Unlock the Cosmos of Your Imagination. What if your setting did more than just hold your story? What if it shaped your characters, amplified your themes, and drove your plot forward?
From sprawling Dyson Spheres to claustrophobic generation ships, simulated realities to rogue planets adrift in darkness-The Anatomy of Science Fiction Settings is the definitive guide to crafting immersive, meaningful, and narratively powerful science fiction worlds.
Built for intermediate to advanced writers, this book goes far beyond surface-level world-building. Each of the twenty archetypal settings is explored through a unique narrative lens, offering insight into how environment, technology, culture, and metaphysical tension can come together to create unforgettable story worlds. You'll learn how to:
- Make setting a mirror for character arcs and societal tension.
- Design environments that evolve across time, conflict, and theme.
- Use symbolic oppositions and genre tone shifts to deepen meaning.
- Craft futuristic ecosystems, alien societies, and UI/UX interfaces as dynamic settings.
- Build tension, wonder, and emotional weight into even the most speculative worlds.
Including writing prompts, genre breakdowns, setting design templates, and advanced narrative tools, this book is both a deep-dive reference and a creative launchpad.
Whether you're writing a multiversal thriller, an Afrofuturist epic, or a quiet story of survival in a post-human ruin-The Anatomy of Science Fiction Settings will help you build the kind of world your readers can feel.
Autorentext
Matt Wright is the author of the Sun Maker Saga, a self-published space opera fantasy series, as well as a freelance writer and editor. He co-edited The Southern Quill (2017), a literary journal at Dixie State University, as well as the sci-fi/fantasy anthology, Unmasked: Tales of Risk and Revelation (2021). He also edited and reissued a new edition of From the Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon by Jules Verne (2021). He's also the author of a few short stories set in the Sun Maker universe: Warriors (2021), The Last Star (2021), and The Astraneaum (2022).
Matt has been writing fantasy and science fiction for over fifteen years and has written full-length novels since he was in high school. He loves writing in the epic genres with echoes of mythological and historical contexts. He currently resides in Albuquerque, NM, with his wife, Elizabeth, and his best bud in the whole world, Joey.