The book doesn't need to deal with banal characters, but it needs to avoid focusing on the aspects mentioned in the title. I started reading Elantris a few days ago and was somewhat disappointed that this is yet another book about royal characters concerned with the collective good. And A Game Of Thrones is a book about royal family concerned with their well being. And that's boring. And most fantasy books that are being released nowadays are like that. I think that The Hobbit and A Wizard of Earthsea are the only fantasy books that I've read and have a broader focus than that of Elantris and Game Of Throne.
The work doesn't need to be a novel. It can be a novella or a short story.
by CircusOfCaos
11 Comments
If you’re up to reading a play, “The One True Goddess of Acropolis High” is a comic fantasy centered around Greek gods and goddesses at a high school. It’s available from Big Dog Publishing (www(dot)bigdogplays(dot)com)
The Rook & Rose trilogy might work! It’s all city level politics and the central characters all are or have been poor iirc. Plus there’s tons of fun magic stuff happening!
A Tainted Cup and its sequel, A Drop of Corruption. Holmes- type murder mysteries set in an innovative world. Also Swordheart, by T Kingfisher (leans more romantasy) and other books set in the World of the White Rat, including Clockwork Boys and the Wonder Engine, which are more straight adventure.
The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong.
The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst
Territory by Emma Bull.
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
The Craft Sequence series by Max Gladstone, set in a world recovering from a devastating war between gods and wizards. It’s a really interesting setting, because magic and faith basically work like currency, so gods are also banks and wizards are also lawyers.
*The Works of Vermin* by Hiron Ennes, about a city built into a massive tree stump. The main character is an exterminator.
*Perdido Street Station* by China Mieville, about a scientist in a chaotic steampunk city who accidentally sets a horrible monster loose.
And maybe *The Justice of Kings* by Richard Swan. It follows basically a judge/lawyer and his apprentice, in what starts as a murder case but over the series builds up trying to keep the empire from crumbling at the hands of religious extremists. The king is a character, but he doesn’t play a major role.
*Dark Water Daughter* by HM Long is a pirate adventure about a woman with the power to summon storms as she searches for her long lost mother.
*The Ninth Rain* by Jen Williams is set in a fantasy world that has weathered several waves of alien attacks. It follows a researcher who investigates the remains of these alien ships, her vampire bodyguard, and a young witch escaped from prison. This one has really cool descriptions.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is about a band of thieves.
Shardik
Try Christmas Kats by Mark DePonte. Not a kids story, and the cats don’t talk, etc. (It’s actually 3 stories) Very character dtiven. It’s a mix of smart (not dumb) Hallmark tearjerker, (and you will cry at first, trust me), then shifts gears to a looney tunes adventure, but then shifts again to a dark fantasy, mystery, edge of your seat pot boiler. Nothing else like it.
Audition for the Fox — Martin Cahill About a girl that pledges service to a god and gets more than she bargained for. Great book.
The Fifth Season series — N. K. Jemisin
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Piranesi — Susanna Clarke
Doomsday Book, To say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout/All clear — Connie Willis
Doomsday Book is about a young woman time traveling scientist ending up during the black plague era in the mid 1300’s.
To Say Nothing of the Dog is A Comedy where the main protagonist (Ned Henry) travels to 1880 Victorian England to help calm some of the time issues that have occurred.
Blackout/All clear is about a group of Oxford scientist time travelers who head back to study Britain during WWII and think they might have changed time to the point of losing the war.
There is of course a lot more, but I’ll leave it at this.
*The Deed of Paksennarion* trilogy by Elizabeth Moon is about a woman who joins a mercenary company and develops (per the prologue, so this isn’t a spoiler) into more of a hero. It’s very ground level and focused on common folk and, eventually, some folk religious structures. First book is *Sheepfarmer’s Daughter.*
*The Waterborn* and *The Blackgod* are a two-book set by Gregory Keyes. One of the viewpoint characters is a princess of a sort, but in a more meso-american inspired kingdom and her story is the furthest thing from Arthurian, while the second viewpoint character is in more of an asian steppes kind of culture.
Anything by Charles de Lint(Moonlight and Vines or The Very Best of Charles de Lint short story collects are great)
Anything by Terry Pratchett (Witches Abroad and Guards, Guards)
M.A. Knight’s Trussel and Gout series (The Pig in the Derby Hat)
Marie Brennan’s Lady Trent series (A Natural History of Dragons)
T. Kingfisher’s “Minor Mage” and most of the other works by the author