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What fantasy work built their world the best?
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this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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Tolkien's going to be near the top of this list: his stories were essentially a side effect of his world building, itself a side effect of his language building.
Eddings' Belgariad (etc) had a brilliant world, the story came naturally out of the world, rather than merely being situated in it.
Herbert, Frank: none of his stories do any world building. You're just supposed to get a glimpse of it from the stories.
Dune has loads of world building, what are you talking about? Do you not know anything of Fremen culture? Anything of the structure of the empire? The guild and its navigators?
I was thinking of his other works like BuSab, Void.
For Dune, there is a very complex world, but the reader only gets the minimum necessary exposure to it. There's no explanation for how the major powers came about, they just are, ditto for what the Holtzman filed/effect is, how a no-ship works, etc. There's no history/explanation of what the Butlerian Jihad was, just it's long term effects.
Don't get me wrong, I love his style of storytelling, Dune is my all time favorite series of books. That why I listed him in a list of the best.
I think that's also the best world building. I just want to read the story, I don't need or want to read some nerd's Wikipedia article about the story!
I think the only other Herbert novel I've read is The Green Brain which I can't even remember to comment on though.
The Green Brain was... weird, even for Herbert: humans attempt to eradicate all insect life on earth, insect life fights back and evolves a super hive mind.