I have a friend in one of my online writing groups who has been dying to start her novel for months now. She’s almost ready. Just a few more weeks spent charting the history of her fantasy world, designing the magic system, and making sure the moon phases line up with the twelve gods of breakfast cereal.

<smacks forehead>

I don’t read a lot of high fantasy these days. When I was a teenager, though, I was all about Saberhagen’s Swords, Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame, the first two Thomas Covenant trilogies, and, of course, The Lord of the Rings every fall. But now? If I see a book with a map in the opening pages, I’m already thinking, “Too much homework.” I don’t have anything against the genre. I just don’t want to commit to pages and pages of genealogies and tax ledgers to get to the actual story. I made it through four of Jordan’s Wheel of Cheese books before I gave up. Endless worldbuilding and foreshadowing the fates of characters for thousands of pages, which, while detailed, really removed any real sense of peril.

Now, I can hear you saying, “But, Darrin, aren’t there twelve books in the Halferne saga?” Yes, but the first six are standalones in different genres. You don’t need to read them in order, and you don’t need to keep reading unless you want to. The books in the second series are trim and compact, designed to be read in a single plane ride or one long evening on the couch. I’m talking four or five hours, tops; not an entire winter. Not that I couldn’t churn out a million-word doorstop, all I’d have to do is dump the worldbuilding folder back in.

There are two schools of thought on worldbuilding…

In the red corner, weighing in at 13.2 stone, the undisputed king of appendices, languages, and maps: Jaaaaaayyyyy. R.R. Tolkien. He can’t just say hobbits live in the Shire. He has to write a thirty-page prologue on agricultural practices, genealogies, and the precise historical origins of the word “hobbitt.” Then he hands you an atlas, a dictionary, a field guide, and a separate book of history to cram before the final exam. (Seriously, I love LOTR, but I’m not exaggerating here, don’t @ me.)

In the white corner, weighing in at 79 kilos, the wizard of “wha?!,” the maestro of mazes: WILLiammmm Gibson! Reading one of his novels is like being shoved through a door that locks behind you. You’ve got to self-translate “console cowboys,” “icebreakers,” and “wait … these people live in a shanty town on the Bay Bridge, am I reading this right?” all while the story is taxiing for takeoff. You either learn to swim or you drown.

The extensive detail in Lord of the Rings is great — but half the time I feel like I’m stuck in a lecture series called Agronomy 101: Shire Edition. Getting through one of Gibson’s novels, on the other hand, makes me feel about 5% smarter. He trusts me to figure it out. I’ll admit, though, with only a couple of exceptions, I’ve had to reread his books immediately after finishing them just to grok what the hell just happened.

I actually do stupid amounts of worldbuilding: I’ve got a folder of scrapped chapters, a 200-page “outline and notes doc,” and a massive OneNote notebook of ideas and brainstorms. I’m not confident enough to be as obtuse as Gibson, and I’m not interesting enough to be as detailed as Tolkien. However, if someone asked me the history of how Harba City got built on Notosia, or the economics of billys in Earth’s post-scarcity capitalism, or why monarchies still make sense on some colony worlds, I can talk their ear off. Unless it’s directly tied to the story, though, it stays in the notes doc, right next to the character photo album and the map of the q-gate network.

My “figure it out as you go” bias probably comes from my love of chop-socky films. I don’t know anything about Chinese dynastic history, the rivalries between Shaolin and Wu Tang clans, or why the hero has to avenge his uncle’s cousin’s brother by sundown. I looked it up once, but I still can’t tell Ming from Qing, and I’ve given up trying to keep track of which sifu taught which animal style. It doesn’t take away from the story, though. You just need to know that Lu Feng is usually the bad guy, Philip Kwok is usually the good guy, and the rest you’ll figure out from context. No dissertation on imperial bureaucracy is required.

Tolkien readers walk away with an atlas they can frame. Gibson readers walk away like survivors of an escape room, clutching half a map and a bruised ego. I want my readers to leave thinking they got a tight, economical ride — a Honda Accord in novel form — reliable, efficient, but with something bigger and ominous rumbling under the hood, just begging to be opened up on the highway next time, instead of puttering to Kroger.

Honestly, too many fantasy writers treat their novels like role-playing game manuals. Tolkien is the ultimate Dungeon Master, presiding over his long-suffering party: “You want to leave the Shire? Not yet. First, let me spend three sessions on the etymology of Ent.” By the time Frodo rolls initiative, the rest of the table has ordered pizza, leveled up in another campaign, and gone home. Meanwhile, Gibson would be the DM who grabs the Cheetos, leans back, and mumbles, “You’re in a neon alley. A joeboy with a needler gun full of Russian mycotoxin wants to fry your cortex. Roll for it.” One style is encyclopedic immersion. The other is raw adrenaline.

Me? I’ll take confusion over calculus. Drop me in the deep end. If I make it back to the surface, at least it feels like I fought my way there — not like I passed a quiz at the end of Chapter One.