The Geography of Words - Guest Post by Jacey Bedford
Writing science fiction and fantasy often involves worldbuilding. Sometimes we take a concept, strip it right down to basics and invent a planet where the sea is pink, the sky is upside down and the dominant life form has seven tentacles and inhabits arid polar regions which have daytime temperatures of 60 Centigrade. Our hero is a brave tardigrade with a serious Walter Mitty complex and its love interest is a tri-gendered cephalopod with stunning bioluminescence that screams, 'Come and get me, baby!' Other times we base our world on something closer to home. Our characters are human, living (maybe) five hundred years in our future or two hundred years in our past, but they are recognisably like us and they come from places that we might easily recognise. We might set our fantasy on this earth, in this century (much urban fantasy occupied this niche) or we might use a medievaloid setting which is recognisably British or European, or—increasingly popular—a non-Europe