I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction, and one of the things I like is seeing new worlds imagined. I like not just the large, sweeping changes, but the small details that just fit into place.
In
The Angel of Crows by Katherine Addison (also writes as Sarah Monette), vampires, werewolves, and angels exist and are a part of society. The protagonist is a doctor (this is a Sherlock Holmes retelling):
Quote:
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“Fool,” I said savagely to myself and tried to turn my attention to an article in The Lancet about the comparative pathology of werewolf bites and vampire bites, but with only middling success.
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It's a small thing, but it just felt right --
of course the Lancet has articles about supernatural injuries.
Sometimes, there's also some detail that just doesn't fit, some implication that the author missed or didn't see the same way, but to me makes the world feel not quite right. Often I don't notice it as I'm reading, but see it on a reread or when thinking back about the book. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad book, of course -- lots of books have minor flaws.
Example: In the Harry Potter books, there's a magical map which was created by some school children. It shows the location of everyone in the school, and they use it to avoid teachers when breaking curfew. The school is also plagued with mysterious deaths and other disasters a lot of the time, and if the headmaster had one of these maps, he'd be able to solve these mysteries (and thus remove the main driver of the book's plot) in chapter 2. That's just one example of how the use of magic just doesn't make sense in that world.
Do you have examples of good or bad worldbuilding? It doesn't have to be only from speculative fiction (fantasy, SF, and that family), it can also be from realistic fiction if you think it fits.