For some people, it’s a fictional technology that is detailed down to the very nuts and bolts. For others, a fictional culture that has all its elements seamlessly knit together to create a complex tapestry. A history that deftly tells the story of a person, nation, or planet, or an otherworldly species that feels real enough that it could exist, if only in another world.
What is it for you? What examples in fiction stood out for you? Why did they do; what about them spoke to you so strongly? It could be widely-known published fiction, or some niche project you ran into on the internet once.
For me its less so about the world-building itself but the presentation. I like when a fiction setting feels otherworldly like it operates on its own internal logic that makes you feel like a stranger in a strange land. One of my favorite ttrpg settings is vaults of vaarn, an indie game very much inspired by Caves of Qud and while the lore is fairly sparse, what you do get paints a vivid but weird history of an far future post-human earth. I think its neat.
I think this is one of my favorite kinds as well. The places that don’t directly monologue their worldbuilding at you but just immerse you neck-deep in it. Some people don’t even seem to realize this is worldbuilding, unless it’s being explicitly framed as such!
But it’s really the best when you come away with an understanding of the strangeness of the world it’s set in, just from ‘journeying’ in it.
The Death Star. The fact that the Empire built an incredibly advanced, moon-sized weapon of mass destruction not as a tool of conquest but as a means to deal with internal threats tells you everything you need to know about them.
And it works in so many other ways - it strengthens the WWII motives (referencing Hitler’s obsession with oversized superweapons) and is of course a major plot source to countless stories, from the harrowing tale of the guy who pulled the superlaser trigger to the plucky rebels who stole the plans. No wonder they keep returning to it lol
For the wandering inn, they never fully explain things as the story goes a long. Which is really nice as the reader gets to discover things as the character does.
Isaac Asimov. Really just in general, but the foundation series does a great job of it. I’ve read it through a few times, and each time I grow to appreciate it more.
Patrick Rothfuss and the king killer chronicals is another great example, but fuck him for dragging out book 3 for so long.
Brandon Sanderson is also another great world builder.
For me it’s MorningLightMountain and the Primes in general in Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth trilogy. It was just a really cool and unique idea for an alien species, and Hamilton succeeded in making it feel truly alien, explaining its motivations, etc. It was just a really well-realized aspect of the world.
