Notes
Hey Sci-Friday folks! So, I’m currently reading Red Mars, and it got me thinking a lot about world building as well as establishing the groundwork for a solid plot. Here’s where this all came from though: The beginning of that book absolutely hurt to read. Maybe it was just me, but the first 150 pages or so felt like a grind. I wanted to quit reading. I wanted to give up so badly, but I gave myself a limit. I decided that if I wasn’t enjoying myself by page 200, I’d stop. That seemed like a fair go of the book to me, so I toughed it out. Reading was so slow, I was bored, and something in my mind told me to just give up but I didn’t!
Then I got to about page 180 and suddenly things absolutely took off! I started having fun! I was enthralled by the story and wanted more. I started reading faster, wondering about the story when I’m not reading it, and looking forward to winding down in the evenings with it. I asked myself what changed? Why was it suddenly good for me? Well, it was honestly simple: The foundation was laid for a good story, and it turned out that everything leading up to that was aggressive, intense world building. Every now and then, I could see the good story. I could see an interesting section of something breaking through, but it just kept slipping out of my grasp. I found myself complaining to a friend saying, “Please just give me the story, I don’t care about the martian calendar or what brand the rovers they use are, I want the story!”
But now I keep asking myself “Would the story be as interesting now if I hadn’t gone through reading all that important world building” Would I find the characters as interesting or the world as intriguing? I don’t have an answer to this at this point, honestly.
If I can wrap my mind around this rollercoaster, I’m considering doing a full length review as a post, but we’ll see about that.
In the meantime, if you’ve read Red Mars, what did you think (I’m only page 400, so please don’t spoil!)? And if you haven’t, how do you feel about worldbuilding generally? Do you like a world that requires some ground rules to be set, or would you rather be thrown in the deep end?
(Also, if you’ve made it this far, maybe check out my most recent post that takes place in a sci-fi world but is actually just two people fishing in a forest so it doesn’t seem like it at all!)
Thanks to the usuals for a fun place to discuss sci-fi…
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