Suggestions for fantasy that feels truly different
I'm currently reading The Priory of the Orange Tree, and really enjoying it, but I've got to confess I'm a bit disappointed by how predictable the world is. There's an obvious pseudo-medieval European culture, a vaguely Eastern culture of respect and honour, a wise Southern Arabic-flavoured culture, and so on.
It's making me long for some fantasy that feels genuinely different - as far away as possible from this vision of monotheistic courts, swordsman's honour and mysterious wisdom from far away. Something that feels refreshing in trying to portray a world that I have never seen before.
I recently read C.T. Rwizi's Scarlet Odyssey series, and while that definitely involves analogues to a lot of our cultures, it was told from an African perspective, which was very refreshing. So I'd welcome suggestions for fantasy books that approach the typical enemies from a perspective that I don't often see as an English-speaking European reader. But is there much in the way of fantasy that truly tries to explore places and people that are completely out there and away from any of our experiences?
For me, The Broke Earth trilogy starting with The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin was a unique fantasy. I adore the trilogy and need to read it again asap.
Things I love about it:
-Powerful magic system with just the right rules. Think earth bending from Avatar except more taxing.
-Lots of queer representation. The whole trilogy, every character is vibing in all kinds of different queerness.
-Love the worldbuilding and world itself. It's a nice break from green pastures, knights with swords, etc. I would say it's post apocalyptic, but it's not really? The earth going apocalyptic is a routine occurance of this universe.
-Consistently great! The whole trilogy stays engaging.
I have to hardcore agree with this. Its incredibly unique with the cultures and racial identities not lining up with Earth normal due to the extreme adaptations humanity has made to this world that actively tries to kill us.
In addition to the above notes, also the language feels real. Fake cursing can come off odd, but in a world where acid rain, lava, and corrosive gasses can destroy metal in a moment, "rust" and "rusting" make sense as a curse.
I see there are three books. Is it a trilogy / is it finished? I'm apprehensive of starting yet another series.
It is finished! And won the Hugo for each book, 3 years in a row.
I started to bring up the fake cursing! That sort of thing can so so easily be a bit cringey, but I think she nailed it. It feels very natural in conversation.
Flowed well in the audiobook as well. Which, I'm officially a fan of audio for 2nd person narratives now.
The audio-book narrator was EXCELLENT!
When I saw the title of the post, I immediately thought of these books! I'm currently on the third one, and I've been absolutely blown away by how much I love them. I've had favorite books before, but this series has surpassed all my previous favorites by such a wide margin, that I'm a bit scared to read something else afterwards. I'm going to check out the rest of N.K. Jemisin's books next, but I was wondering if you have any other recommendations of similar books?
I wish I did! If I come across any, I'll remember this post
I've got a handful of her other books, but haven't really dove into any. One is set in modern day but absolutely has fantasy elements, which should be really interesting
I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned, but I do think the Earthsea books of Ursula Le Guin would scratch some of your itch. One can definitely argue that some fantasy tropes are still there, but always in an interesting way, always viewed from that slightly different angle that makes you reconsider the trope and what it means. Most of all though, these books feel to me like one of the few 'epic' fantasy books that truly break with Tolkien. Many other contemporary epic fantasy that tries to distance itself from Tolkien, does so with him still very much being present: A sort of conscious, continuous rejection, which makes that particular type of fantasy always be 'not tolkien' instead of just it's own thing. With Earthsea, it's really just Le Guin telling her own story, for her own reasons. I'm not going to spoil anything here, but definitely give the first two a go. The Tombs of Atuan is, in my opinion, one of the greatest fantasy books ever written.
Another one: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. Wonderful world building and a delightfully meandering story. Not exactly a tense action-packed fantasy romp, but more of a leisurely stroll through Fae-filled alternate Britain, combining the mysteriousness of ancient fairytales with an alternate Napoleonic-age Europe.
In the same fairytale like bend, I can recommend The Bear and the Nightingale.
Another fun one: The Golem and the Jinn, combining Jewish and Middle-Eastern fantasy in a 20s New York setting. Very refreshing.
Honorary mention perhaps to the Malazan Books of the Fallen. There's still some western culture stuff in there, but mixed in with just about every other culture and then a whole bag more that just don't have any basis in our actual historical world, all set on equal cultural footing.
Not to mention it's truly different in its approach, it takes fantasy tropes and subverts them though in a good way.
Considering the author is an archeologist with a deep interest in history it's a treat to see how he views cultures and their growth or change over time. It may have some similarities to our world, but I feel that civilizations often do by default; there's only so many types of roads humans make. Besides that he makes the culture and history of these places feel real and very much well thought out.
One of my favourite book series and the way he tackles history is one of the reasons.
I second Earthsea. The first book, A Wizard of Earthsea, is probably the tropiest of the bunch but even it's quite a breath of fresh air from the excess of Daily Value Tolkein that you often see in fantasy, and I think it even originated a few of the tropes like the magic school. A classic story that you really can enjoy at any age.
I would say it only feels like the tropiest because it popularized many tropes we see now in fantasy novels. While there may have been similar books attempting to exploring similar areas of fantasy, I think Ursula was one of the first to popularize and legitimize the blending of fantasy with coming of age, magic schools (like you mentioned), and many other themes that may give away more of the story.
There is growing demand for what you ask for and there seem to be a growing number of books to meet that demand.
But even in old school fantasy, something like Robert Asprin's Myth Inc series is significantly different from your model.
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho is urban fantasy set in Malaysia based on Chinese cultural beliefs.
Martha Wells Books of the Raksura are different.
The Sword in the Stone section from the Once and Future King is about the training of young Arthur by Merlin, but the education method is unique. It's kind of like vision quests and kind of not. I love it.
Watership Down is a masterpiece of fantasy and is not traditional at all.
I look forward to seeing what other people suggest.
I still haven't gotten myself to read "Watership Down", but I can recommend a different book about animals, that is Tad Williams' "Tailchaser's Song". It was actually the first book by Williams that I read. I was still a teenager. :)
I'll also recommend White Fang, not exactly a fantasy book but it's been a favourite book of mine since I was a kid.
Having read both, my impression is that Watership Down has more fantasy elements than Tailchasers Song, although both are good books about sentient animals. The cultural mythology of the rabbits of Watership Down and the way their avatar El ahrairah might or might not be aiding them throughout their journey is one of my favorite aspects of the book.
Martha Wells excels at setting up full worlds that are vastly different from each other. I love her ability to do that. I'd add that her new Witch King also falls into this. It's entirely different than Murderbot or the Books of the Raksura series.
I just finished The Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemesin and I don't know if it's what you're looking for but it's not your typical tropish castle humans fighting evil sorceror and demons and/or orcs high fantasy.
The author is an African American woman. One of the central themes at the forefront of the series is racism and bigotry.
Nemesin won three consecutive Hugo Awards for Best Novel for each book in the series. I believe I read someplace it's the first time that's ever happened.
Synopsis removed. God that just sounded horrible. Go read some reviews. I'll never do it justice.
Some caveats:
It's a super grim series. Like seriously.
Parts of all three books are written as if you the reader were the main character, and someone was explaining parts of the story to you. It's a little weird but you get used to it.
There's a twist a few chapters in that I saw coming a mile away. But even being pretty sure what was going to happen it didn't detract from the story.
This was a weird read for me. In between reading sessions I usually didn't have a lot of desire to pick the book back up. But once I did I would get lost in the story sometimes for hours. Just a strange dynamic for me.
This got a good chuckle out of me, I know exactly how you feel.
Really glad to see this post as I've also been on the hunt for fantasy set outside of the traditional Euro-centric medieval / Tolkienesque settings. The likes of urban fantasy isn't quite what I'm looking for either, nor are grand 'save the world' scale narratives particularly desirable; something with a focus on strong characterisation and a unique, well-realised setting would be wonderful.
As far as recommendations go, the few I can contribute are China Miéville's Bas Lag books for some really interesting, well thought through ideas in a very weird and unique setting, and, similarly for it's strong yet unusual world building, Alastair Reynold's Terminal World, though it's probably more accurately classed as sci-fi or steampunk.
Have you read 'The Kraken' or 'The City and The City' by Miéville? Urban fantasy but with his unimitable weird flair.
I have indeed, along with most of his other works, a particular favourite being Embassytown. I was hooked on Miéville's stuff a few years back, really inventive but by no means disposable, he always puts in the effort to follow an idea through to some logical conclusion. His non-fiction book, October, is quite a lively account of the Russian Revolution and well worth a read too.
I've been listening to the audio book of 'October' whilst working at the allotment.
The genre you might want to look for is "New Weird" - when I think New Weird, the first author who comes to mind is China Miéville, who's been mentioned in this thread.
Brandon Sanderson's Oathbreaker series does a great job building up an extremely interesting fantasy world.
Oathbringer is the 3rd book of the Stormlight Archive series. And if you like it, it brings you into the greater Cosmere. If you are looking for the greatest fantasy of the past 20 years and possibly of all time you've found it here.
If start with the Mistborn series, books 1-3
My router name is "Bridge 4", if that tells you anything.
I'm not sure. I started with Stormlight Archive, I tried to read mistborn ages ago and never got into it. After reading 3 Stormlight Archive books, Elantris and Warbreaker I picked up mistborn again, and enjoyed it.
I think Elantris or Warbreaker might be a better place to start in the cosmere, they're easy to get into imo.
The Stormlight Archive are some of my favorite books, so much so that I am planning to get a tattoo of the knights radiant symbol. But for some reason they never come to mind when I think of fantasy. So much so that I didn't even think to mention them in this thread, despite the fact that I can reach out and touch RoW from where I'm sitting. They are fantasy, obviously, but the world building is so unique and so incredibly in depth that they are a catagory all by themselves, to me.
Which probably makes them a perfect answer to this question.
If you haven't read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson, then do yourself a favour and read it. It's a fantasy novel without the tropes. Sure, there's people who do magic, using the power inherent in the world around them. But, there's no court, and definitely no swords.
The eponymous Thomas Covenant is an ugly anti-hero. But it turns out, in this world, you need a stubborn selfish man to face off against evil.
The first trilogy is excellent. The second trilogy is also good, with the addition of a second main character to act as a foil for Covenant. The third quadrilogy is self-referential, head-up-its-own-arse, fan-service, which should be avoided at all costs.
Another unusual take on fantasy tropes is the Adept series by Piers Anthony, starting with Split Infinity. It has two parallel narratives in two parallel universes, a science-fiction universe and a fantasy universe, and the two plotlines converge. (I've only read the original trilogy, not the four extra books added later.)
I'd say check out Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun as well as his The Book of the Long Sun, The Book of the Short Sun, and The Urth of the New Sun if you enjoy BoTNS first.
His Solider Of The Mist series is more fantasy-historical-occult-fiction which might appeal to you if you enjoy his other works as well.
Fifth Head of Cerebus is also a good one.
I'd say Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series is fantastic as well. It flips and twists a lot of tropes and isn't ever really boring, in my opinion.
Martin Millar's The Good Fairies of New York might just fit. It's not a world we've never seen before, but it is a version of this world that's pretty new. (Or at least it was, 30 years ago).
I read it a long time ago (1992!!) and I enjoyed it then.
The blurb:
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Or, perhaps some of the shorts in Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet might fit - lots of them are fantasy, but not at all swordsmen style.
You might like The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie.
Martha Wells was mentioned earlier, but I prefer her novels set in Ile-Rien.
I'd start with The Death of the Necromancer. The world she creates is similar to Victorian England in this story, with a touch of magic added for spice.
I haven't read her Ile-Rien yet! Thanks for the rec. It's been on my list as I'm working through Witch King
How do you define Fantasy? How narrow (or broad) is the band of what you would still consider Fantasy but which feels truly different?
While we wait for that answer:
Middle grade author Diana Wynne Jones (RIP), author of Howl's Moving Castle and many other books, has some incredibly imaginative fantasy universes (usually involving parallel worlds). There's plenty of magic but it rarely even gets medieval, much less tropey. Read these even as an adult, it's refreshing how unconstrained her imagination is.
Others have already mentioned Neil Gaiman if only tangentially. All his stories are very distinctive and never generic high fantasy, not even Stardust which is the closest to medieval (it's told more like a fable though). He has several more that take place in other worlds.
Gene Wolfe (RIP) has been mentioned. I just so happen to have read most of his books and would like to recommend The Sorcerer's House! If this is insufficiently fantastic, maybe Wizard Knight (hint: the name is a lie!)
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch of course.
Tales of the Ketty Jay by Chris Wooding is really good fantasy steampunk (with undeads and golems).
Brandon Sanderson is very good at creating original, distinct worlds. I'd say the Stormlight Archive is not what you want. Instead, try secret projects 1 and 3: Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter.
Definitely second The Lies of Locke Lamora and everything by Brandon Sanderson.
Everything by Joe Abercrombie is also amazing.
The First Law has a very medieval feel to it for the most part (or industrial revolution). Shattered Sea, perhaps? Though that's a bit sci fi too. That's the thing, people need to specify what their boundaries are for "fantasy"!
What I think I liked about First Law was the wit and banter more than the story as a whole. The perspectives and characters are marvelous. It’s very similar in that respect to what I like about The Lies of Locke Lamora.
A book that I think meets your criteria is The Goblin Emperor, one of my absolute favourites of the last few years. At first glance it seems to be what you’re trying to avoid: there’s complicated made up names, elves and goblins, magic, medievalish world (early industrial, with a dash of steam punk, actually). However is it absolutely different in terms of tone, plot and character.
It turns out the elves and goblins are really just two versions of the same race (they intermarry) and there aren’t any other races at all - they are just the people of this world. The long fantasy names are a bit off putting at first but are a result of clearly thought out language which end up effectively adding to the world building. There are no wars or battles. Very little action. The main character is one who is intelligent but is slowly building confidence and progresses through the story by being kind.
“Kindness” is a key word when I think of this book and you just want to spend more time with this character and in this beautifully constructed world.
Highly recommended to any fantasy reader.
Just did a re-listen and I do wish the further books in this world were more like The Goblin Emperor. You just get sucked into Maia's experience!
Absolutely!
I’d second Earthsea, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and China Mieville generally from other posters.
A few others:
The King of Elfland’s Daughter, by Lord Dunsany
Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees
Both of these are early 20th century British fantasies grounded in ideas about faeries and magic as force that is somehow both alien to and essential to people. (FWIW, Lud-in-the-Mist has stuck with me more, and is a bit more enjoyable.) You can feel their influence in Susanna Clarke or Neil Gaiman.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
Gaiman can be hit-or-miss for me, but this one is excellent. Moody, weird, mysterious—I don’t want to say too much because the book lets its secrets unfold in a really elegant way. It’s very much a modern take on the sort of style of Dunsany and Mirrlees.
Titus Groan and Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
I saved the best for last here. Gormenghast is a castle the size of a city, a massive edifice home to thousands and nominally ruled over by the Earl of Groan (but actually governed by the inertia of endless tradition), whose son Titus is born the day the first book starts. That same day, a talented kitchen boy named Steerpike catches the eye of Mr Flay, the Earl’s chief servant, and sets his sights on grander stations. The castle and its inhabitants are described in painterly detail, and they are wickedly inventive and larger than life all, from the wiry, clicking Flay and the corpulent head chef Swelter right down to old Rottcodd, the isolated curator of the Hall of Bright Carvings.
There’s a third book, Titus Alone, which is altogether different. You might like it if you like the first two, but don’t count on it.
Mervyn Peake was suffering from dementia before he finished the third book. It doesn't really compare to the first two.
Going through some of these comments, I feel like this may not hit the mark as there's still lots of tropes but for interesting world-building that isn't the same tired Tolkien take on high fantasy, the Realm of Elderlings series by Robin Hobb definitely helped create a cool world where whie royalty still exists, the magic and lore is a different and engaging.
A couple recs I haven't seen yet:
All of these are delightfully nonstandard and all in their own unique ways. I loved them all, 5/5 star reads (though for Gideon, it's really in the sequel that it becomes excellent)
It's pretty tropey, but Evan Winter's The Rage of Dragons might work for you.
My advice would be to re-visit some classic fantasy... Check out things like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (Conan style barbarian fantasy), or Solomon Kane (another Robert E. Howard character).
For more modern stuff, but still like 30 years old now, look at the Belgariad by David Eddings or the Thieve's World books by Robert Aspirin
Thieves World is unique in that Aspirin is the editor of a shared world and the books are collections of short stories done by different authors.
I think The Belgariad suffers from exactly what the OP was asking to avoid. I've read the series a few times and enjoy it, but it's still feels like it's based on a tweaked map of Earth. It's been such a long time, but one time that really struck me was when Belgarath, Garion and Silk travel across the land bridge into the other continent, as well as the northern sea and northern countries being so much like Scandinavia.
I think you're selling the Mouser short if you call Leiber's work just barbarian fantasy. But I agree, great suggestion.
No recommendations yet for Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Marlon James? It is… very, very non-European fantasy, both excellent and imaginative.
I will say: it contains a lot of very graphic violence, so if that's not your thing, consider yourself forewarned.
The sequel (of a planned but yet-incomplete trilogy), Moon Witch, Spider King, gets exactly the same blurb at this level of abstraction, though it's a very, very different book.
That aside, I will emphatically second recommendations of Jemisin, all of whose work is fantastic (but The Fifth Season is my favorite), and Miéville.
Great suggestion thanks. Tildes is still a small community, although full of thoughtful interesting people. Your knowledge and experience is not redundant here. And maybe you've been here forever and didn't need to hear that, but that's what came to mind to say.
Not sure if this is what you’re looking for at all; Guy Gavriel Kay has some excellent historical fantasy: under heaven takes place in a version of China, and The Lions of Al-Russan takes place in a version of moorish Spain. Even in sort of familiar settings (especially the lions of al-rassan), there’s a really complex web of racial/religious tensions, great characters, and very sparing use of magic.
I didn’t like his Fionavar books, but the alternate history is really intriguing and the “familiar” settings feel unfamiliar and very alive.
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny is excellent. I don't want to give anything away so I'll just say it's sort of fantasy, sort of scifi. The style is sort of dense, might not be everyone's cup of tea.
I haven't read it yet, but Little, Big by John Crowley sounds like it would meet your criteria.
Stephen King's The Dark Tower books are certainly non-Tolkien-style fantasy. I love the whole series, but some people take issue with the final three books. Either way, the first book, The Gunslinger, is a fantastic little read.
Among Others by Jo Walton is a dual Hugo/Nebula best novel winner, and it's very much its own sort of fantasy story.
Agreed with everyone else recommending China Miéville and Neil Gaiman.
I've not actually read them yet so they may require some further investigation but I asked a similar question on Reddit half a year ago or so and got given three suggestions.
The First Law trilogy - I'm currently 2/3's of the way through book one and I'm enjoying it. It does have some of the usual fantasy tropes but the main characters are all anti-heroes, especially Glokta. The story seems to revolve around the main characters individual story arcs in a world where a larger story is taking place irregardless of what the main characters do, which makes a change from the main character being the only one who can save the world from certain doom trope.
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Fantasy heist novel, grabbed my attention right away so I picked it up.
The Steerswoman - The story involves a travelling scholar, called a Steerswoman, who can answer any question asked but will ask a question in return which must be answered truthfully or else the questioner will be banned from speaking to a Steerswoman ever again. The main character is investigating something to expand her knowledge of the world on the brink of technological advancement. This investigation results in attempts on her life and she takes it upon herself to figure out who is attempting to kill her and why.
I've heard people say its a great novel, filled with mystery that involves brains and wit rather than swords and sorcery.
I have been reading a few ancient china -themed fantasy series lately.
My favorite is probably Nghi Vo's The Singing Hills Cycle. The individual books are fairly short, and loosely connected. They deal with fairly complex characters and stories, and felt like a big step up from the more standard fantasy I am familiar with.
Slightly more standard fantasy, but still somewhat asia-centered is Andrea Stewart's The Drowning Empire Trilogy. It involves programming necromantic constructs. And then there some other kinds of magic and aquatic dragon-cat-otters.
And then there is Xiran Jay Zhao's Iron Widow, which is somewhat based on real historical characters, but with, you know, mechas.
The Orphan's Tales series by Catherynne M. Valente
It's just endlessly wild, lush, and immersive. Story-within-a-story-within-a-story, a la One Thousand And One Nights.
It's been awhile, but Raymond Feist's Faerie Tale impressed me, back in the day.
I also enjoyed The Dresden Files, about a Wizard private investigator in Chicago.
Both are examples of modern-day prosaic settings in the "normal" world with secret scary-fantasy creatures lurking where regular people cannot see them. I love those kinds of stories.
You might also want to consider some sci-fi ... CJ Cherryh's Foreigner Series is a wonderful world-builder that is grounded in sci-fi but feels very fantasy-like.
I can't speak to Faerie Tale, but Dresden Files seems like it wouldn't fit what OP is looking for, because it is very classical fantasy identites brought into a western context, which are both things OP stated they were hoping to avoid. However, Foreigner series is an excellent recommendation that I would emphatically support, and is why I hope this doesn't get labelled as off-topic even though it may pedantically deserve that label.
I’m not sure it completely meets all the criteria that you’re asking for, but wanted to put in a plug for the Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust. One of my favorite fantasy series aside from Tolkien with a rich world and incredible mystery / depth that has a lot of content.
Perhaps this is more science fiction, but Neal Stephenson's Anathem is set on a different planet with unusual monastic communities of intellectuals.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is set in an imaginary Eastern European country in medieval times. It's loosely based on Rumpelstiltskin, but from the point of view of a young Jewish girl.
Shadow of the Conqueror has an interesting setting, but it still might be to europe inspired, but worth checking out!
One of the ones that come to mind has already been said (Malazan series), so I'll suggest the Commonweal series by Graydon Saunders. I liked how these were set in a world that required some figuring out rather than the state of matters (and what things actually are) being immediately obvious.
Be aware that the series jumps sub genres a bit, most noticeably between the first book and the second book. These go from more military oriented fantasy in the first book to a variant of magic school fantasy in the second, though various characters from the first book reappear.
I didn't see the Discworld series in here so here it is.
To add detail to your suggestion, since Discworld is 41 books, it can be subdivided into stand alone books like Small Gods and subseries/character arcs. Unless you are a hard core completionist, I wouldn't start with the earliest books. They are parodies of fantasy tropes from 50 years ago and rely for much of their impact on being familiar with those tropes. Going Postal, The Wee Free Men, Equal Rites (or Wierd Sisters), Guards Guards and Mort start different character arcs and I would argue that any of these, or Small Gods would be an excellent choice. Pratchett is a considerate author who completes a story in each book (with one exception).
I usually tell people to start with Small Gods or the Death arc. But yeah I should have expanded more.
How about Phillip Pullman? He has some new ideas in the His Dark Materials trilogy. It starts in an alternate early modern time period, so at least it's not medieval.
China Miéville's The City & the City is set in two fictional Eastern European cities that are connected in a mind-bending way.
Patricia C. Wrede's Frontier Magic trilogy is set on an alternate American frontier where there is magic and dinosaurs, but no Native Americans. (Some people don't like it because of that.)
Not a direct recommendation per se, but I would highly recommend the LeVar Burton Reads podcast for a number of reasons!
The format is simple: Burton reads one short speculative fiction story per episode (though sometimes will do longer stories spanning multiple episodes), and then he'll do a short segment on why he chose the story and how it impacted or challenged him. Speculative fiction is an umbrella term covering anything from fantasy to scifi to Afro Futurism and more, but some fantasy variant probably makes up the bulk of stories he reads.
Burton is an excellent narrator; his love of all things books absolutely comes through on this podcast. I truly appreciate his team's intentional choice to highlight diverse authors and subjects as it has exposed me to a lot of excellent authors I would otherwise have missed.
I've used this as a bounding point to find additional works from authors whose stories I connect with (example: Adrian Tchaikovsky has become one of my favorite scifi/fantasy authors because of the "Low Energy Economy" episode of the podcast).