Without World - The White Review

Any study of worldbuilding would be remiss without mention of Biosphere 2, the experimental facility constructed in Arizona for studying the feasibility of life in a manmade ecosystem. In 1994, Abigail Alling and Mark Van Thillo broke into the complex – or rather, attempted a break-out, and in the process brought the years-long experiment to an abr... See more

The structural focus of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ science fiction alike – science fiction that accounts for scientific accuracy and logic in the first instance, and for social or political systems in the second – is more easily translated to policy or innovation than any other genre of media. It provides a ready-made framework that runs all the way from pr... See more

The word for world is forest1. The word for world is mother2. The world is made, and remade, through ‘worlding,’3 ‘worldmaking,’4 or ‘worldbuilding’5. The world is rendered by empire, destroyed, and remade forever after. The world is a model, a simulation, an ‘infinite game’ that is open all the way up to its borders. The world is autonomous and al... See more

Stories by Stephenson – which tend, predictably, towards singular heroes who win at technocracy – form the inspiration behind Amazon’s Blue Origin and Facebook’s Metaverse.

The rest of us have the misfortune of living in a superfan’s world.

In its most popular use, worldbuilding refers to a practice derived from fantasy or science fiction, where systems, characters, and mechanics assemble to satisfy the expectation that a fictional world should be convincing and complete. More broadly, it should be stated, worldbuilding is simply part of writing fiction: Sally Rooney does worldbuildin... See more

The first recorded use of ‘worldbuilding’ was in an issue of the Edinburgh Review , December 1820.