Season 1, Episode 8: Worldbuilding ft. Ursula Whitcher
Worldbuilding is a critical element of speculative fiction—but how do you make an imaginary world as feel as real and vibrant as our own? We sit down with Ursula Whitcher—poet, mathematician, knitter, and author of North Continent Ribbon—to talk about the process of creating a fictional world.
Show notes:
- North Continent Ribbon (Neon Hemlock Press)
- Yarntheory
- Yarntheory.bsky.social
- Prisoners of Gravity on Worldbuilding
- Rite Gud: Against Worldbuilding
Books:
- The Hainish Cycle – Ursula K. LeGuin
- A Memory Called Empire – Arkady Martine
- Green-Sky Trilogy – Zilpha Keatley-Snyder
- Signal To Noise – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Prophet – Sin Blaché and Helen Macdonald
- The Sun Chronicles and Crown of Stars – Kate Elliott
I wrote a dystopian novella describing two worlds:
– Planet Dearth occupied by the apex predator species Homo smartypants AKA Yuman Beings, who, by application of their 11th commandment, manage to avoid self destruction in their technological adolescence to achieve an advanced sustainable civilization. Representatives of the Yumans undertake a 2 million year long space voyage to visit
– Planet Earth occupied by the apex predator species Homo sapiens* AKA Human Beings, who, despite attempts by one Yuman to prevent it, fail to avoid self destruction in their technological adolescence. It ends with near term Human extinction by global thermonuclear war in June 2026.
So yes, it is a comedy.
So it goes.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l6rmuic84zf2s8jnnk539/ChannellingTrout_full_compressed.pdf?rlkey=exsn3j2zw5sbjh1e4k4lui74h&dl=1
Or
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l6rmuic84zf2s8jnnk539/ChannellingTrout_full_compressed.pdf?rlkey=exsn3j2zw5sbjh1e4k4lui74h&dl=0
*Orwellian hubristic self description for a species more accurately described as Homo stupidus