The best books that feature worldbuilding as part of the story

The Far Pavilions is one of the most beautiful, culturally aware, historically accurate, and vivid books I’ve ever read, and I re-read it every few years.

I’ve loaned this book and not gotten it back so many times that I’m sure it’s still in print because of the number of copies I’ve had to buy to replace it. Based on the history of British direct rule in India, it tells the story of a young British boy raised as Indian by the nanny who saves his life during the Sepoy uprisings.

He struggles with having a foot in two worlds and not really belonging to either, and the author does a fantastic job of illustrating this. India truly comes alive.

This urban fantasy is set in a fantastical Atlanta, where magic comes in unpredictable waves that interfere with technology.

Written by a husband-and-wife team, I picked up this first book when it was on sale for 99 cents, then went on to purchase all the books in the series. I love the imagination behind the worlds this writing team creates and the way the characters interact with them.

Worldbuilding is a huge part of fantasy, and for anyone who knows the real Atlanta, Ilona Andrews makes the fictional version in Magic Bites equally realistic, as seen through the eyes of protagonist Kate Daniels.  

I bought a copy of Pillars of the Earth mostly because I’d heard Ken Follett’s literary agent speak at a conference about their working relationship and I was curious.

I’m a bit of a history nerd but I’m terrible with dates and facts, so when I come across authors who manage to keep my attention engaged while writing about them, then I’m hooked. At over 800 words I had a good idea that dates and facts were going to feature prominently. I was right.

But I also came away from this book feeling as if I’d lived through the building of a 12th-century British cathedral along with the main characters. It’s an excellent example of fictional worldbuilding derived from late medieval history.

I was never a huge horror fan until I read this book.

My mother gave me a copy for Christmas my first year of university, and as an English teacher, she was always pretty picky about the writing quality of the books she gifted me, so I was willing to give it a chance.

A writer requires a good grasp of their story world in order to make it come to life in a way that suspends a reader’s disbelief, especially a reader who’s prepared to be skeptical, and Stephen King definitely has that. Pet Sematary remains the only book that has ever kept me awake because I was too afraid to go to sleep. I’m now a big fan of cremation, too.

Madeline Hunter is the pseudonym of an art historian who teaches at the university level, and that expert knowledge translates well in her books.

The little bits and pieces of art detail she adds to her story worlds really bring them to life. There’s also an element of mystery that deepens the plot. The Seducer is the first book in The Seducer series, and while it’s not the first of her books that I’ve read, the story of Diane Albret and Daniel St. John is the one that made me a fan.

The heroine is a recent boarding school graduate, and the hero is her far more experienced guardian. In the modern-day world, this premise is all kinds of creepy. The power dynamics between this couple were so far off, I wasn’t sure how Hunter could make this a romance.

But based on the historical details built into the world, and by leveling the dynamics in a realistic way, the story is actually very sensual and beautiful.