Non-Tolkienian fantasy

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Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by zompist »

This topic came up in the Eddythread, and I think it's worth pursuing-- that is, what fantasy novels avoid pseudo-medieval-Europe, or otherwise take the genre in interesting directions?

If you recommened a work or author in the Eddythread, please repeat it here, as the Eddythread will disappear.

I'll start out with China Miéville's 50 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Works Every Socialist Should Read. Note that Miéville takes the view that you should know the enemy, so the list includes writers he despises, like Ayn Rand.

He's too modest to include his own works, so I will. His Perdido Street Station is a great piece of steampunk horror. I liked The Kraken, which is all about magic and giant squid as gods.

I re-read Tim Powers's The Anubis Gates regularly; it's amazing. It's got time travel, malevolent Egyptian cultists, body-changing werewolves, cross-dressing beggars, Samuel Coleridge...what more could you want?

Charles Stross's Laundry novels are a great combination of Lovecraftian horror, spy novel, and sf rationality. They're all set in the present day.

Neil Gaiman could be cited for several works, including Neverwhere (set in the present but mostly in a fantasy hidden London) and American Gods / Anansi Boys (dealing with the gods trying to adapt to living in contemporary America).

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

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A few more:

If you haven't read the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges, do it. Some of them are mind-blowers, tinged with a certain melancholia.

Stanisɫaw Lem's Cyberiad is playful and brilliant, the story of the rivalry and friendship between two constructors or robot builders-- who are themselves robots. It can equally be classified as science fiction, but his approach is far more metaphysical than scientific.

Journey to the West , attributed to the 16th century Wu Cheng'en, is worth checking out. It's based on a historical event-- the monk Xuanzang's journey to India to bring back Buddhist scriptures-- but only in the sense that Orlando Furioso is based on Frankish-Arab warfare. Xuanzang's main protector, the Monkey King, is a great character.

I could go on, but it's time for dinner.

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Vardelm »

Empress by Karen Miller (The 2nd & 3rd books in the trilogy end up including a European culture as well.)

The Initiate Brother and The Gatherer of Clouds by Sean Russell (Fantasy world with a combination of Chinese & Japanese culture.)
Tibetan Dwarvish - My own ergative "dwarf-lang"

Quasi-Khuzdul - An expansion of J.R.R. Tolkien's Dwarvish language from The Lord of the Rings

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Torco »

Terry Pratchet's stuff cant' be absent from here. And a similar but lesser specimen, Ben Croshaw [who is funny and tonally similar and I love his videos on the escapist... why are you looking at me like that, Mogworld is a good read!].

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by faiuwle »

I like K. J. Parker's books a lot. They are typically low fantasy (no or very limited magic, no fantasy races), and I've heard them described as "clockpunk" because they have a lot of detailed descriptions of the workings of medieval contraptions. A possible downside is that they're all very dark (without including a lot of the stuff Eddy hates and GRRM seems to love) and tend to end very grimly for the protagonist, who is also often not really the best of guys, so if you need to personally relate to the protagonist a lot it might not be your cup of tea. There's a lot of interesting worldbuilding, though. Common themes are parallels to classical history and the discovery of gunpowder. My favorites are the Scavenger Trilogy and The Company, which takes most of its proper names from phrases in the Greek Iliad.

Ellen Kushner also wrote some very good non-Tolkien fantasy, of about the same magic/tech level, but without the clockpunk and sad endings. There are lots of LGBT characters, and The Privilege of the Sword has a good female character lead (though the story involves rape (of a different character) as a plot point if you'd rather avoid that). I liked The Fall of the Kings less as a story, but it had some good worldbuilding in it.
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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Ars Lande »

To begin with, I have three suggestions, that aren't usually classified as fantasy, but rather as mainstream litterature.

If so, and if you've liked Borges, I suggest you read these three:

On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Jünger. (Heliopolis is excellent as well, but is a lot closer to science-fiction)

The Opposing Shore by Julien Gracq

The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzatti.

All of these were written before or after WWII, and they're extremely similar. All of these feature a dying culture fighting - rather hopelessly - against an unnamed barbarian enemy. They're all transparent Nazi Germany / Cold War allegories, but they're also done extremely well. Not exactly light reading, though.

Also, since you mentioned the Laundry Series, we should list Charles Stross' other fantasy series, the Merchant Princes series. These are ostensibly parallel-world fantasy novels, although they actually feature a good deal of SF rationality.

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Mornche Geddick »

Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea novels, set in a world of islands, not large continents.

Richard Adams' Shardik, apparently a bronze age culture in a subtropical climate. There is an impregnable fortress (by the standards of the day), city walls, stone carving and writing (rare, possibly fallen into disuse). The inhabitants haven't worked out how to bridge large rivers like the Telthearna. The horse is introduced during the novel.

Jasper Fforde's fantasy / parody novels beginning with The Eyre Affair.

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Salmoneus »

I would think 'fantasy not in mediaeval Europe' would be too large a category to really make sense listing.

As a starting point, here's a poll I ran a few years ago to create a recommended genre book list. OK, some of it is mediaeval, and some of it is SF. But it was conducted among fans of A Song of Ice and Fire (before the TV show came out), and the top picks were Martin and Tolkien. So these are things popular among fantasy fans. Stripping out overt SF:

actually, it makes more sense to list the things that ARE fauxdiaeval on that list:
- Chronicles of Amber might have some fauxdiaeval elements, is my impression?
- Narnia has some elements
- Covenant has maybe some elements early on, but later it gets very weird
- Discworld likewise has a few elements early on
- The Empire Trilogy has one character from a fauxdiaeval culture, but the rest is faux-Korean/Japanese
- Farseer is almost fauxdiaeval, though it's really more faux-dark ages
- oh, Leibowitz's middle section is tangentially fauxdiaeval, but it's all set within an abbey so we don't see much of the outside world. Plus, it's actually set in the future
- don't know about Parker's Fencer books?
- Gormenghast maybe has fauxdiaevalish elements?
- don't know about Hyperion
- don't think Iron Dragon's Daughter applies but don't know
- the Left Hand of Darkness, one of the two main cultures is a fauxdiaeval kingdom. On the other hand, it's a kingdom of alien hermaphrodites with guns and taoist monks, in a cold war with a soviet/robespierrian empire, so not quite the same as the real middle ages
- Lions of Al-Rassan is technically fauxdiaeval, but it's faux-reconquista with faux-moorish characters, so again not quite the cliché
- Liveship Traders is again almost fauxdiaeval at times, but it's really more faux-early-modern
- don't think Lord of Light counts?
- parts of LOTR count, when they get to Rohan and Gondor, but otherwise not really
- Lyonesse counts
- Memory Sorrow and Thorn might count?
- I guess Mallory counts, though that actually IS mediaeval
- Otherland isn't fauxdiaeval in concept, but there may be fauxdiaeval elements? I don't know
- Planet of Adventure I guess has fauxdiaeval elements, but they are all aliens, so...
- Don't know about Riddle-Master
- Sarantine Mosaic is faux-Byzantine
- The Silmarillion has fauxdiaeval elements
- A Song of Ice and Fire is very fauxdiaeval
- Tigana is faux-Venetian
- The Warlord Trilogy - fauxdiaeval or faux-dark-age?
- The Wheel of Time is (more or less) fauxdiaeval
- The Once and Future King is ironically fauxdiaeval
- Acts of Caine I think is partially fauxdiaeval, in the setting-within-a-setting
- First Law - I think fauxdiaeval, but I don't know
- Locke Lamora - probably, although a bit more early modern?
- Malazan - I guess
- Prince of Nothing - very much

That's out of a combined, I don't know, around 130 books? There really aren't that many that are clearly fauxdiaeval, particularly if you look at the 20th century books rather than the recent ones.
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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Salmoneus »

Mornche Geddick wrote: Richard Adams' Shardik, apparently a bronze age culture in a subtropical climate. There is an impregnable fortress (by the standards of the day), city walls, stone carving and writing (rare, possibly fallen into disuse). The inhabitants haven't worked out how to bridge large rivers like the Telthearna. The horse is introduced during the novel.
I don't remember the horse being introduced. But I do like the epilogue, where we see just how barbaric and primitive all these characters we've been following are, compared to the foreign ambassador.

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Ars Lande »

Salmoneus wrote:I would think 'fantasy not in mediaeval Europe' would be too large a category to really make sense listing.
My own impression is that there's a lot of medieval-ish fantasy; most of it didn't get any recommendations from genre fans because it's not very good, mostly.
I'm not sure 'medieval' is the proper critera - non-Tolkienian is better. (My own rule is 'No Elves').

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Astraios »

The Castings Trilogy by Pamela Freeman is pretty good. It's questy and magicky but done in such a way that it feels quite different and untolkieny.

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Pole, the »

zompist wrote:This topic came up in the Eddythread, and I think it's worth pursuing-- that is, what fantasy novels avoid pseudo-medieval-Europe, or otherwise take the genre in interesting directions?
But are “Tolkienian” and “pseudo-medieval” really synonymous? I think not.

For example, Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson is set in a strictly pseudo-medieval world, but being non-Tolkienian as hell.
The main hero of the first book is an anarcho-commie, hating the aristocrats for them just being aristocrats, actively fighting against the monarchy, and finally leading a successfull revolution against them.
The second book is basically about the heroes really hating acting as rulers but deciding to do that lest they be rejected by the people and lest the monarchy return.
The third book is about them fighting against some aristocrats that seem not to notice that the world is ending.
(Also, read that.)

And Codex Alera by Jim Butcher — set in a medievalish world that evolved from the Roman culture (with Pokémon!), but being about emancipation, abolishing slavery, interracial marriage, noble savages, savage nobles, and how "peace through strength" is a totally effed up doctrine.
Stanisɫaw Lem's Cyberiad is playful and brilliant, the story of the rivalry and friendship between two constructors or robot builders-- who are themselves robots. It can equally be classified as science fiction, but his approach is far more metaphysical than scientific.
Well, it's a common theme in Lem's works, not only in the Cyberiad.

Also, I think books by Jacek Dukaj would count as well. The problem is that he writes in Polish. And that his books are barely translatable — the Polish language variants he uses are highly idiosyncratic, difficult to read even to native Poles.
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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by HandsomeRob »

I'm a big fan of the Burton and Swinburne series by Mark Hodder. The series is centered around the introduction of a time traveler to the Victorian Era of our timeline, and how the timeline spirals out-of-control as a result of understandable actions taken by the characters. It's great.

But my favorite recent time-travel story is The Map of Time by Félix Palma. It's a beautiful, romantic story with one of the most original time-travel plots I've ever encountered, and I highly recommend it.

I'll also concur with Mornche about Jasper Fforde for nontraditional fantasy, especially Shades of Grey, which is his best and most serious novel, in my opinion.

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

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faiuwle wrote:They are typically low fantasy (no or very limited magic, no fantasy races),
BTW, what are the key features defining the high fantasy and low fantasy and making them distinct?
I have read that it is due to the former being more mystical (gods &c.) and the latter being more pragmatic (gray morality); or to the world it is set in (conworld vs realworld), but I don't really get the distinction.
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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Salmoneus »

Ars Lande wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:I would think 'fantasy not in mediaeval Europe' would be too large a category to really make sense listing.
My own impression is that there's a lot of medieval-ish fantasy; most of it didn't get any recommendations from genre fans because it's not very good, mostly.
I'm not sure 'medieval' is the proper critera - non-Tolkienian is better. (My own rule is 'No Elves').
Sure, there's a lot of everything. But there's also a huge amount of fantasy NOT in mediaeval europe, was my point.

Though having said that, what fantasy actually does have elves? I'm aware of Tolkien, Feist, and some of the D&D settings, and I think that's all. And technically Discworld, but in name only.
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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Salmoneus »

Pole wrote:
faiuwle wrote:They are typically low fantasy (no or very limited magic, no fantasy races),
BTW, what are the key features defining the high fantasy and low fantasy and making them distinct?
I have read that it is due to the former being more mystical (gods &c.) and the latter being more pragmatic (gray morality); or to the world it is set in (conworld vs realworld), but I don't really get the distinction.
There isn't one. "High" vs "Low" can be used for a dozen different distinctions in fantasy. [heroic vs non-heroic, epic vs non-epic, magical vs non-magical, romanticised vs realist, etc etc]
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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Ars Lande »

Salmoneus wrote: Sure, there's a lot of everything. But there's also a huge amount of fantasy NOT in mediaeval europe, was my point.

Though having said that, what fantasy actually does have elves?
No real disagreement, actually. It's always nice to get recommandations though!
The bit about elves was mostly a joke, but this list of results: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... Ck%3Aelves is rather impressive. (OK, there's a good number of Santa elves, but still).

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Ketumak »

I'd recommend Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

It's set in an alternative early nineteenth century England and in Faerie, and is about the attempt by two very different magicians to bring magic back to England. Magic in this book often involves doing deals with fairies who are tricky creatures at the best of times. Norrell is cautious in his magic and Strange is a risk-taker.

The language is a parody of writing styles of the time - Jane Austen at least, possibly others, and the work includes comedy as well as drama. It has one of the best-written beginnings I've seen for some time.

I gather the BBC are making a mini-series based on it - I have high hopes!

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Terra »

Journey to the West , attributed to the 16th century Wu Cheng'en, is worth checking out. It's based on a historical event-- the monk Xuanzang's journey to India to bring back Buddhist scriptures-- but only in the sense that Orlando Furioso is based on Frankish-Arab warfare. Xuanzang's main protector, the Monkey King, is a great character.
Whose translation do you recommend?

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

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Terra wrote:
Journey to the West , attributed to the 16th century Wu Cheng'en, is worth checking out. It's based on a historical event-- the monk Xuanzang's journey to India to bring back Buddhist scriptures-- but only in the sense that Orlando Furioso is based on Frankish-Arab warfare. Xuanzang's main protector, the Monkey King, is a great character.
Whose translation do you recommend?
My copy is translated by Anthony Yu. If I recall correctly, it's the only translation of the complete novel in English.

It's also immense, which is part of why only incomplete translations existed before. It's the only one I read, so I can't compare to others, unfortunately.

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by Curlyjimsam »

I've for a long time been fascinated by the fact that in the Gormenghast books, although they seem to fall fairly naturally in the category of "fantasy", there is an absence of magic or the magical. Specifically, it's interesting to me that more authors haven't done similar - the Tolkienian style has generated a vast slew of followers, and Peake's hardly any as far as I am aware.

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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

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Seven Fifty wrote:I've for a long time been fascinated by the fact that in the Gormenghast books, although they seem to fall fairly naturally in the category of "fantasy", there is an absence of magic or the magical. Specifically, it's interesting to me that more authors haven't done similar - the Tolkienian style has generated a vast slew of followers, and Peake's hardly any as far as I am aware.
Possibly because Gormenghast is, if I remember correctly, quite a dull and depressing read? Of course that's subjective, but it didn't strike me as particularly inspiring compared to, say, the Hobbit. If Peake had been a better author, or at least one with a more mass-market appeal (I'm aware that some regard Gormenghast as a classic), perhaps things would be the other way round? Afterall, most authors are followers rather than trend setters, as in every other walk of life.

EDIT: interesting question: how do Tolkien's and Peake's books compare from a sales perspective? Googling has failed to quickly find out the number of copies of the Gormenghast books sold. I only really have my own impression that far fewer people have read Gormenghast than have read Tolkien's books, but it would be good to put some numbers to it.
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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

Post by chris_notts »

I also think that the different between the two might be due to something basic about basic human story telling preferences. Tolkien wrote heroic adventure stories, which is pretty much the oldest genre of story we have recorded. Every culture, no matter its level of development, has stories about heroes who go off on a quest of some description, face danger, and come home again with some kind of reward / accomplishment. This isn't anything to do with the magic or the elves, but about the basic structure of the stories.

I don't think the Gormenghast books fit quite as neatly into a basic schema as Tolkien's major works do. It's been a long time since I read them, but they seemed like the kind of books which people with degrees in English literature like to analyse for hidden meaning, rather than stories with a clear and very basic psychological appeal. They contain quite a lot of strangeness and deliberate alienation from the normal human experience of the reader (lots of the characters seem insane to varying degrees), which almost by definition means it will be harder for them to be popular.
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Re: Non-Tolkienian fantasy

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On my shelves the ratio is 2 to 1... that is, I have LOTR and Gormenghast, and then I had to buy another copy of LOTR because my '70s paperbacks were falling apart.

Gormenghast is non-Tolkienian in many ways, one being that it's technically set in modern times (in volume 3, for instance, there's an automobile). Thematically it's a world apart. I suspect it might have done better if it were released in the '90s rather than the '50s... it's rather goth.

More literature that's also fantasy: most everything by Franz Kafka.

Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories are fauxdieval, to use Sal's term, but they're worth a mention as they certainly don't glorify their world... Lankhmar seems to be infinitely corrupt, and the stories have some of the atmosphere of noir.

Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light is simultaneously sf and fantasy. The first colonists of a planet use technology to achieve immortality and supernatural powers, and take on the names and attributes of Hindu gods. One of them rebels against their corrupt rule, in some ways paralleling the life of the Buddha. It manages to get a whole epic in within one volume.

Sheri Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country could be considered a feminist response to fantasy (or to post-apocalyptic sf). Which I suppose makes it sound tedious, but it's not.

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