06-24-2013, 10:12 AM | #1 |
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Non Western High Fantasy Recommendations?
Greetings!
The "$80 ebook" thread made me realise something, pretty much all fantasy novels I have read are grounded in western folkelore, wizards, witches, vampires, dragons, spired castles, knights, bar wenches, etc. Does anyone have any recommendations for non-western high fantasy ebooks? for example as above, based on Indian folkelore/religion, or Tibetan, Mayan, Mongolian, etc etc? basically cultures that have less/little exposure in the west. Despite the controversy for example I really enjoyed Apocalypto as it showed (I have no opinion about it being faithful or not as my knowledge of it is poor) a culture that is largely ignored in modern media. Thanks in advance |
06-24-2013, 10:19 AM | #2 |
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Try Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. It is based on Indian Folklore, but is more Sci Fi Fantasy Than straight fantasy. It won the 1968 Hugo Award and is a great read. It is my favorite Zelazny book. Unfortunately, the last time I checked it is not available as an eBook.
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06-24-2013, 10:32 AM | #3 |
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Elizabeth Bear's Eternal Sky trilogy. Two books are published and the third is due in 2014.
Also check out Bradley P. Beaulieu, Saladin Ahmed, and/or Nnedi Okorafor. |
06-24-2013, 10:40 AM | #4 |
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A number of George Alec Effinger's books are set in non-Western settings (When Gravity Falls, A Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss).
Kameron Hurley's The Bel Dame Apocrypha series Saladin Ahmed's The Throne of the Crescent Moon |
06-24-2013, 10:55 AM | #5 |
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In case you are not from Japan (which your name would suggest )you should for sure try
Akinari Ueda's Ugetsu Monogatari (Tales of Moonlight and Rain) Also Akutagawa Ryunosuke's Kappa and his other short stories You might also be interested in Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things I also like Miyazawa Kenji's Ginga Tetsudo no Yoru (named in English as Milky Way Railroad/Night Train to the Stars/Fantasy Railroad In The Stars) though many think it's for children... Last edited by jmilica; 06-24-2013 at 11:00 AM. |
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06-24-2013, 11:03 AM | #6 |
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Brilliant, thanks for the prompt replies everyone!
@jmilica, sadly not Japanese, just a lover of it's culture and history, so thanks for the Japanese recommendations! |
06-24-2013, 11:08 AM | #7 |
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There are the 1001 nights tales. Vol. 16 of the Harvard Classics contains the text.
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06-24-2013, 11:11 AM | #8 |
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The Bridge of Birds and its sequels by Barry Hughart are based in China.
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06-24-2013, 12:26 PM | #9 |
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+1 on Bridge of Birds.
At least one of Terri Windling's ``Fairy Tale'' books have non-Occidental settings --- Kara Dalkey's _The Nightingale_ is set in Japan. T.C. Rypel wrote a series of books about ``Gonji'', a half-caste Samurai which make their way towards Europe (not sure if they ever get there or no) Judith Tarr's _Alamut_ primarily takes place in the Middle East. |
06-24-2013, 12:38 PM | #10 | |
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Quote:
In any case: One Thousand and One Nights is a wonderful collection of classic Arabic tales and well worth reading, although it isn't really high fantasy. |
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06-24-2013, 01:26 PM | #11 | |
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Quote:
Spoiler:
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06-24-2013, 02:15 PM | #12 |
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It's not some of the tales which are missing, but most of the tales. Nothing wrong with that, I simply wanted to point out that it does not "contain the text", if by text you meant "the full text".
Also none of them were meant for children, which is fairly evident if one reads the Burton translation. Most of the later translations are heavily sanitized and made to read like children's stories either by the Victorians or by prudish US publishers. |
06-24-2013, 04:22 PM | #13 |
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Kylie Chan's "Dark Heavens/Journey to Wudang" series are set in Hong Kong and environs, and involves the Chinese mythological pantheon. The book blurbs seem to play up the romance aspect but that's really just a subplot.
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06-25-2013, 12:47 AM | #14 |
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Some of the books recommended here, are set in non western world, but they are NOT High Fantasy. Not at all.
I recommend Fuyumi Ono's "Twelve kingdoms" [十二国記 in Japanese]. Tokyopop translated first 4 books in English, but there are fan translations online for the rest of the books. And if by any chance you read French, all are translated and published traditionally. http://www.goodreads.com/series/4409...welve-kingdoms Here's the setting of the books: Spoiler:
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06-25-2013, 07:09 AM | #15 |
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I was wondering when the pedantic subgenre distinction cops would show up.
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