Samuel R. Delany's series beginning with Tales of Neveryon just might be the sort of thing you're looking for.
It's set in time vaguelly around the dawn of civilization and literacy itself and the second book in particular features Gorgic, a former slave, who is involved in a sort of guerrilla effort to end the institution of slavery.
Mind you, Delany being Delany, that's not all the series is about by a long shot: the social relations between men and women, between and within social classes and polymorphously perverse sexuality are also explored. There are also some very (in the final book, make that very !) conscious allegories between the world of Neveryon and our own — or rather, our own world in the 1980s.
It may not be what you're looking for since Delany is also in large part deconstructing fantasy itself, but it nevertheless makes for fascinating reading, especially if you're prepared to have your plot-expectations reversed, ignored and generally toyed with over and over again.
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timeasmymeasure
Delany's *Neveryon* series?
Date: 2009-10-01 05:37 pm (UTC)It's set in time vaguelly around the dawn of civilization and literacy itself and the second book in particular features Gorgic, a former slave, who is involved in a sort of guerrilla effort to end the institution of slavery.
Mind you, Delany being Delany, that's not all the series is about by a long shot: the social relations between men and women, between and within social classes and polymorphously perverse sexuality are also explored. There are also some very (in the final book, make that very !) conscious allegories between the world of Neveryon and our own — or rather, our own world in the 1980s.
It may not be what you're looking for since Delany is also in large part deconstructing fantasy itself, but it nevertheless makes for fascinating reading, especially if you're prepared to have your plot-expectations reversed, ignored and generally toyed with over and over again.