Exotic Fantasy Recommendations

Templarorder123

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Hi,

Do you know of any fantasy books that have Indian/Chinese/Japanese races in their books?

Do we have Meso-American fantasy style books at all? Any Mesopotamian races?

Recommend me the best historical fiction for these races that you've read on these races?

Thanks
 
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard is the first of a series of fantasy-cum-historical fiction murder mysteries set in the Aztec empire c1480. I gave up after the second one, but the writing is good and she gets excellent reviews.

I've read a Japanese-esque fantasy (ie set in something like a Japanese setting but which is pure fantasy) but for the moment I can't bring its name to mind. While I'm thinking about it, I'll move this thread over to General Book Discussion where it will get more notice.



EDIT: Found it. Emperor of the Eight Islands by Lian Hearn. And I don't know if it comes within your Meso-American definition, but Liliana Bodoc's The Days of the Deer is set in a fantasy South America, as is Face of Glass by Damon L Wakes.
 
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Raymond E Fiest, The Magician. I think also Jay Kristoff's Stormdancer.

Mesopotamian

I've struggled to find anything in fantasy, but have Nicholas Guild's historical fiction series set in Assyria on my wish list. :)


There are some interesting modern prose versions of ancient Vedic epics - RK Narayan's version of the Ramayana was a decent read.

Hope that helps and welcome to chrons. :)



 
Exotic? Not really the word I'd use, but....

As The Judge has said, Aliette de Bodard wrote the Obsidian and Blood trilogy, which are set in the Aztec empire. She's also written fantasy and science fiction with Vietnamese culture at its core, as well as fiction set in her native France.

Robert Silverberg wrote a version of the legend of Gilgamesh, and one which saw Gilgamesh travel from the Underworld to the modern era, although I cannot remember the name -- it was a while back.

When you say Mesopotamian, perhaps you'd be interested in a more recent setting for fiction in that region? If so, you can do a lot worse than Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon. There are also some pretty good graphic novels coming out of that region, from what I've been hearing. I'd need to go and ask others about that.

Zen Cho has written Sorcerer to the Crown, which is on my list to buy. She's Malaysian by birth (if I remember correctly) but, in case you're looking for authors from East Asian cultures other than just Chinese or Japanese, I thought I'd add her. Set in Britain, but I believe has characters from East Asian cultural backgrounds (and others) in it.

I've seen JY Yang's work recommended by Kate Elliott; and Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings looks interesting although, from what I gather, it's informed by culture rather than necessarily based on any actual culture of our own world (I could be wrong on that).

Most of the Indian spec-fic writers I know of seem to be science fiction rather than fantasy. Something I should look more into, perhaps.

Finally, if you want a couple of big names producing high quality non-Eurocentric fantasy (and sci-fi) other than from exactly the cultures you specified, then please look up NK Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor. Okorafor tends to write Afrofuturist fiction. Jemisin is more second world epic fantasy and sometimes sf, but refreshingly not in a pseudo-Mediaeval Europe.
 
Julian May's Saga of the Exiles has quite a variation of peoples, as do the Galactic Milieu novels that came after. Tad Williams Otherland books have a nice slant with one of the main characters being of zulu descent and another a Kalahari bushman. Not necessarily a fantasy tale but James Clavell's Shogun is a good read.
 
Raymond E Fiest, The Magician. I think also Jay Kristoff's Stormdancer.



I've struggled to find anything in fantasy, but have Nicholas Guild's historical fiction series set in Assyria on my wish list. :)



There are some interesting modern prose versions of ancient Vedic epics - RK Narayan's version of the Ramayana was a decent read.

Hope that helps and welcome to chrons. :)



Thanks Brian!

I've read a bit of Nicholas Guild's historical Assyrian story.

Indeed, there's a lot more Indian authors now doing modern versions of Ancient Hindu Mythology.
 
Exotic? Not really the word I'd use, but....

As The Judge has said, Aliette de Bodard wrote the Obsidian and Blood trilogy, which are set in the Aztec empire. She's also written fantasy and science fiction with Vietnamese culture at its core, as well as fiction set in her native France.

Robert Silverberg wrote a version of the legend of Gilgamesh, and one which saw Gilgamesh travel from the Underworld to the modern era, although I cannot remember the name -- it was a while back.

When you say Mesopotamian, perhaps you'd be interested in a more recent setting for fiction in that region? If so, you can do a lot worse than Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon. There are also some pretty good graphic novels coming out of that region, from what I've been hearing. I'd need to go and ask others about that.

Zen Cho has written Sorcerer to the Crown, which is on my list to buy. She's Malaysian by birth (if I remember correctly) but, in case you're looking for authors from East Asian cultures other than just Chinese or Japanese, I thought I'd add her. Set in Britain, but I believe has characters from East Asian cultural backgrounds (and others) in it.

I've seen JY Yang's work recommended by Kate Elliott; and Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings looks interesting although, from what I gather, it's informed by culture rather than necessarily based on any actual culture of our own world (I could be wrong on that).

Most of the Indian spec-fic writers I know of seem to be science fiction rather than fantasy. Something I should look more into, perhaps.

Finally, if you want a couple of big names producing high quality non-Eurocentric fantasy (and sci-fi) other than from exactly the cultures you specified, then please look up NK Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor. Okorafor tends to write Afrofuturist fiction. Jemisin is more second world epic fantasy and sometimes sf, but refreshingly not in a pseudo-Mediaeval Europe.

I've heard of Saladin Ahmed's book, but my main interest is Bronze Age/Mesopatamia/. I'd love it if more authors could put more Bronze Age Civilizations into a fantasy novel. Do you know any books that could have Ancient Egyptian influences?

Thank you for the recommendations!
 
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard is the first of a series of fantasy-cum-historical fiction murder mysteries set in the Aztec empire c1480. I gave up after the second one, but the writing is good and she gets excellent reviews.

I've read a Japanese-esque fantasy (ie set in something like a Japanese setting but which is pure fantasy) but for the moment I can't bring its name to mind. While I'm thinking about it, I'll move this thread over to General Book Discussion where it will get more notice.



EDIT: Found it. Emperor of the Eight Islands by Lian Hearn. And I don't know if it comes within your Meso-American definition, but Liliana Bodoc's The Days of the Deer is set in a fantasy South America, as is Face of Glass by Damon L Wakes.

Thanks the Judge! Will check it out!
 
Julian May's Saga of the Exiles has quite a variation of peoples, as do the Galactic Milieu novels that came after. Tad Williams Otherland books have a nice slant with one of the main characters being of zulu descent and another a Kalahari bushman. Not necessarily a fantasy tale but James Clavell's Shogun is a good read.

Thanks Lugilin! Will check them out.
 
By the way, to make this easier, do you know of alternate history books with Ancient Civilisations? Most I checked it was very popular in the 1970s-1980s!
 
By the way, to make this easier, do you know of alternate history books with Ancient Civilisations? Most I checked it was very popular in the 1970s-1980s!

Well you can't get more alternative and ancient than Saga of the Exiles. It's set in the Pliocene Era with future folks taking a one way trip to the past to get away from a future earth that's part of a Galactic alien community. The problem is that the past is not exactly what they were expecting.
 
Well you can't get more alternative and ancient than Saga of the Exiles. It's set in the Pliocene Era with future folks taking a one way trip to the past to get away from a future earth that's part of a Galactic alien community. The problem is that the past is not exactly what they were expecting.

Thanks Luiglin! Although I'm not looking for sci-fi stuff. More historical alternate.
 
Raymond E Fiest, The Magician. I think also Jay Kristoff's Stormdancer.

The Tsurani Feist uses in Magician are far better showcased in the Empire trilogy he co-wrote with Wurts, which is also a fantastic fantasy read in its own right.

They're also more or less direct rip-offs (albeit allegedly unintentional) of M.A.R. Barker's Tekumel world, which while mostly famous for the Empire of the Petal Throne rpg, does have five books written about them by Barker, starting with The Man of Gold. Not read them but very much want to.


Out of the suggestions already made, I can echo Silverberg's Gilgamesh and half-echo de Bodard's Servant of the Underworld. The latter didn't really take with me, which is a gigantic shame as on paper it was everything I ever wanted.


I'd also add Peter Morwood's The Horse Lord for Japanese, Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds for a take on Chinese myth, and Ka by Robert Calasso for a retelling of Indian myth.
 
Sam Barone's Empire series is a good attempt at HF set in the earlys days of the Sumerian civilisation.
 
Do you know any books that could have Ancient Egyptian influences?
There is this thread. Ignore the title - it's a discussion on all sorts of sff in an Ancient Egyptian setting.

Christian Jacq writes mystery/YA stuff, but not really fantasy; more set in the actual dynastic empires of Ancient Egypt. Rick Riordan has a supernatural Egyptian series, similar to his Olympian books, but not got round to them.
 

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