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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 3463208" data-attributes="member: 307">I think I disagree here. Ringworld is a case with very limited worldbuilding. The main alien races are describable (and are described) in one or two sentence statements. The Ringworld itself is only loosely described (and in the original book, was thought out porrly enough that it wouldn't work without the additions made in Ringworld Engineers, as the structure would have been unstable). The cultures of the Ringworld inhabitants are described in very limited ways, and only sufficiently to drive the narrative. In Ringworld, the story triumphs over worldbuilding.Yes, they are a great example, but not of what you say they are. CHOAM is described in a couple sentences, all of the politics of Landsraad are reduced to a small discussion. The Bene-Gesserit are described to the extent that they have great martial arts and manipulative skills and they are trying to breed a Kwisatz-Haderach, and little more. Mentats are given a paragraph or two of description. The world building, compared to the story, is slight.Your other examples are, to a great extent, similar. Note that Harrison didn't say "no worldbuilding". He said "story should trump worldbuilding". Star Trek, in the main, does this. Star Trek, when it comes in the form of technical manuals, does not. Imagine if the material in the "technical manual" was crammed into an episode of one of the shows. How crappy would that be? Lots of science fiction and fantasy writers fall into the trap of doing almost exactly that, and it makes their writing suffer. And that's exactly what Harrison appears to be talking about.</blockquote>

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