# "Political" Fantasy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 15, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459 "2009-01-15T18:00:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/1 "2009-01-15T18:00:17Z")
Or at least that’s what I call it. Is there some official subdesignation within the fantasy genre to separate the two categories that I think of when reading fantasy? When I read a book in the fantasy genre I always put them in one of two categories. There is the sword and sorcery type (Tolkien, Eddings, Goodkind). They tend to deal more with prophecy, Gods, Demons, mythology. Then there is the type I prefer. I call it Political Fantasy. It is usually a fictional Medieval world that may have magic, elves, trolls etc but it deals with them in a more realistic way. The plots center mostly around political intrigue, clash of empires, betrayal and personalities. Raymond Feist, Katherine Kurtz, Harry Turtledove (The Videssos Cycle), are the examples that pop into my head. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/2 "2009-01-15T19:12:19Z")
I don’t know if I’d call it political, but I see the distinction you’re making. Some fantasies are like myths - they deal with godlike powers although humans might be involved in the struggle. Other fantasies are more like epics - they have human-sized heroes. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/3 "2009-01-15T22:12:17Z")
I’d put Martin’s A Sword of Ice and Fire up there as political. As a bit of a tangent, I’ve heard that most people have trouble making it through the first 300 pages or so of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel books because it’s the setup for the world and deals with a lot of politics, but once they get past that and into the adventurous part they love it. I’m the opposite. I loved those first few hundred pages the best of the entire series. Hell, I just love fantasy when it concentrates more on the politics and ruling classes. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/4 "2009-01-15T22:25:02Z")
Urban fantasies often, but not always, rely on politics. One of the best, IMO, is _Swordspoint_; _The Lies of Locke Lamora_ is also very, very good. Both of these are more tightly focused than Song of Ice and Fire, which is awesome, but has a helluva lot more protagonists. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/5 "2009-01-15T22:32:59Z")
Well, it’s not exactly what you’re looking for, but there’s “high” vs “low” fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/6 "2009-01-15T22:50:48Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > _The Lies of Locke Lamora_ is also very, very good. So is the sequel, _Red Seas Under Red Skies_. Once author Scott Lynch smooths out the kinks in his writing (his pacing needs work), I think he’ll be one of the greats. Another “Political” author is Guy Gavriel Kay - not the _Fionavar Tapestry_, obviously, or his last two crappy books, but everything in between. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/7 "2009-01-15T22:52:52Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > So is the sequel, Red Seas Under Red Skies. Once author Scott Lynch smooths out the kinks in his writing (his pacing needs work), I think he’ll be one of the greats. > > Another “Political” author is Guy Gavriel Kay - not the _Fionavar Tapestry_, obviously, or his last two crappy books, but everything in between. Agreed with almost everything (I didn’t notice pacing problems in either of Lynch’s works, but they could well be there). RSuRS wasn’t quite as political as LoLL, which is why I didn’t mention it–but it’s also a fantastic read. Oh, wait. Now I’m remembering more of the plot, and it turns out I’m smoking crack. It’s TOTALLY political. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/8 "2009-01-15T22:54:34Z")
Two more recommendations within the genre: -China Mieville’s books, especially _Perdido Street Station_ and _The Iron Council_. -Joe Abercrombie’s _The Book of the First Law_. It occurs to me that the books I think of as “grim and gritty” tend to be pretty heavy into the politics. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/9 "2009-01-16T06:50:54Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > I’d put Martin’s A Sword of Ice and Fire up there as political. > > As a bit of a tangent, I’ve heard that most people have trouble making it through the first 300 pages or so of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel books because it’s the setup for the world and deals with a lot of politics, but once they get past that and into the adventurous part they love it. I’m the opposite. I loved those first few hundred pages the best of the entire series. Hell, I just love fantasy when it concentrates more on the politics and ruling classes. I hate to admit it but I have never read Martin’s series. I liked a lot of his short stories. I loved the Wild Card books. I just never got around to the fantasy series. While I was home on leave and at the book store I got my wife to buy the first book in the series due mostly to recommendations from here. I’ll start reading it when I get back home. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/10 "2009-01-16T08:39:21Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > **Raymond Feist** , Katherine Kurtz, Harry Turtledove (The Videssos Cycle), are the examples that pop into my head. I would have put the first Riftwar series more in the S&S genre. It’s only more with the “… of the Empire” series, the Riftwar sequels and the other series that it gets more political than S&S. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/11 "2009-01-16T08:46:56Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I would have put the first Riftwar series more in the S&S genre. It’s only more with the “… of the Empire” series, the Riftwar sequels and the other series that it gets more political than S&S. I can see that but it seems to me that there was a split within the books. It has been a while since I have read them although I just finished one of the “Legends of the Riftwar” books. IIRC the plot line that follows Pug is more S&S while within the same books there were plotlines mostly about political intrigue and the war. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/12 "2009-01-16T16:16:21Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Urban fantasies often, but not always, rely on politics. One of the best, IMO, is _Swordspoint_; _The Lies of Locke Lamora_ is also very, very good. Both of these are more tightly focused than Song of Ice and Fire, which is awesome, but has a helluva lot more protagonists. > > Daniel Swordspoint is urban fantasy? Just because it takes place in a city doesn’t make it urban. I thought urban fantasy was like, oh, werewolves are in NYC now. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/13 "2009-01-16T16:29:30Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > Swordspoint is urban fantasy? Just because it takes place in a city doesn’t make it urban. I thought urban fantasy was like, oh, werewolves are in NYC now. Thats kind of the point of the thread. The question is, what would _you_ call it? ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/14 "2009-01-16T22:28:57Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Thats kind of the point of the thread. The question is, what would _you_ call it? Historical fantasy - there are still the epic themes to it, but it’s more grounded in history. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/15 "2009-01-16T23:40:08Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > Swordspoint is urban fantasy? Just because it takes place in a city doesn’t make it urban. I thought urban fantasy was like, oh, werewolves are in NYC now. See I would put werewolves in NYC in both urban fantasy and modern fantasy, unless they were in NYC in the 19th century, in which case it’d be urban & historical fantasy. Urban fantasy takes place almost entirely or entirely within a city, is usually heavy on politics, and treats the city itself as a character. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/16 "2009-01-16T23:46:04Z")
Also, I would definitely not call Swordspoint historical fantasy. For me, that label is reserved for fantasy that happens either in a real-world historical location (e.g., _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_), or in a fantasy milieu with extremely close parallels to our world (e.g., most of Guy Gavriel Kay’s books, such as _A Song for Sorbonne_). Swordspoint is in a made-up city vaguely similar to Venice, but different enough to be its own creation. Not historical fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/17 "2009-01-17T00:05:01Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I hate to admit it but I have never read Martin’s series. I liked a lot of his short stories. I loved the Wild Card books. I just never got around to the fantasy series. While I was home on leave and at the book store I got my wife to buy the first book in the series due mostly to recommendations from here. I’ll start reading it when I get back home. Song of Ice and fire was the first thing that popped into my head when you mentioned political fantasy, so I was quite surprised that you hadn’t read it yet. I envy you being able to read the series for the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/18 "2009-01-17T01:22:25Z")
The Valdemar series of books by Mercedes Lackey features a world where magic, fabulous beasts, and the direct intervention of the gods take place; yet those things are just elements of the stories. The stories themselves are about people, both on the individual level and on the social/political level. Various books of the series have dealt with palace intrigue, defending entire nations against invasion, the war against the slave trade, potentially apocalyptic (magical) weapons of mass destruction, ecology, secularism vs. theocracy, women and gays from conservative cultures trying to assert themselves, refugees struggling to be accepted into an adopted homeland, and in general people trying to bring some rightness and justice into the world against the opposition of the greedy and the power hungry. ---
**Author:** ![runcible\_spoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@runcible\_spoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runcible_spoon)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/19 "2009-01-17T03:35:28Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The Valdemar series of books by Mercedes Lackey features a world where magic, fabulous beasts, and the direct intervention of the gods take place; yet those things are just elements of the stories. The stories themselves are about people, both on the individual level and on the social/political level. Various books of the series have dealt with palace intrigue, defending entire nations against invasion, the war against the slave trade, potentially apocalyptic (magical) weapons of mass destruction, ecology, secularism vs. theocracy, women and gays from conservative cultures trying to assert themselves, refugees struggling to be accepted into an adopted homeland, and in general people trying to bring some rightness and justice into the world against the opposition of the greedy and the power hungry. As I recall, most of them had fairly action-oriented plots, though. Definitely some political backdrops, but a lot of times the main climax is a fight of some sort. That said, there are enough books in the series that there are probably some that are mostly political. I read them long enough ago to not really know which ones, though. For historical, political fantasy, I’d recommend Thomas Harlan’s _Oath of the Empire_ series. Not without reservations, though - the conclusion leaves a lot of loose ends hanging. He manages to keep an inordinate number of characters and plots running, and loses a few at the end. Still, very, very engaging for most of it, and the epic scale meant lots of politics. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459/20 "2009-01-17T04:13:59Z")
I just finished John M. Ford’s The Dragon Waiting which takes place in a world extremely close to late fifteenth century Europe. The big differences being that there is magic, the Byzantine empire never declined in power, and the Roman conquest influence dramatically shifted religion’s place in society. The story itself focuses on the transition of power in England at the time which brings in people like Richard III fighting for the crown. I wouldn’t call it brilliant but there were some interesting concepts played with in it. I felt that Ford could have spent more time breaking down the political situation (having many characters with very similar names may have been historically accurate but it made it tough to follow at points). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fantasy/481459.md?page=2)