All entries for Saturday 01 March 2008

World–Building Wars Episode V – The Empire is Struck Back

Writing about The nerds regroupe (presumably at the Meeting Stone) – yet more World–Building from Gas-mask City

Taking Asimov as an example is interesting. It's been a while since I read the Foundation books (I recall seven books, rather than 3, but I take it you're a purist), but I've never forgotten one of the key issues: that the whole is overseen by Hari Seldon, who is dead by the Prelude.

Foundation's foundations could be argued to rest on the idea that world-building is unachieveable without a human story, without someone taking responsibility for that world - even if that creator is dead, in both the real sense of Hari Seldon in Foundation, or in the Barthesian sense.

Foundation sprawls through history, through time, through generations, but ultimately, it's the playing out of Seldon's vision that is important: does he have sufficiency of character to predict the scope of human evolution? Or maybe you'd rather call it a vision of society by a visionary, a supra-human personality, a kind of bodhisatva. An ontological character figure, non? And again, this isn't dependent on world-building as the narrative drive.

I could equally blast out ideas about his short stories, in which a variety of robot characters dominate - even ones that seem to be more machine than character. They are invested with personality, characterised. But I'm interested here in the idea of interpretation as well. It's the reader's prerogative to choose which aspect they gravitate towards as being most interesting. Hence the fans who start creating fiction about their favourite characters, or who pin blueprints of deathstars/cartography of Middle Earth to their bedroom walls. They're entitled to this, just as the writers are allowed to exercise their personal tastes in pursuing worlds over characters.

So really, Tim, what it comes down is that you're essentially right in saying, (to paraphrase) "character isn't the only point to story". There are various ways to drive a narrative and, I guess Miéville and Harrison are good examples of the world-building urge - I recently finished China's The Scar and the central quest is about characters trying to unlock a mystery to do with the structure of world they are in, rather than themselves, though this is of course thrown up along the way. It's not devoid of character, but they take second place to the environment, in terms of the book's concerns - or my reading of it.

I think I said in conversation that there are three ways to drive a narrative: plot, character and language. I left out ideas, which is where world-building comes in. Rather than rabbit on about this, I will instead list a few further texts that are driven by world-building and character, in equal or unequal balance:

Robert Lightman's Einstein's Dreams
Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker
Clive Barker's Imagica
Stephen Donaldson's Covenant Series (I've not read the Gap into Power series, but might well do the same)

And I should also add that this isn't to say they're devoid of plot or language motors to carry them along, only that I'd consider these strands to be the dominant motivations.

Which, on a completely unrelated topic, reminds me of James Herbert's '48. He deliberately chose to write the book with an action packed plot that doesn't let the central character relax - and hence the reader neither. Aesthetically, it's about as intense a plot-driven book as I've ever read (48 could refer to the number of minutes it takes to get through it, given how it's impossible to stop reading). But at the same time, it's barely a glitch in terms of character, ideas and language - I have a vague memory of gardens and a mention of the Ritz in London, though when I try to remember the central character, all I can think of is Biggles.

George Ttoouli : 01 Mar 2008 09:00 |  Tags: China Mieville Creative Writing Foundation Isaac Asimov M J Harrison World Building |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem