GRRM worldcon speech, discourse -
ffs.
I’m in the middle (=start) of my language-learning full reread. I just got the maps. I just customised the maps. can I like _one_ mainstream fandom without the author rushing to ruin it 😞💢
fantasy ask, 
@elilla Check out Kameron Hurley. She writes series in both fantasy and scifi, with tons of worldbuilding.
fantasy ask,
@elilla Oh, and N. K. Jemisin's Inheritance books (before Broken Earth).
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@elilla Tamora Pierce!!!
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@elilla Ooh, I didn't realize there was going to be a sequel! It read like a stand-alone.
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@naga would be a shame to set up all those background hints about goblin society (and a conlang!!!! did I mention conlang) and then just let it go to waste now wouldnt it 😌
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@elilla Looks like the second book is more of a second story in the same setting--best of both worlds! (no pun)
fantasy ask, :boost_ok:
If you're looking for quality worldbuilding high fantasy that's big, detailed, realistic and has phenomenally compelling characters and is written by a Japanese-Canadian woman:
Check out Michelle Sagara West's House War series. It's brilliantly complex, the worldbuilding spans multiple cultural archetypes, and everything hangs together incredibly well.
I lost like 3 weeks devouring the whole series and barely spoke to my husband or showered the whole time.
fantasy ask,
@eleanorkonik @elilla Ooh, thanks for the tip--looks right up my alley!
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@eleanorkonik @elilla It looks like a lot of her series share a world and some overlapping events, in Essalieyan. Would you recommend starting with the Hunt books, if I can find them?
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@naga @elilla Oh man. I don't know that I'm qualified to say where to start because I sort of fell into the series sideways -- I was already a fan so when I found out she had this whole other book series I went out and just bought one of the books thinking it was a short series and then discovered in the middle that there's a whole other series tucked away inside haha.
https://electrapritchett.com/2019/07/15/the-michelle-west-novels-suggested-reading-order/ is probably what I would go by, though?
fantasy ask,
@eleanorkonik @elilla Super, thanks. It sounds this is also a good way to avoid possibly being turned off by a less evolved style in the first two.
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I hope you like them! I also enjoy her Chronicles of Elantra series but by my standards Elantra isn't quite as good, because I feel like more *happens* in the House War series each book. So when I found the Essalieyan series I absolutely fell in love because the Essalieyan books are everything I love about series with complex worldbuilding and realistic politics and fantastically creative magic systems.
Plus, parts reminded me of Dune... without the sketchy bits.
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@eleanorkonik I think 18 books will get me started!
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@naga Oh man are there really that many? The reading process was kind of a blur but I remember devouring them one after another in rapid succession.
I wonder if I somehow missed any?
Clearly I need to go back and re-read the series in its intended order!
re: fantasy ask, 
@elilla Have you heard of N. K. Jemisen? Both the Inheritance series and the Broken Earth series are very good, though the latter is..... Heavy as fuck, so you may want to look into content warnings before reading it.
We also enjoyed Karen Miller's Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series, though it's been a while since we read it.
I remember a lot of Tamora Pierce's books being good.
We remember enjoying Margaret Weis's Death Gate Cycle for its worldbuilding.
Hmm. Maybe Diane Duane's Young Wizards series? We barely remember anything to recommend them though, it's been a decade or more since we last read them.
If you're okay with video game stuff too, the game Wild Arms 3 is excellent in terms of worldbuilding, and though we don't know the gender of its writer (Akifumi Kaneko) we are reasonably certain they're Japanese.
-F
re: fantasy ask,
@Felthry thanks for your suggestions!
I read Broken Earth and The City We Became by Jemisin. I loved both and I think characters and plots and themes were all fantastic, but I would classify them more as beginning-to-end stories than immersive worldbuilding. Didn’t try Inheritance.
I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy by women and queer authors, but most of it seem to focus more on plot than worldbuilding. Conlangs are pretty rare too, sadly.
re: fantasy ask,
@elilla We found the worldbuilding in Broken Earth to be fascinating, but we're also the sort who just latch on to any scrap of worldbuilding because it's the main thing we enjoy in stories.
-F
worldcon GRRM issue
@Felthry maybe we mean different things by "worldbuilding". I mean a lot of lore material that’s not there to serve the plot or particular stories. things like Tolkien writing an entire story ("The Shibboleth of Feanor") just to explain why Galadriel’s rendition of Namarië uses the phoneme /s/ rather than /θ/ for thúle. or GRRM’s 2-volume fictional historical treatise "Fire & Blood", that sorta stuff. the 12 maps I now regret having acquired after GRRM sided w/ a fascist.
re: worldcon GRRM issue
@elilla We use the word to mean a slightly broader thing, I think--worldbuilding to us includes that, but also anything that explores the world even if it does serve the story. The sort you talk about is indeed especially nice, but I'm not sure how much of it there is in the things I recommended.
-F
worldcon GRRM issue
worldcon GRRM issue
@elilla Oh, and Worldbreaker heavily centers women. Bel Dame Apocrypha has hardly a white person in sight, and the locales it's mostly set are disproportionately populated by women (because of worldbuilding stuff).
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@elilla Laurie Marks' Elemental Logic series might fit the bill. I'm halfway through the first book, and there's much to recommend about it. https://smallbeerpress.com/books/2019/01/22/fire-logic/
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@elilla I like Lois McMaster Bujold very much. Her vorkosigan series is one of my favorites.
I also like the Skolan empire series by Catherine Asaro.
I can list more if those look interesting.
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@elilla Firekeeper's Saga, Jane Lindskold
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Sarah Monette’s «The Goblin Emperor» is pretty much what I’m asking for exactly—complete with a #conlang!!—except there’s only 1 book so far. still hyped about the sequel & hope more come out of it.