Non-European epic fantasy

[kate_nepveu]

Recommend to me, o LJ readers, non-European epic fantasy. Specifically, I'm looking for something that would answer the question, "Gosh, I liked the way The Lord of the Rings took elements and themes of existing mythologies and cultures and used them to give depth to a really epic fantasy story. What about something like that, but not using Northern Europe, or at least not principally using Northern Europe?"

I am aware of David Anthony Durham's Acacia (which I haven't read yet). And, I suppose, Jordan's Wheel of Time, though I'm not sure what I think of it in this regard (partly because I don't remember a lot about many of the societies). I am also aware of Bridge of Birds and The Orphan's Tales, but they are not epic fantasies. And I already have looked at 50books_poc's links and the Carl Brandon Society's reading lists.

What else—if anything?

ETA: I forgot, in print, please. (And good, though I thought that was implicit in "recommend.") And secondary-world fantasy, by analogy to LotR.

Comments

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Hrm. Some of the stuff I'm aware of, like Raymond Feist's Servant of the Empire books, has some issues, although it's been so long, I'm not sure anymore. Also I think Michelle Sagara has a series called the Sun Sword that may fit. I only read the first book, and some time back.

More may come to me later...i'm at work, so can't glimpse my shelves.

[kate_nepveu]

Do tell me more about Michelle Sagara's books, if you can.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since I read it, but I recall Ricardo Pinto's Stone Dance of the Chameleon series as having a vaguely South American feel.

[kate_nepveu]

What do you think of them?

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

Guy Gavriel Kay's Sarantine Mosaic? Probably not epic enough, but it does have kings and things in it. KSR's Years of Rice and Salt is pretty epic, but it's probably not fantastic enough.

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah, I thought of those already and discarded them for the reasons you say.

[montoya.livejournal.com]

David Eddings' books have various Eastern cultures, which are handled with the subtlety and depth one would expect from David Eddings.

[kate_nepveu]

Indeed.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Kara Dalkey's "Blood of the Goddess" trilogy (Goa (http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/dalkey.html), Bijapur (http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/bijapur.html), and Bhagavati (http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/bhagavati.html)) is set in India.

Dalkey also has the Japanese novel Gen Pei (http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/genpei.html), set in Japan.

Also in Japan is Lian Hearn's "Tales of the Otori," beginning with Across the Nightingale Floor (http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/hearn.html)

[kate_nepveu]

Sorry, I meant to imply secondary-world fantasy by analogy to Tolkien. (Also, I read _Goa_ ages ago and remember nothing of it except a non-epic-fantasy sense.)

[avitzur.livejournal.com]

Would Zelazny's Lord of Light and Creatures of Light and Darkness count?

[kate_nepveu]

I don't know, would you call them epic fantasy a la _LotR_? I haven't read them, but I suspect not.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Do you do comic books? The first 9 volumes of Elfquest are very good (basically, all the ones written/drawn by Richard & Wendy Pini). The followup stuff may also be good, but I haven't read it. The humans in it are paleolithic types, and are mainly a backdrop, while the elves are split into multiple different societies, typically defined by their relationships with animals or environment.

[kate_nepveu]

I do comic books but I'd prefer to stick to prose for purposes of the "like _LotR_ but" question.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Google pointed me to this possibly-good Asian-influenced epic fantasy series (http://www.amazon.com/Prince-Shadow-Seven-Brothers-Book/dp/0756400546). Since the series overall is the "Seven Brothers" series, I want to assume that the brothers are Chinese and that one of them can swallow the entire ocean...but it sounds like it's drawing on a hybrid of various Asian & possibly Arabic cultures.

[kate_nepveu]

Wow, it is amazing the things I've never heard of. Thanks.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Fuyumi Ono's Twelve Kingdoms is epic fantasy set in an Asian secondary world. There is language-geeking, which is definitely a la Tolkien. I've only read the first book, which was kind of a slog for the first two thirds but excellent after that. I realize that doesn't sound like much of a rec, but I did like it enough to acquire the next two.

Anti-rec: Ashok Banker has a Ramayana-inspired epic fantasy series. I HATE his prose style and rec the actual Ramayana instead.

[deepad]

Seconding the anti-rec. :/

[nikojen.livejournal.com]

Hrrrmmm... Like pixelfish, I only read the first Sunsword book (published under the name "Michelle West"), but it was a series that was definitely going for epic and non-European-ness. Harems, highly regimented social orders and standards of honor, etc. I found it a bit of a slog, personally.

I'll give a vague "seconded" for Sean Russell's "Initiate Brother" duology. Read it a long time ago, and think I enjoyed it well enough.

Possibly Chaz Brenchley's two fantasy series? There's a significant European presence, as the books are set in a pseudo-Crusades era, and at least two of the main characters are European, but most of the action occurs among a pseudo-Middle Eastern culture. "Selling Water by the River" series also feels Middle Eastern. Outremer is probably the closer to being epic of the two.

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks!

[ellarien]

Kate Elliot's series that starts with Spirit Gate has a non-Western setting, mostly, I think, Chinese-flavored, with white people rare and regarded as demons. It threw me a bit that her horse-nomad-warrior culture was called the Han, but I enjoyed the first one enough to lay in the second and preorder the third.

The Michelle West series is big and sprawly, and annoyed me a bit by unceremoniously dropping one major thread and set of characters halfway through the final (sixth) volume, but I'd rank it fairly high among sprawling fantasy series I've read in the last decade. There are two cultures involved (at least) and one of them is mostly fantasy-European, more fantasy than Europe; the other one has harems and deserts.

[cofax7]

I second the Elliott recommendation; but I suspect Kate has already read them, since I got the third one from Kate. *g*

[cyphomandra.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I can think of things that fit three of your points (most relevant of which is v1 of an epic fantasy with Chinese backdrop written by a friend, currently somewhere under consideration so, you know, if you're still looking in a few years) but four is hard. I have, but have not read, Shaun Hick's The Army of Five Men, v1 in an epic fantasy series set in an alternative Pacific (author is New Zealand Pakeha/Fijian Indian), but given that my copy came out in 2001 and there is as yet no volume 2 having it turn out to be good may not help.

I loved Salman Rushdie's Haroun & the Sea of Stories, but it may be insufficiently epic.

I did also flick through my copy of The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, by Alberto Manguel & Gianni Guadelupi but a) it's hard to tell what's epic fantasy (particularly when you hit a very promising secondary Arabic world, but the original's over 100 years old and in German) and b) it is completely distracting.

[kate_nepveu]

having it turn out to be good may not help

It's a problem with epic fantasy!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I had a tentative thought on this matter recently, when I've been reading (slowly) Bernhard Hennen's Dis Elven, which has not been translated into English, though he's big over in Germany. Hennen draws on the northern sources that Tolkien did, but in a very different way--there is more of an elder edda feeling to his work.

Add to this a discussion some readers were having on another thread elsewhere, as they enthused with white heat about a brilliant Czech and Russian set of fantasies--other world, but imbued with those cultures, and again, not translated. And talking with Rachelmanija and others about great works from India (not translated) makes me wonder if the really complex stuff, that comes of decades of immersion as well as imagination, is going to be difficult to find cross culture. I read a lot of non-Euro stuff from western writers, but so much of it is either stiff with conscious effort, or reads like western people in otherculture trappings, or has that scraped-veneer feel wherein one can name the research books, and who can blame an author for not taking ten or fifteen years do immerse in an entirely new culture and history in order to fashion a totally different world that has little to do with one's native paradigm?

[kate_nepveu]

Well, there's the possibility of English-language books from those who are themselves cross-culture to some degree or another. But yes, for the deep-down kind of thing that _LotR_ does, it doesn't surprise me that it's rareish.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Daniel Abraham's "Long Price Quartet," as soon as the last book is published in July. Based on East and Central Asian cultures, they're set in a parallel world with magic and pre-industrial technology. And I think they're really good.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I was going to mention these as well. They're influenced but not imitative.

[norilana.livejournal.com]

My own epic fantasy (standalone in one volume) about a world without color Lords of Rainbow (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1592248233/ref=nosim/veranazariafantaA/). Seriously. :-)

It's out of print, but you can get it pretty cheap on Amazon Marketplace, etc.

[skwidly.livejournal.com]

I realize it may not help much, but there's one I've got germinating in my head?

[kate_nepveu]

Did you _read_ the ETAs? =>

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

There's the Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart, which is mystic China. It's epic in terms of power levels (street nobodies to gods) but not necessarily in world travel or in book length. (The book is Hughart's three Master Li books in one volume, which does put the compilation at doorstopper heft.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, _Bridge of Birds_ would be the first of these, of which I am aware as I said in the post.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I have been digging into my brain and finding nothing of use. Well, nothing that's epic fantasy, anyway. But I shall haunt the comments to see what comes up from others!

[kate_nepveu]

There are some, which is good!

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

Like montoya, most of my epic-fantasy reading is years in the past, so I don't have any firm recommendations. The only thing I can remember that might fit the bill is Gregory Keyes' "Waterborn" series, which draws on pre-Columbian American cultures. I enjoyed it when I read it over a decade ago, but I don't remember it well enough to confidently recommend it to you now. Also it might be out of print.

I'm sorry I can't do better!

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

Erikson's Malazan books have a whole load of different cultures, ranging from hunter-gatherer to all over the map. He does with archaeology what Tolkien does with language. (This is not intended as a frivolous comparison, there is real archaeological and anthropological depth here.)

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks, I haven't read them but will consult with Chad who has.

[larryhammer]

Alongside the Twelve Kingdom books, of which three have been translated to English so far, there's also another Japanese series of interest: Moribito, of which the first book (Guardian of the Spirit) is in English with the second either coming soon or already out. Which first received a nod from the ALA for best translated book for teens, this January, which makes me even more interested in reading it, given the anime based on it was excellent. Reviews have suggested the prose is not perfect, but interestingly Asian cultures mix-up get lots of comments.

Which isn't quite a personal recommendation, no.

---L.

[kate_nepveu]

I haven't heard of it, and will keep an eye out.

[neverjaunty.livejournal.com]

Re out of print books - take a look at Paperback Swap. It's a site for trading books, but I have found it to be a GREAT way to find out-of-print, hard-to-find paperbacks of all sorts.

just a few links today

[pingback-bot.livejournal.com]

User cofax7 referenced to your post from just a few links today (http://cofax7.livejournal.com/652856.html) saying: [...] Baaaaby animals! is looking for non-European-based secondary-world fantasy (http://kate-nepveu.livejournal.com/399094.html), of the epic type. You know, like Acacia or Lord of the Rings. Sherwood Smith reports that Small Beer Press is having a big sale. You might recognize Small ... [...]

[daniidebrabant.livejournal.com]

Jim Butcher's Alera books use the Roman Empire and then has a few other things mixed in.

Seconding the Lian Hern Tales of the Otori. Definitely good.

I picked up Eon the other day which uses modified Chinese mythology type secondary world. Uh...

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

The Archer's Heart (http://www.blindeyebooks.com/archer.html) by Astrid Amara was one of my favorite books last year. I bought it for the m/m romance and was pleasantly surprised that I got epic fantasy based on a pre-colonial India with not a single white character instead (and yes, it's m/m romance too).

[kate_nepveu]

Interesting, thanks! Complete in one volume?