Fantasy books with interesting settings

[Yora]

I've not really keeping track of fantasy novel releases for ages, but my perception is that apparently settings that look somewhat like medieval Europe and are populated by people who think mostly like modern Americans have been the main thing for the past decade or two. And the occasional wizard here and there, whose main role for the plot is as a scholar.
I am not feeling any degree of excitement for this myself.

Have there been any popular fantasy books this century which have highly fantastical settings with plenty of magic and fantastic creatures, which you would recommend?

[jseah]

It's not a book and not complete, but there's a story on Fictionpress I've been following called Mother of Learning. Very much high magic, bordering on magitech even (they're almost sophisticated enough to make magical tools).

The story is a Groundhog's Day loop, so it's not so much a normal fantasy story by any means either.

[Fri]

Dunno if you meant Weird Fantasy (I know it's a genre) but if you're into that, go check Clive Barker's Abarat. It's really good.

Also, there's Throne of the Crescent Moon, a fantasy novel set in fantastic arabian night style setting. The premise's kinda cool, but the execution is a bit cliche. But I personally think it's worth it for the relatively uncommon setting.

[Eldan]

Makes me think immediately of China Miéville. The setting is what i guess happens if one took classical D&D, put all the weirdest elements front and center and then dragged it kicking and screaming into the early 20th century (in politics. The technology is a bit more schizo). Fascist governments, socialst rebels, magic oil platforms, electrical summoning circles, coal-powered golems and clockwork-based AI.

[Fri]

Yeah, china mievile is the second person I thought when thinking about weird fantasy, but I was wondering if his setting is still to "western" for the op. But it's good and weird.

[endoperez]

Majra by J. Simon is good but not great, but I think it's exactly what you're asking for. Its strengths are in portraying a different culture from the inside, in making you appreciate a different way of thinking, of speaking and communicating and teaching. The plot is cliched, some characters are aggravating, the opposing force reminiscent of a Western colonialism and modern politics, but I still heartily recommend this book. The way it turned around some of my preconceptions reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Nation.

Pale Queen's Courtyard by Marcin Wrona didn't end up being as different as it felt at first (it's very Conan-esque sword & sorcery), but it is set in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, which was interesting.

Their books aren't recent, but you might've passed them by. I did, for a long time. China Miéville and Gene Wolfe write dark, ugly, nasty fantasy. Miéville writes books with all idealism stripped out, leaving just the weird, the magical and the fantastic.
Gene Wolfe is very heavy reading, and I personally couldn't stomach the books about the torturer and the ones I did read I almost couldn't bear to finish. The Knight and The Wizard felt like I was a second-hand witness to something akin to the saga of Beowulf, before the wrinkles were smoothed out by storytellers and the horror was turned into awe.

[BWR]

Majra by J. Simon is good but not great, but I think it's exactly what you're asking for. Its strengths are in portraying a different culture from the inside, in making you appreciate a different way of thinking, of speaking and communicating and teaching. The plot is cliched, some characters are aggravating, the opposing force reminiscent of a Western colonialism and modern politics, but I still heartily recommend this book. The way it turned around some of my preconceptions reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Nation.

Pale Queen's Courtyard by Marcin Wrona didn't end up being as different as it felt at first (it's very Conan-esque sword & sorcery), but it is set in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, which was interesting.

Their books aren't recent, but you might've passed them by. I did, for a long time. China Miéville and Gene Wolfe write dark, ugly, nasty fantasy. Miéville writes books with all idealism stripped out, leaving just the weird, the magical and the fantastic.
Gene Wolfe is very heavy reading, and I personally couldn't stomach the books about the torturer and the ones I did read I almost couldn't bear to finish. The Knight and The Wizard felt like I was a second-hand witness to something akin to the saga of Beowulf, before the wrinkles were smoothed out by storytellers and the horror was turned into awe.

I, on the other hand, adore Wolfe and think he is one of the best writers in the field. Subtle, detailed and engaging. Some of his works are better than others, of course, but his Book of the New Sun which you didn't like, is perhaps his best, much better than the Wizard-Knight (which was good, too).

Matthew Stover has written a couple of Iron Age sword and sorcery stories, set in the Middle East. "Iron Dawn" and "Jericho Moon". Great stuff. Apart from the magic, it seemed fairly well researched (to someone who isn't by any means an expert on the period).

[endoperez]

I, on the other hand, adore Wolfe and think he is one of the best writers in the field. Subtle, detailed and engaging. Some of his works are better than others, of course, but his Book of the New Sun which you didn't like, is perhaps his best, much better than the Wizard-Knight (which was good, too).

He is one of the best writers I've ever read, but I found myself too squeamish for some of the themes in his stories. I liked most of what I did read, but after the first torture scene in a book about a torturer's apprentice, I decided not to read it any further.

How are his other books? I'm having trouble laying my hands on any of them, and I've been wary of buying them since I don't know if he's going to describe violence in as excruciating detail as he did in the Book of the New Sun.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I don't remember what all you've read, but Brandon Sanderson's books tend to be more or less this. His Stormlight Archives series (currently at two books out of ten) is incredibly askew from a traditional pseudo-Medieval setting (complete with characters who have their own moral codes that don't resemble ours at all), Warbreaker is very unlike most traditional settings, and even Mistborn feels fresh and different.

His worlds' magic is always unique, vibrant, and distinct in some way as well--I'd hold Sanderson to be the forerunner of modern high fantasy.

[Fri]

I actually often prefer short stories than novels, and I got one of Gene Wolfe's short story collection. They're weird and good, just what you'd expect.

[BWR]

He is one of the best writers I've ever read, but I found myself too squeamish for some of the themes in his stories. I liked most of what I did read, but after the first torture scene in a book about a torturer's apprentice, I decided not to read it any further.

How are his other books? I'm having trouble laying my hands on any of them, and I've been wary of buying them since I don't know if he's going to describe violence in as excruciating detail as he did in the Book of the New Sun.

What I have read has, in general, been very, very good. As good as just about anyone I can think of. I really recommend you give BotNS a second try. Just skip past the violence that you didn't like and move on. It really was an amazing piece of work. Other than that, you might try The Book of the Long Sun (another quartet). It, and the sequel trilogy The Book of the Short Sun, are tied to BotNS. BotLS is the better of the two and a great story. BotSS wraps up the stories of characters we met in LS and ties it to NS, but is not quite as good as the others (still good enough that I stayed up reading well past when I should have gone to sleep).
Peace is short and very subtle, stand-alone and self-contained. Neil Gaiman said of it that it was [paraphrasing] a gentle, Midwestern memoir the first time he read it and a horror story the second.
The Soldier series has a protagonist exactly the opposite of BotNS's Severian in that he is amnesiac, losing all memories upon waking.
I was a bit less impressed with "Free Live Free" and "Castleview" but I may, like Gaiman and Peace, have been a bit too young to fully appreciate them the first time I read them. I gather that Castleview gets mixed opinions from fans, fwiw.
"Pirate Freedom" is one of his most accessible and easily read and comprehended stories.
Other than that, just try his short stories.

Edit: I can't remember much by the way of torture of extreme violence in his other books, but since I didn't have a problem with Torturer, I may be forgetting something or there may be incidents in other stories that will upset you. Violence happens, and there sometimes bad things happen to people but I'm pretty sure that the detail in the description of torture that displeased you was unique to that story because of the character and scene, and not something Wolfe does for fun.

Edit 2: Back to the Op. Prof. M.A.R. Barker's Tékumel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9kumel)stories are hard to get hold of but are unique and detailed like little else (at least if you go for all the info beyond the novels).

[Yora]

I'd like to read someone who writes like Moebius drew. :smallbiggrin:

I think Mieville is probably closest to that.

[Sangenkai]

I'm reading through Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu. Pan-Asian, "silk-punk" setting with pretty good world building; characters are a bit archetypal but that's because the feel and tone of the book is a bit like Chinese opera or folklore - very gradiose. Kind of like wuxia meets Game of Thrones.

[Bulldog Psion]

Yes, the Book of the New Sun is definitely something I recommend also. From what I can recall, there are only two actual torture scenes in it, and neither one is particularly long. There is quite a bit of violence, in the sense of swordplay, attempted assassinations, and one major battle, but nothing in that is anything you won't find in a typical fantasy book.

In fact, the main character quickly acquires considerable revulsion for the "craft" of torture. He remains a hard, aggressive man throughout, but he gets a lot of humanity along the way, too.

And a lot of the writing is just plain eerily beautiful. There's one passage that I have memorized, in fact, because it seems to me to sum up a lot of the human condition:

"I knew then, on the arm of that giant figure, the ambition to conquer time, an ambition beside which the desire of the distant suns is only the lust of some petty, feathered chieftain to subjugate some other tribe."

[factotum]

When you say that fantasy settings mostly look like mediaeval Europe, does that really mean mediaeval England and the North? Because I have a lot of time for Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana", which is explicitly set in a world that resembles Italy rather than Northern Europe.

[Yora]

The landscape is pretty irrelevant. What I am interested in is settings that have intersting rules or unusual things going on at a big scale.

[factotum]

I wasn't just talking about landscape, I meant the "feel" of the work as well--Tigana doesn't feel like a bog-standard Western fantasy world. As for the "unusual things going on at a big scale", how's about a sorcerer king who is so furious at the titular country that he casts a spell that makes everyone not born there forget the place's name? The story is mainly about freeing the country from the invader's yoke, while at the same time getting rid of that spell so the country can be named freely again.

[LibraryOgre]

When you say that fantasy settings mostly look like mediaeval Europe, does that really mean mediaeval England and the North? Because I have a lot of time for Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana", which is explicitly set in a world that resembles Italy rather than Northern Europe.

Then there's Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books (Kushiel's Dart, Kushiel's Chosen, Kushiel's Avatar, and the second series, Kushiel's Scion, Kushiel's Justice, and Kushiel's Legacy), which is set in an alternate Earth, starting in France and ranging as far south as sub-Saharan Africa, and as far east as the Caspians.

The grognard answer to "non-European" is Empire of the Petal Throne, which I have not read. There's also a collection called "Griots: Sword and Soul" which is short stories set in pseudo-Africa.

[Marillion]

The Deepgate Codex takes place in a rotting city suspended by chains over a bottomless chasm. It feels like the steam-punk slums of Industrial Revolution-era England, similar to Dishonored. That's pretty cool.

The Tears of Artamon series setting is rather like a medieval Europe, but the series focuses heavily on a Russian analogue rather than a mainland nation, which is neat.

Prince of Thorns at the beginning seems to be in a Westeros rip-off, but is actually set in post-apocalyptic Earth. However, the protagonist is very much on the evil side of the morality pool at the beginning. He gets better and starts trying to redeem himself in the other books, but it could be too much for some people.

EDIT: The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman! The setting is very reminiscent of the American West circa 1890. Lore has it that the Gods just got bored when making the world and kinda stopped, leaving the Western edge unfinished. Two forces battle over this land of untapped potential: The Line, demons in the form of enormous steam engines who seek to impose order on the world, and The Gun, a dozen or so spirits who bestow their powers on individual humans so long as they spread chaos. Definitely worth checking out.

[Ravens_cry]

Between the Rivers, by Harry Turtledove. Imagine Ancient Mesopotamia, where the gods and demons and magic were real.
One thing I found interesting, though some people might find this off-putting, is even the 'good guys' didn't automatically have modern Western values. They may have believed more in self-determination compared to others , but they still did things we would not approve of, with the hero taking slaves in battle and using a family owned slave woman. It's actually kind of refreshing to see another culture portrayed where their good does not line up one to one with our good without being in-story branded as 'Eeeevil!'. Still, be warned, if that does bother you, don't read.

[Yora]

Hm... I am very thankful for all of these replies.

But I find I quite surprising that a lot of suggestions seem to go towards "Fantasy Earth, but not England/France/Germany". But still fantasy earth.

I think I'm going to do some closer inspections of Tekumel and Bas-Lag, which seem to be the closest. Even though I believe they are very modern settings with some fantasy elements mixed in.
Isn't there anything like Planescape, Dark Sun, or Morrowind? (But original, not licensed.)

[Eldan]

Looking at my shelves, I don't see anything in that direction, no. Brandon Sanderson might be going in a bit of a Planescape direction if he ever writes his crossover series where all his books meet, but that might be forever away.

[Lethologica]

A couple other stories I remember reading that focus on having interesting/odd settings: Scar Night, and The Book of Ti'ana/The Book of Atrus.

[Ravens_cry]

Codex Alera is another favourite. Honestly, I read both the first book of it and Dresden Files, and I like the former a heck of a lot more. It's a Roman culture, yet, you can also see how it has evolved, so it's not just a direct copy.
The magic has a very personal feel to it that I like. It's not a force, like electricity or heat, but a relationship.
Edit for above: Ooh! Yes! I've read Book of Atrus and Book of D'ni and I own the former. The world and descriptions always drew me in, both in the games and in the books; the concept of linking books and writing touching part of me that spoke back.

[Eldan]

Really? At least reading the first book, I thought the culture was rather non-Roman. I mean, if there weren't a few token Latin words and I was told beforehand that it was based on a Roman legion, I'd have sworn it was all Germanic. Still mostly seems to be.

[LibraryOgre]

Isn't there anything like Planescape, Dark Sun, or Morrowind? (But original, not licensed.)

Heck, Dark Sun is pretty much "Barsoom, the D&D Game." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barsoom)

[Eldan]

Ah, yeah. Barsoom should be mentioned for Dark Sun

Edit: and if we go with "alien ecology, desert like, occasionally brutal societies and magic", then I guess Stormlight Archive fits too.

[Kitten Champion]

There's always Viriconium by M. John Harrison. Harrison realized a world that is genuinely fantastical, a world that isn't limited by expectations, just the imagination which he has in spades. Set in a far, far distant future Earth littered with the detritus of countless civilizations that rose and fell over the millennia, Viriconium tells us the story of the the last struggling civilization the world will know before it fades into entropy. It has the language of English Fantasy, but it's full of vibrant weirdness and I highly recommend it.

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast is another. Though certainly European in manner, It's fantastical but in nothing like in the D&D sense - no dragons, wizards, or magic swords - but a vivid picture of a truly immersive and surreal world with complex characters and a powerful sense of mood.

[Fri]

Hm... I am very thankful for all of these replies.

But I find I quite surprising that a lot of suggestions seem to go towards "Fantasy Earth, but not England/France/Germany". But still fantasy earth.

I think I'm going to do some closer inspections of Tekumel and Bas-Lag, which seem to be the closest. Even though I believe they are very modern settings with some fantasy elements mixed in.
Isn't there anything like Planescape, Dark Sun, or Morrowind? (But original, not licensed.)

Well I'm not entirely sure what you mean by fantasy earth here, because anything will be compared to earth, because that's the only reference point we have. Something like "Morrowind is Earth with Giant Bugs" and Dark Sun is "Desert Earth where Sun has dimmed" thingy.

But I assume what you mean is something that's not directly "Fantasy culture X."

To be fair, your OP is asking something that's not " medieval Europe and are populated by people who think mostly like modern Americans have been the main thing for the past decade or two. "

But anyway, I can recommend Abarat. It's about an archipelago where each island is their own hour, and the main villain wear helmet where nightmare swims around and he breathes it.

It's by Clive Barker. If you don't recognize him, he's, you know, the Hellraiser guy.

[factotum]

Well, if you're after something definitely not set on Earth, try the Helliconia books by Brian Aldiss. They're technically SF, but the people living on the planet in question live largely fantasy lives. As for setting, the planet it's all set on orbits a small star which, itself, is in a highly elliptical orbit around a much bigger star--so you have "seasons" that last for centuries, because how hot the planet is depends largely on how far from the big star it is.

[Fri]

Also, is this limited to fantasy or sci-fi is fair game? Because I think sci-fi people more often write stories about aliens or culture that are completely alien.

[Yora]

Personally I am only interested in fantasy. But if you have something to recommend to sci-fi fans go ahead.

[BlueHerring]

So, I'm going to recommend Sanderson's Stormlight Archive as well. The books are long, but I think that it's Sanderson doing his absolute best at worldbuulding. A lot of the world has adapted the way it has due to weather (the world has "highstorms" that travel in a given direction and people have built lives around them. Plants and animals have adapted to them as well), its own magic system (The storms contain "stormlight", which is used for a number of purposes, but the most common currency, "spheres", can trap stormlight and be used for lighting), and its own history (Nobility in some cultures are based on eye color, which has a historical significance).

Heck, the one place shown in the series to have chickens and strawberries is considered weird by most people.

[Eldan]

Not just strawberries. There's this nice passage where someone sees grass for the first time and is really freaked out by it. Because it doesn't move out of the way if you try to stand on it. They wonder if it's dead or just stupid, because they've never seen a plant without a shell to with draw into.

[Corlindale]

I also really like The Stormlight Archives. Very interesting world, and also just the best fantasy books I've read in a long time. I can't wait for the next one.

I recently read City of Stairs, which also has a quite interesting setting. It's sort of a blend between fantasy and post-colonialism, with a lot of focus on the political complexities of occupying a nation with a different religion and culture, which I haven't seen realized to quite this extent in other fantasy stories.

[Eldan]

I also love the fact that it's illustrated. There's not enough illustrated books out ther.e

[Yora]

Can you read single books of Stormlight. It seems to be not just big books but also a lot of them.

[Eldan]

Not really, no. There's two books so far, and they are giant doorstoppers. Sanderson says he plans about ten. All his other books are only vaguely connected.

[ArlEammon]

Krynn. . . of Dragon Lance is very interesting with it's Mage Towers and various other areas.

[endoperez]

Krynn. . . of Dragon Lance is very interesting with it's Mage Towers and various other areas.

I disagree - it's very, very generic. Color-coded wizards, all the D&D cliches, etc. It does some stuff with the gods (but it's not THAT interesting), and I guess draconians are better monsters than orcs, but that's about it.

[ArlEammon]

I disagree - it's very, very generic. Color-coded wizards, all the D&D cliches, etc. It does some stuff with the gods (but it's not THAT interesting), and I guess draconians are better monsters than orcs, but that's about it.

I don't know. . . Medieval Fantasy is generic in and of it'self. A place where magic is controlled by three mysterious gods, by the presence of mystical towers, where priests control society through arcane magic, pretending to have divine power, where a wizard on the verge of evil can fight and conquer a goddess, and all sorts of story line plot twists and things of interest abound throughout the entire story, is a leg up on Medieval Fantasy.

[Ravens_cry]

I like the fiction I've read, but I wouldn't call it all *that* unique, even for D&D fiction. Still, while I don't know practically anything about forging, so any smithing fiends here may laugh, but I loved the swordsmithing scene at the start of 'Stomblade'. It captured the feeling of 'crafting as worship', which feels very dwarven, at least for D&D dwarves.

[endoperez]

I don't know. . . Medieval Fantasy is generic in and of it'self. A place where magic is controlled by three mysterious gods, by the presence of mystical towers, where priests control society through arcane magic, pretending to have divine power, where a wizard on the verge of evil can fight and conquer a goddess, and all sorts of story line plot twists and things of interest abound throughout the entire story, is a leg up on Medieval Fantasy.

Medieval generic fantasy is generic, exactly. Krynn, even if it's better than average, is still generic. The stories told in that generic setting might be more interesting than many other stories, but it never tries to abandon the premises and go off the tracks.

This thread is about the fantasy that is NOT generic. Maybe it's not medieval. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell for example is Victorian/Napoleonic. It's a place where magic isn't limited by three gods or by towers, but by the honour of a British gentleman.
"Kill a man with magic? A magician could, sir, but not a gentleman." ...or something to that effect. How's that not more interesting than yet another story where morality of magic is merely "an alignment", good or evil or an ambiguous neutral?

Or it could be just weird. Mieville... Well. There's dozens of interesting magic systems in there. Golems (gunpowder golem?), elementals (blood elemental?), biothaumaturgy (to punish criminals in new and inventive ways), watercraeft (imagine harbour workers on a strike digging a trench in the ocean), magic-as-science, clockwork lifeforms, gods that take parts of your self as payment for secrets (your name, your native language, your mother's face, until you cease to be...), city-wide reality bombs, and so much more. Vancian casting pales in comparison.

Now, I'm not saying generic is bad. I love many generic stories. But good and lovely generic story is not UN-generic just for being good.

Sorry for the rant.