Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. And this week, you get to choose top 10 places from books you’d like to live in. Honestly, I couldn’t really remember any specific places — so I decided to focus on worldbuilding instead.
1 / The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. Detailed and intricate mythology: World Tree, void, floating city of Sky, Shadow worlds…
2 / Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. A dystopian, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem, controlled ruthlessly by its dictators.
3 / Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. A castle that can travel as the magician Howl dictates, fed by a magical fireplace engine.
4 / Lord of the Rings Series by J.R.R. Tolkien. Have you seen the movies? Enough said.
5 / The Bitterbynde Trilogy by Cecilia Dart-Thornton. This Tolkien-esque Faerie world has been sealed off, but some humans still long for it.
6 / The Sevenwaters Series by Juliet Marillier. The tension between the Celts and the Britons gets an epic, magical portrayal in ancient Ireland.
7 / Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Alice falls into a dream-world where the Queen of Hearts bakes some tarts. Well, we know how this goes.
8 / Malazan Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erikson. The Malazan Empire is in turmoil and the imprisoned Crippled God plots to escape.
9 / Game of Thrones Series by George R. Martin. The Hundred Years’ War gets re-written, with oodles of grimdark and gore. Ask HBO.
10 / Imperial Radch Series by Ann Leckie. Radch has expanded its inter-galactic empire by means of sentient AI spaceships and soldiers.
23 replies on “Top 10 Books with Great WorldBuilding”
Yes, Lord of the Rings had amazing world building for sure.
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-places-in-books-id-love-to-live/
When I saw you mentioning The Hunger Games I went like OH because how amazing is that trilogy? And we were blessed with pretty good movies of them as well. I also love Howl’s Moving Castle and really wanna reread it sometime because it’s been a while now.
The Hunger Games movies were amazing – I became a diehard Jennifer Lawrence fan after that!
I only recognize 4 of these worlds. I guess I need to go and visit the rest! Great post Lex!
Yes, Suzanne Collins definitely created a very scary world with Panem. I always like VE Schwab’s books for worldbuilding, particularly the Shades of Magic series, the Four Londons are done so well.
Haven’t tried VE Schwab yet — but I have heard amazing things about her books!
I haven’t read all of these, but for the ones I have read, I fully agree. And the ones I haven’t just got added to my TBR!
I definitely would NOT want to live in the Hunger Games world. Yikes! I wouldn’t last a day.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Yeah, wouldn’t want to live in any of these places, just admire their worldbuilding!
Such great choices. I love Middle- earth and Westeros (in spite of its darkness- yikes). I thought the world of the Hunger games was brought to life really well also in all its bleakness.
For these three, I keep imagining the movies/ shows instead of the books. They were those rare exceptions, where they were as good as (or even better than?) the books they were adapted from.
Agreed. Although I wasn’t always crazy about Game of Thrones (the show). The Hunger Games I thought they did a FABULOUS job though- imagining that world- and Lord of the Rings too.
This is a great list. Howl’s Moving Castle is definitely one that I really enjoyed too! Hunger games and Game of Thrones are also phenomenal! 🙂
Glad somebody else loves Howl’s Moving Castle too! Loved Ghibli’s version as well.
I’ve not read the Inheritance series by N. K. Jemisin, but the world building in her Broken Earth series is amazing. Such a great author.
Here is our Top Ten Tuesday. Thank you!
Absolutely. I am grateful to Inheritance series, because that’s where I first got to know of Jemisin. That’s an author who ALWAYS delivers.
Some great books on here. Certainly can’t fault any list with Tolkien 😀 I would probably also add the Locke Lamora books by Scott Lynch and Way of Kings by Sanderson.
Lynn 😀
Locke Lamora is an excellent suggestion! I haven’t read Way of Kings, but any book by Sanderson would definitely have great worldbuilding.
Great list! I do admire authors who can create such fully realized worlds and make them feeling convincing!
While I think the world of Panem is incredibly detailed, I know I would not survive in the Hunger Games! haha… Great list!
I don’t remember much about Suzanne’s worldbuilding, but then part of this could be because I don’t love THG books. That said, the costumes and other descriptions certainly are all kinds of unique! 🙂 Thanks so much for visiting Finding Wonderland.
I had the movie in mind for Hunger Games — which I think may have better world building than the books? 😎
Howl! It is so splendid. And I really need to get on The Inheritance trilogy. I have all the books. I just need to carve out time to read them.