Try MAR Barker’s Tekumel. It’s very different.
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Burning City and Burning Tower fantasy novels are set in a pre-Columbian culture centered in Southern California.
You’re probably right - it’s been years (good God, perhaps decades?) since I read them. They are fun though - I might give them another spin myself.
Robert E. Howard’s stories of Conan in the Hyborian age are mostly set in Europe geographically, but the cultures are not based on real European cultures of any period AFAIK.
Really? I sort of associate Ron Howard with starting, or at least popularizing, the idea of fantasy as being a pastiche of historical earth cultures. If I recall, he started writing Conan stories as historical fiction, realized he didn’t want to take the time to do the necessary research, and so just grabbed the bits of historical cultures he was interested and pretended it took place in some long forgotten past. Conan is supposed to be a prehistoric Pict, for example, and his culture is a take-off of various Celtic peoples.
I’ve been meaning to contact you - I bought your book and I’ve been reading it during my lunch periods. I’m having a good time with it.
The Stone Dance of the Chameleon triology is low fantasy - that is, without a magic element - that is not medieval. Actually, it’s set in a tropical Antarctica. I will warn you, though it has a very dark and violent culture. Some people will find the setting and action upsetting. Non-European culture.
Which is the world Feist cribbed for the non-European world of Kelewan on one end of the Riftwar. The world was in later books made more Eastern and less Tekumel-ish.
Wen Spencer’s A Brother’s Price. Set in a Queendom in something sorta vaguely like the American West.
Inasmuch as Middle Earth isn’t a particular Earth culture…
I love Under Heaven, but River of Stars is sort of meh. The characters aren’t as compelling, the plot takes forever to get going and then sputters out. It’s set hundreds of years after UH with little connection so someone that likes that one can safely pass on it.
Not sure if pen and paper RPGs are your things, but Exalted has an Asian/Wuxia-vibe to it.
Sounds like heaven to me.
Can I just say how much I really, really want to see a Conan story by Ron Howard?
He did that. It was called Willow.
Great! Thanks so much. I hope I can read your thoughts when you finish.
Actually, most of them were based on real cultures. If he wanted to do a story with medieval trappings, he would set it in Aquilonia. If he wanted to do a story with hellenic trappings, he would set it in Argos or Corinthia. For pyramids and mummies, he would set it in Stygia.
The wiki page has a chart, listing each kingdom and which culture it [del]ripped off[/del] paid homage to.
Donaldson’s themes and plots may be Tolkienesque (although really, he’s not as bad as many other fantasy writers), but his setting isn’t really. I don’t really see much of Europe in the Land, or anywhere else particularly.
Incidentally, if you’re looking for non-European fantasy, check out Donaldson’s novella “The Killing Stroke” from* Reave the Just and Other Tales*.
Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron’s Gandalara series is rather Middle-Eastern in flavour.
“Now, the story of how one family lost it all, and the brutal barbarian who had no choice but to kill them all and take their stuff…It’s Conan’s Arrested Development”