★★★☆☆ 3/5
“Questions often spark more imagination and more ideas than straightforward answers do”
This is a how-to-book that has a different approach than the usual Worldbuilding books: It gives you questions instead of answers, and that’s not bad at all. The book gives you no awnsers at all. Do not expect one. The author himself warns you about it.
However, being the book already very little, the actual useful part is even smaller. There’s too much biography (as WB examples) and “I did this and that” for such a tiny book, in my humble opinion. I know it comes from the idea of “giving an example” but for most people, using a real life person as object of study…does not work. I think it would have worked better if the author had used a widely known fictonal charcter instead of himself, so people would relate more and maybe understand better some of the points he were trying to make (I got the points, but it felt weird because well, it’s a real person in our real world, not a secondary world).
The questions that the book gives you are realy important. They make you think. They also made me realize that some things are lacking in my worlds, some things are very well done and some need adjustments.
Sadly, this useful part of the book is far too short. The first half of the book is basically book covers of previous works of the author and his story around those books. It gives very little insight about worldbuilding itself honestly, it’s basicaly a work biography.
This book could have been so much more, but oh well…
Persephone's Diary 