MALAZAN

I’m only on the 5th book but the world building is Tolkien level of detailed. Writer Stephen Erickson is an anthropologist who brought he and his achaelogist friend Ian esselmont dnd world to written reality. Esselmont has books in the series too but not that far along yet.

It makes it difficult to pick up other books afterwards. Major caveat I didn’t know what the fuck was happening until the second book. Then it clicked.

Wonderful writer and world building.

The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. Though, I guess what really hooked me was the idea that the future could be predicted, and guided toward an outcome that would benefit people. That, uh, doesn’t seem to fit with reality. But it sounds real nice ☹️

Vampire The Masquerade.

Hands down best depiction of vampires, and what unlife is like for a vampire.

On Cinema at the Cinema.

Where my Gregg heads at?

I consider lore and worldbuilding to be related but different concepts. Lore is the details of your world, worldbuilding is the way you deliver those details.

My favorite example of worldbuilding is The Dark Crystal, both the film and series. The lore is standard fantasy stuff, but the intricacies of the world are so rich and they unfold so naturally. It felt like a real world, and I felt like very little of what I learned about that world was simply narrated to me. The world was built through tiny details, interactions and observations, throwaway lines of dialogue, and effectively so.

Kipo and the World of Wonderbeasts is entirely underrated in so many ways. Worldbuilding is one. Music is another.

It was a short story, but I really like Faun by Joe Hill. The way the two worlds interact was really fun, and I’d love to hear more about it.

The Expanse.

I love the idea of sovereign nations Earth and Mars, and the political conflicts of not just diferent people, but different people living in different atmospheres, unlike different nations on earth, the difference between a Earther’s and Martian’s live is so different: Gravity, Breathable Atmosphere, the Ocean.

Also there are people that live outside of the planets in space stations that have never experienced a planet’s gravity and their bodies and unable to survive on planets. The story expands to other star systems.

Its originally a book series but it has been adapted into TV, although they canceled the TV series before it was finished :(

But still worth a watch tho, the politics is more fun than irl politics.

You know, I’ve always liked the Avatar:TLA’s worldbuilding

I really loved Magnamund, the world setting for Joe Denver’s Lone Wolf adventure books and their later novelizations.

https://www.magnamund.com/legacy

Most recently, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, had great world building and character development.

Delicious in Dungeon/Dungeon Meshi by Ryouko Kui.

It has wonderful world building introducing it slowly over time without info dumping, or better said, there is a nerd in the world info dumping on his friends, who don’t always appreciate it =D

Magic: the Gathering.

It churns out a ton of unique settings and ideas for worlds.

I’ve enjoyed the world building of the Warhammer 40k setting.i started out with the models in high school and moved into the books to not have to deal with sweaty, agro nerds wanting to rules lawyer the game into no fun. So many interesting stories set in the grimdark universe, and a ton of great characters to follow.

Peter F Hamilton is another good one, though his world building is rather dense. Hell tell you all about how the roads on some alien world are enzyme bonded concrete or how the magic paths traverse entire worlds and systems. Definitely not for everyone, but the audiobooks are great (John Lee has such a soothing voice) and I’ve heard them so many times they make a great media to fall asleep to when I’m traveling.

BattleTech/mechwarrior. I think it started as a tabletop game? Lots of media came from it, and video games pop up every few years starting in 1989.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleTech

The series began with FASA’s debut of the board game BattleTech (originally named Battledroids) by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock III and has since grown to include numerous expansions to the original game, several board games, role playing games, video games, a collectible card game, a series of more than 100 novels, and an animated television series.[3]