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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 3461137" data-attributes="member: 307">Actually, his works are probably best described as the opposite of this. He simply doesn't belabor the setting details over the story. And I would suggest that Harrison is a quite well-respected author, and deservedly so, given his dozen or so major award nominations (with a couple award wins thrown in ther) and a list of a couple dozen publishing credits over the course of a thirty year career. The fact that you are unfamiliar with him does nothing to diminish this, and given a couple of the names on the list of authors you have provided as "respected", well, I don't think your lack of familiarity with him is a strike against him.I think you are misundertanding his advice. Insofar as you think you are disagreeing with Harrison, you are actually in total agreement with his statement. Note that he doesn't say "never do worldbuilding"; he says "story should always take precedence over worldbuilding". In other words, worldbuilding should be subordinated to the story - or, to use your words, used in moderation. But his point is that the story should be paramount.To tell the truth, I can't think of a single story (or RPG campaign) for which this is not excellent advice. Sure, some stories revel in the detailed travelogue - Jordan has been used as an example already - but the stories suffer because of this. Sure, Jordan is popular, but how many people talk about his works and say something like "the plot is good, but I wish he wouldn't keep getting bogged down in all the side details and get on with the story"? The Wheel of Time would probably be improved with less worldbuilding, and more story.I can think of very few books for which the opposite is true (actually, off the top of my head, zero; but there might be some book out there I haven't thought of).Worldbuilding in fantasy is more or less the equivalent of the "info-dump" in science fiction. The author has done a lot of research into a subject (or in the case of worldbuilding, a lot of work putting the background together) and, when writing, doesn't want that to go to "waste". So he dumps it on the reader, even if that draws the story to a halt and ins't really needed (or is even somewhat counterproductive). The key is not to have the worldbuilding (or infor-dump), but to give out just enough to support the story, without getting in the way of the story.</blockquote>

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