Quote:
Originally Posted by AndrewH
Why is it necessary to say that it's a 'large world'? Even with 2/3 our planet covered with water, Earth still has about 150,000,000 sq km of land. The United States, the third largest country in the world, only covers 6% of that. If I'm not mistaken, about 90% of the earth's land surface is still undeveloped.
Anecdote: I was about 10 years old, in the car with my parents driving from Montana to Oregon. Sometime during the 11-hour drive I asked, "If this is 'a small world after all', then why does it take so long to get anywhere?"
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Though this is true, I'd suggest most folks don't really comprehend the size of the earth.
In the novel, an author says (hopefully weaved into the narrative) that the planet is about the size of Earth. People think, "Huh, okay," but maybe don't quite get the grand scope the author intended. To establish the feeling of massive spaces, it may or may not be necessary to have something simply different.
Of course, something different in and of itself is established when its known the land is not actually Earth, so how much other detail depends upon the author and the reader.