Posted by Shad Andrews on 20:57 4/2/02
In reply to: fantasy worlds posted by Thomas Madden on 18:43 4/2/02
First, read a lot... and I don't mean read fantasy. Read history, basic science (geology and evolutionary biology are key), economics, military history, linguistics. If you want to make a world, you should know something about how this one works. Read books about other cultures-- Islam, China, Japan, the Incas, India; otherwise your world will be one more faux-Europe.
I was wondering if you could recommend a good book on Geology. One that can help figure out continental lines and the landscapes of continents. I don't have anything at all like that right now but am trying to find the right book for Eumora.
Thanks
Shad
I don't know as much geology as I'd like! I picked up a lot from old Time-Life Library books, as well as the introductory sections of a few good atlases... one writer I can recommend is John McPhee, who's written a few books on geology, e.g. Assembling California. He's a journalist, so they don't so much teach geology as let you hang out with a few talkative geologists.
Oh, and read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. It's not about geology, but it covers the effects of continents, something you should know before designing any...
If you want to model continental drift, I strongly recommend working with globes, not flat paper. The continents of Almea can actually be fit together like Pangea; I worked this out by drawing on a ball!