SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

What do I mean by this title? Simply put, it is the art of creating a believable world for the story—a detailed understanding of how everything works, including the coffee machine. Adding depth and detail to our worlds can be fun for the author and shows dedication to the craft, but also dangerous depending on the reader.

My perspective on this subject comes from being a Game Master (GM) for tabletop role-playing games. A GM aims to build a believable world full of exciting details and life that the other players find enjoyable to interact with. I believe this skill set also applies to novels and stories.

Info dumping upon the reader can backfire quickly, so how do we find the right balance? When is too much information boring? Some readers enjoy a science lesson and want the details explained, while others can’t stand real-life lectures and will skip that section altogether.
Just because the author has worked out the math for the delta-V requirements to get the hero off the high-gravity world does not denote the reader wants a lesson in orbital mechanics. Although including this information in the story, or at least the answer to the equation, will satisfy the hard-science fans and make the world believable.
Another example is, assume you have created a city or town the protagonist will visit and have every building and street labeled, down to where the bakery is located. How can it be used to enhance the story without bogging it down? Inference is how I used the information. I don’t tell the reader/players where everything on the street is located; instead, I tell them what the baked goods smell like. Their imagination will fill in the blanks better than I could describe the street anyway.
This is similar to when we want to tell our friends about what it was like visiting another country. Worldbuilding with minuet detail, even down to how the coffee machine works, is a helpful tool I use to facilitate this. It helps keep the world consistent and allows the author to visit these imaginary places as if they were real.

What places do you remember reading about that gave you a sense of being there?
When could you taste and feel the environment that was being described?
When did your skin crawl when the story described that dank tunnel where the monster hid?
As readers, how important is the coffee machine?

Oh, Camorr! (The city in "The Lies of Locke Lamora". ) The city descriptions were very vivid, but never in a way that felt info-dumpy.

For me - The Tombs of Atuan
I even remember rushing to the school library to finish it on the last days of primary school bc I couldn't wait to see what the treasure room looked like.

Discovering secret places of a world through the MC's eyes is the most memorable (i.e. the chamber of secrets, Smaug's lair, Kvoth's much anticipated Archives)

Sarah wrote: "through the MC's eyes is the most memorable"

I agree with this.
You get a more personal sense of being there in person—exploring the unknown with all available senses.
Although, when the character is in a space suit, the senses are limited. I relied heavily on sight and sound to substitute for the other senses. It was a fun challenge to explain the texture of substances with sound.