Paperback Bundle. The main three books in The Art of World Building series.
Creating a unique, immersive setting one world at a time
A guide for authors, gamers, and hobbyists
This bundle brings together volumes 1-3 in The Art of World Building series. This how-to guide will make readers a master of inventing imaginary worlds and help a setting stand out from the multitude of fantasy and SF worlds audiences see.
Creating Life (#1) teaches readers how to create gods, species/races, plants, animals, monsters, world figures, and even undead. Creating Places (#2) teaches how to create planets, moons, continents, land features, bodies of water, sovereign powers, settlements, interesting locales, and maps. Learn the different government types, how climate impacts vegetation, and consistently calculate how long it takes to travel by horse, wagon, sailing vessels, dragon, or in space. Cultures and Beyond (#3) teaches how to create cultures, organizations, armed forces, religions, the supernatural, magic systems, technological and supernatural items, languages, names, and various systems our world will have, from health, educational, legal, and commerce, to information systems.
The series draws on author Randy Ellefson’s quarter century of world building experience and will quickly turn a beginner into an expert, making a time-consuming project more fun, easier, and faster. Ellefson shares his experiences, lessons learned, and insights, including how much of your creations can realistically be mentioned during storytelling, how far creators should go, and what the benefits/risks to each approach might be. Elevate your work above the competition.
Build better, faster.
Endorsement from Ed Greenwood, inventor of The Forgotten Realms and dozens of imaginary worlds
"Worldbuilding—creating a fictional setting—is THE biggest job of a storyteller. It can be done badly or minimally, but doing so risks robbing a tale of richness and impact, by leaving the audience uncaring or making “the stakes” less clear or dramatic.
So, after “once upon a time,” where to begin this devastatingly big job? With CREATING LIFE by Randy Ellefson, even the first volume of which is THOROUGH. This book raises ALL the points, and asks all the questions. Not just recommended: essential!"
"With CREATING PLACES, Randy Ellefson has penned a sequel to his CREATING LIFE that walks story creators through worldbuilding along an entertaining road that runs everywhere, making sure nothing is missed. Plentiful examples are provided, and a veteran worldbuilder can find just as much fun and comprehensive reminders in these pages as a novice. Some books are nice to have, and a rare few are “must haves.” Like Ellefson’s preceding book, CREATING PLACES is one of that rare breed: an essential reference work. Unlike most references, this one is fun to read. Not to mention a goad and spark for the imagination!"
In Cultures and Beyond, Randy Ellefson continues his masterful overview of worldbuilding, carefully and coherently dealing with every last detail of creating and tending imaginary settings that his previous worldbuilding books, Creating Life and Creating Places, haven’t covered. All three are essential reference works for storytellers working in all fields; more than any other approach to these topics, Cultures and Beyond and its prequels ensure that nothing is overlooked or missed. Ellefson is a master of this craft, and it shows. Highly recommended!
Endorsement from NY Times Bestselling Author Piers Anthony
"I read Creating Life (The Art of World Building, #1), by Randy Ellefson...It is exhaustive, well written, and knowledgeable...I, as a successful science fiction and fantasy writer, have generated many worlds, so this material is familiar, but it would have been easier and probably better had I had a reference like this. It is realistic, recognizing that the average writer may not have the patience to work out all the details before getting into the action..."
"Creating Places also has advice along the way on writing that I'm sure novice writers and perhaps some established ones too can profit from. I recommend this book as a basic reference; at worst it is a review of necessary concepts, and at best it will upgrade you from a mediocre speculative fiction writer to a superior one."
I read Cultures and Beyond, The Art of World Building 3, by Randy Ellefson. I reviewed the prior two volumes, Creating Life and Creating Places, when they were published. Each volume is a comprehensive discussion of its subject, useful for new writers and surely for established ones too. I have been writing and selling novels for more than half a century, and I have been learning things here. I recommend all three for background reading for those who are serious about the worlds they create. The present volume is amazingly informative about the several aspects of culture, covering armed forces, religions, supernatural aspects, languages, and everything in between. It even lists all the American military ranks. Take a supposedly minor aspect, creating names. I have a small collection of books of names, which I use for my characters, trying not to duplicate myself too often, but I see I am an amateur in this respect. Naming names can be a science! Every section of this volume is similarly detailed. I am not sure whether reading it would cure the dread Writer's Block for those who suffer it, but if a writer runs out of inspiration, reading this book well might restore it. Certainly it should be on the shelf, as it were, ready to check when uncertainty threatens.
This paperback bundle of 3 non-fiction contains:
- Creating Life
- Creating Places
- Cultures and Beyond