Customer Reviews

World-Building (Science Fiction Writing)

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"World-Building" is the volume in the Science Fiction Writing Series edited by Ben Bova devoted to constructing star systems and life-supporting planets. Stephen L. Gillett has a doctorate in geology, was the science columnist at "Amazing Science Fiction" and has written SF under a pseudonym. My doctorate is in rhetorical studies, so I am starting at ground zero when it comes to understanding or at least appreciating the mathematical equations for escape velocity, scaling tidal forces or Roche's limit. While this book thoroughly convinced me that I have no aptitude for writing hard science, I can see how it would be extremely helpful to anyone interested in being on a strong scientific foundation when it comes to writing their own stories.

Gillett's volume has eight chapters: (1) Why World-Build? looks at the necessity of using real science to create the requisite sense of wonder in your science fiction writing; (2) The Astronomical Setting covers the important differences between planets and stars in general and gravity, orbits, seasons and tidal action in particular; (3) Making a Planet details how the formation of a planetary system impacts the resulting planets and the options for story writing; (4) The Earth looks at the interconnected aspects that make interesting variations possible with the home worlds you create because of plate tectonics, water and air, magnetic field, colors, etc.; (5) The Ancient Earth deals with avoiding the "Cenozoic Earth Syndrome" (creating an alien world by making a few slight changes on ancient earth) by better understanding our ancient past as an inspiration for creativity; (6) The Other Planet looks at the wealth of data we have accumulated from our deep space probes as another source of inspiration; (7) Stars and Suns looks at how such heavenly bodies can supporting interesting planets as well; and (8) Not as We Know It discusses differences in volatile content (e.g., wetworlds, nitroworlds, brimstone worlds) as a final means of providing major scope for variation in words.

Hopefully this will provide you enough information to decide if "World-Building" will help you in writing your own Science Fiction. I appreciate that for some people this book does not go far enough, but certainly for the vast majority of us it gives us enough information that we will not thoroughly embarrass ourselves when it comes to creating new worlds for our characters to inhabit and visit.

This is probably the best and only book that clearly states the current understanding of stars and formation/evolution of planets around them, in plain speech. The information is as extensive as it is scientifically accurate which is a great plus for an aspiring fiction writer who does not want to look over the countless pages of an Encyclopaedia Formulae on astrophysics. Besides the numerous formulas one needs to create a (scientifically) cohesive world, Gillett also gives many tidbits from the fiction writing over the course of time, allowing you to become familiar with the possibilities of several future technologies/discoveries. Also included are several studies of fictuous odd-ball worlds ( one is an ocean world filled with sulfuric acid). This book will likely be useful to the writer as well as the explorer within everyone.

Required reading if you're an aspiring SF Writer. This book provides the basic information needed to design an "authentic" planet that is scientifically consistant. Most of the equations are in sidebars so they can be easily located and entered in a spreadsheet making it easy to try out a variety of scenarios for your planet and its environment. The author has packed lots of information in a small book.

If you find this book useful you will also find "Energies: An Illustrated Guide to the Biosphere and Civilization" (available from Amazon) equally thought provoking and just as useful. While World-Building takes a look at planets in general it does focus on Earthlike planets in particular. Energies takes a wide-ranging look at Earth itself(its biomass, climate, animals and technology) with extensive charts, graphs and equations and fills in some areas where World-Building is thin. The books complement each other amazingly well. In addition, both list other references and resources for additional research.

Despite the book's prestigious author, the title is a bit misleading. Most of the book focuses on "world-building" is not a 'world' per se, but is is meant in the larger sense: planetary/star-system building. I was hoping for more. One of my fiction projects includes "world-building" societies: things like races, religions, language, culture, costume, architecture, flora, government, et al., and the book covers none of that. Although the book itself it good for what it covers, I wish it had a different title that more accurately reflected its content.

The biggest advantage to his book is that it concisely draws together the general facts about stars, planets, and atmospheres that one needs to design the physicality of worlds for hard-science fiction. Though not all encompassing or exhaustive of the subject, there's enough data to enable one to make choices for a world and then research those choices to the depth necessary to meet one's needs without having to become an expert in astrophysics and/or biochemistry.

Ben Bova has helped to write several books in this series, including Aliens and Alien Societies, Time Travel, and this one, World-Building.

This book gives the science fiction writer the science needed to create worlds on which your stories can unfold. As a scientist myself, I knew much of the information included, but there were more than a few times where I found myself saying "Wow, I never thought of that!".

I'm sure there are a lot of writers out there who aren't scientists like me, and I'm sure they would benefit from having this information so that their worlds will not only be more realistic, they'll be scientifically plausible.

This is a book about the science for, rather than the science of, science fiction. This should perhaps be viewed as supplemental to material on the actual construction of science fiction stories. The focus in particular is on geology, astronomy and planetary dynamics so that the reader will know what details can be ascribed to a planet and remain believable.

You will get both qualitative overviews of various topics with more quantitative insertions which one can use to facilitate back-of-the envelope calculations for constructing worlds. These insertions may be skipped over without interfering with the flow of the book and is probably better that you do so even if one has a strong mathematical background (one can always go back later with a calculator to do some constructions).

Due to my background in physics, I found myself familiar with most of the material presented in the first two-thirds of the book. However, I still enjoyed it as it was presented in a concise, logical manner.

A variety of topics are covered, including:

* The relationship between large moons and rotational stability of a planet
* The relationship between planetary dynamics and climate
* Possible unusual configurations of moons, planets and stars
* The role and dynamic range of greenhouse gasses
* The role plate tectonics plays in a livable planet
* Possible alternate forms of life

I did however find the last 10% of the book to have escaped my interest. The author began to divulge into more bizarre scenarios which were hard to relate to.

This is an excellent reference, writen in a clear, conversational style. I won' repeat the similar comments made by the other reviewers.

My only complaint: it doesn't go into much detail. I realize that Dr. Gillett had to write a book anyone could use for their sci-fi, be they engineer or English major. He couldn't go math-crazy.

Well, as an engineer, I would have liked to see a chapter or two, added at the end, intended for people who aren't scared of differential equations and who want to BUILD a world, not just outline it.

My experience, in both industry and graduate school, is that the obscure implications you encounter while modeling a system can be as interesting and important as the final answer you achieve. Dr. Gillett just gives us the final answer.

So, to sum up: EXCELLENT book and REQUIRED reading. But, they should have thrown in another chapter of MATH.

Last year I decided to get back into SF after an absence of over 15 years. I began a novel that I wanted to have the extra crackle of believability that comes from paying attention to simple physics. I wanted to use real star systems and design planets with orbits, years, and seasons consistent with their positions with respect to their stars. I had some writeups on how to do this (most skimmed from Web searches) but no systematic treatment.

Well, here it is, gang. Pick a nearby star from the Gliese catalog. (Not included...but it's on the Web.) Choose Earth-normal illumination, calculate distance from the star, etc. etc. All the equations are here, with worked-out examples. Just like a Schaum's Outline.

It's easy to read, easy to understand, and anybody who's gone through high school math and posesses a calculator can do it. I set up an Excel spreadsheet with formulas for the various equations, so I can change one value and see the changes that ripple through all the other values. Wonderful fun!

Even if you're not intending to write an SF novel, this book is an excellent popularization of stars and planets and how they relate, with interesting suggestions as to what sorts of "exotic worlds" might be viable and what sorts just wouldn't exist.

I had a blast with this book, and two years from now, if NO WAY IN HELL makes it into print, this book will bear a great deal of the blame, heh-heh.

I am not a SF writer and really do not have plans to become one, but since I have an interest in astronomy, I found myself, by turns, buying and looking over this book.

The detail in the book is very good. While the equations and mathematics will turn off some, they ARE necessary in order to construct a "believable" science fiction world, and the authors do take pains to make it as "plug and play" as possible.

The best part of the book is the last, with the authors imaginative and fanciful planetary settings for science fiction stories. The "clorox" world has to be read to be believed.

The only caveat to the book is the inevitable march of planetary knowledge slowly rendering some details of our own solar system slightly incorrect.