yourself and show it to people and say "I did this". But if you want to tell people how *they* could draw, you need to be good, really good. And while Mark Rosenfelder is talented in many things, his drawing are far from perfect and I'm not sure I want any kind of drawing lessons from him.
As for the 3D modeling part... yeah. No. Using textures? I don't think that was needed. I would have liked the book much more if those two chapters hadn't been there and if other parts had had more pages (like the Astronomy&Geology part which was too short for my tastes)
Still, a nice book, full of ideas on how to make your world work, and that's all I wanted.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good
I wish there had been more in-depth idea-generation in the book, but for a vast overview of looking at the different aspects of creating an entire world for your book/game/etc, I... Read more
Published 3 months ago by James Miller
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must have tool for creating fictional worlds
I got far more than I thought I was buying, with this book. It brings up many questions that fantasy/sci-fi/historical world creators could be missing. Read more
Published 10 months ago by guilnunes
4.0 out of 5 stars
How to do world-creation
This is a must for those in the business of creating their own world for fantasy/SF/RPG or their own pleasure. Read more
Published 19 months ago by QW
1.0 out of 5 stars
How to draw boobies
Most of the Planet Construction Kit is a very useful book for "world builders", giving lots of tips and introductory information to a great many pertinent topics. However... Read more
Published on October 27, 2010 by Steven Oliveira
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