Sometimes, despite all pressures toward normalcy, people are compelled to construct their own worlds. The old lady who over the years arranges broken bottles into a house, or the man down the road covering his barn with tiny quotes from a channeling spirit--each glues raw symbols into a whole that makes sense for them. This happens all over the world. I've collected an entire stack of books about self-made worlds, and this one is the best for sheer exuberance, geographic inclusion, and variety. Science fiction author William Gibson says these worlds remind him of elaborate personal Web sites--and vice versa, Web sites are really self-made worlds; to me they are distant lands, with their own cultures.

-- KK

Fantasy Worlds
Deidi von Schaewen, et al
1999, 340 pages
$40
Taschen
Amazon

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