{"id":33606,"date":"2016-11-09T06:30:31","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T17:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=33606"},"modified":"2016-11-06T22:18:55","modified_gmt":"2016-11-06T09:18:55","slug":"when-worlds-become-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/11\/09\/when-worlds-become-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"When Worlds Become Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/11\/03\/encountering-fantastic-worlds-part-2\/citycity2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9434\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-9434\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/CityCity2-96x150.jpg\" alt=\"City&amp;City2\" width=\"96\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/CityCity2-96x150.jpg 96w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/CityCity2.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 96px) 100vw, 96px\" \/><\/a>Part of the magic of SFF, aka speculative fiction, is world building, a part of the genre that I really love. And in some cases I believe the world itself can be so vividly realized that it becomes a \u201ccharacter\u201d in its own right.<\/p>\n<p>This is certainly true of both China Mieville&#8217;s overlapping cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma in <em>The City &amp; The City <\/em>and Catherynne M Valente\u2019s <em>Palimpsest. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Recently, too, I <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/10\/20\/the-50th-anniversary-of-dune-why-its-still-significant\/\" target=\"_blank\">talked about the SciFi world of <em>Dune<\/em><\/a>, which definitely infuses the story at every level, rather than simply being a backdrop to it.<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/11\/04\/encountering-fantastic-worlds-part-2-continued\/palimpsestcover-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9476\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-9476\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/palimpsestcover-93x150.jpg\" alt=\"palimpsestcover\" width=\"93\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/palimpsestcover-93x150.jpg 93w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/palimpsestcover.jpg 149w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 93px) 100vw, 93px\" \/><\/a>Ursula Le Guin\u2019s Winter (in <em>The Left Hand of Darkness<strong>)<\/strong><\/em>, and PC Hodgell\u2019s thieves\u2019 city of Tai-tastigon are all examples of worlds that aspire to the status of character in their own right.<\/p>\n<p>I know there is a raft more out there &#8212; so how about you tell me <em>your<\/em> favourite. (Go on, I dare you!) \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part of the magic of SFF, aka speculative fiction, is world building, a part of the genre that I really love. And in some cases I believe the world itself can be so vividly realized that it becomes a \u201ccharacter\u201d in its own right. This is certainly true of both China Mieville&#8217;s overlapping cities of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epicfantasy","category-funstuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33608,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33606\/revisions\/33608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}