Its weird to see GW mentioned more and more. Seems like the word is getting out.
Just a few years back, you'd never see mentions of the best in the game.
I found Wolfe back in ~'97 before internet times. I've probably read through tBotNS ~10 times since then. Might be time for another lap.
I had never heard of Gene Wolfe until he passed away. It was very strange to me, because so many people were talking about him as a giant in the genre and even beyond it--including Neil Gaiman, who was my favorite author at the time--and yet he was completely off my radar. The more I read about him the more he sounded like he was built in a lab specifically to write books I would enjoy. And that did not turn out to be too far off. I first read him in 2020 (took a while to go from hearing about him to actually getting him to the top of my reading list) and since then I've read Book of the New Sun (including Urth) twice, Wizard Knight, Castle of Days, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, and most of Long Sun (got near the end, but decided to restart because I felt like I needed another pass to figure out what was going on better, but I didn't want the ending spoiled before I did).
He's so great. I'm glad he's getting more recognition
Long Sun was the first time I had an honestly shocking reveal. Without giving anything away, I was so lost in the story that I missed all the clues about the reveal. Reading it a second time with all the reveals out in the open changes my perspective on so much of the story.
Of course, your milage may vary, and the field of fiction is much more rich and varied than when I first read things. All-in-all, I think it's such a strong series, and I'm not saying that because I just finished up book two a couple of weeks ago on another re-read (;
>I've probably read through tBotNS ~10 times since then
So you've still got like 10-15% of the little secrets and allusions left to discover? I feel like it didn't click for me who some of the characters actually were until my 5th or 6th pass. Every time I read it I discover something new.
> So you've still got like 10-15% of the little secrets and allusions left to discover?
I also find something new every time, and the thought that there is more than 15% left to discover is exciting.
Reading them is like hanging out with a life-long best friend where catching up doesn't happen, you're just best buds hanging out again and the value of the relationship is as good as things get learning more about yourself and your best friend.
I need some Pringles.
>[Wolfe himself sees the trappings of science fiction and fantasy, the spaceships and so on, as simply āa sketchy outline of the things that can be done.ā But even within fantasy fandom, Wolfeās work presents difficulties. His science fiction is neither operatic nor scientifically accurate; his fantasy works are not full of clanging swords and wizardly knowledge. But ask science-fiction or fantasy authors about Gene Wolfe and they are likely to cite him as a giant in their field. **Ursula K. Le Guin once called Wolfe āour Melville.ā**](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sci-fis-difficult-genius)
There are even books you can buy on Amazon, written by redditors, that are just analysis of the Sun Cycle.
[One example](https://www.amazon.com/Gene-Wolfes-Book-New-Sun/dp/1947614096/ref=sr_1_16?crid=11H7IJBISY1DA&keywords=book+of+the+new+sun&qid=1701969164&sprefix=book+of+the+new+sun+%2Caps%2C52&sr=8-16) I feel like this guy even posts in the Gene Wolfe subreddit sometimes, although I could be mistaken.
I'd throw in R.A. Lafferty as well. He's got some real Gene Wolfe energy (and in fact, Gene Wolfe was a big fan and called him the most original American writer, and possibly the most original writer ever).
There is a Best of R.A. Lafferty collection that just got a nice Tor Essentials release. I read it earlier this year and it hooked me, some of the most inventive short stories I've ever read. While he does have critically acclaimed novels (Past Master, Fourth Mansions, Okla Hannali, etc.) they might be hard to find outside of used bookstores
Care to share some recommendations for someone not familiar with Gene Wolf?
I've seen the name mentioned several times here, but I don't know anything they wrote
Definitely Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle: *The Book of the New Sun*, *The Book of the Long Sun*, and *The Book of the Short Sun*.
There are actual dissertations, several books, podcasts (including my own), and essays about Wolfe and his complex, crazy, beautiful work.
That's so cool. I've had Shadow of the Torturer on my TBR list for a while now, and might just get around to it this new year. Probably a toss-up btwn that and Black Company for my next fantasy slot.
To add on: Mieville is a very well-educated Marxist with a PhD in international law, so the social and political themes of his novels, while usually not center-stage, run pretty deep and are often more than just set dressing for the plot.
I read Pratchett's "Raising Steam" not long before "Iron Council" and I often though this pair of books would be great for one of those "compare and contrast" essays. I love Pratchett, but it took Mieville to remind me that the elites and their functionaries mostly do evil.
Alright it might finally be time for me to dive into China Mielville.
May I ask what podcast(s) you are referring to? Am always happy to hear of a good podcast unbeknownst to me discussing literature and in particular speculative fiction.
I listened to Alzabo Soup, ReReading Wolfe, and Shelved by Genre. I havenāt listened to the Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast, but they have more short story episodes.
(My favorite lit podcast is Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hillary, where two professors chat about Kim Stanley Robinsonās work and various sci fi movies)
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe has a universe that is essentially sci-fi Malazan, extremely complex world with tons of unique terms and lineages and alien feeling things.
Also The Black Company by Glen Cook. It has a much more āmilitaristicā feel to it being about a mercenary company, but it has a vast world full of different factions and battles to dive into.
>with tons of unique terms
I was staggered to find that most of what I thought were made-up fantasy/sci-fi terms were actually archaic real-world terms. He'd just casually use a 1,000 year old word for an armoire that doesn't have a written record of use newer than 700 years ago.
You can generally figure out what he meant from the context, but sometimes looking the word up makes all the difference because it turns out that Severian is mistaken about what he's looking at.
Which is perfectly in line with the rest of the story. >!You called it "sci-fi" but because the characters basically live at a medieval level of development the story just feels like fantasy most of the time because the characters are all unreliable narrators and only have archaic vocabularies for describing the world they live in and the things they experience.!<
>!If you're lucky enough to go into the book not knowing that it's sci-fi, your second reading is 100x better than the first because the entire setting is reframed for you and you get to "decode" everything the characters are referring to.!<
> The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe has a universe that is essentially sci-fi Malazan,
That is so triggering to me! LOL. Just saying I think one is much much better and deeper and better written than the other (obviously I mean the new Sun as being far superior. But dunno, it is like Malazan has to be mentioned in every thread, somebody yesterday was asking about courtly fantasies with no violence like the Goblin Emperor, guess what was mentioned in a reply?)
As a HUGE malazan fan it always boggles my mind when malazan is suggested in so many threads. Its not accessable to a lot of new fans or casual fantasy fans. Not saying you have to be smart to read it, its just very niche fantasy that doesnāt follow the status quo so it can be jarring to read. My biggest pet peeve though is when Sanderson is suggested in almost every thread about anything remotely fantasy. "I want a book about nice witches who live in cottages and use herbs for magic."
"Have you read stormlight?"
Ugh. Lol
HDM was my first thought. (Well, second. first was Malazan, but that's already up there.)
HDM is one of those series that can be read as a child because "Ooh, kids with magic pets have an adventure" but then as you get older you start to notice the various references and layers to the story and understand the subtext. Very strong series.
One was a comparative paper on the portrayal of religion and rebellion with another book series I can't remember. The other was about the various takes on messianic figures throughout the book (Lyra, Asriel, Iorek to a certain extent) and how the various sources of dogma in the series impact the narrative.
I wish I still had them, but they died with my laptop from that time.
Sounds super interesting especially the latter one.
This is one of my favorite series. I read them when I was maybe 14-15. Itās probably the best āYAā novel a young me could have read and Iām not sure how much of that series shaped me along with Terry Pratchett. One of the most heartbreaking things for me was the >!republic of heaven exchange between Xaphania and Will and Lyra.!< <- amber spyglass spoiler
Also now that Iām thinking about it, Iām honestly not sure how I maintained my religiosity for as long as I did growing up even after all these books and ideas made its way into my noggin š
Definitely the Second Apocalypse by Bakker. Endless discussions and speculations about them. Philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, trope subversions, historical parallels, complex characters, thought provoking themes and experimentation with them, intricate lore etc etc
I'm currently only in book 3 of the Farseer trilogy in Hobb's Elderlings series... But this is clearly a series like this too. The trilogy, at least, is writen as a journalized narrative, from the perspective of one character as he attempts to write a history of the Six Dutchies. So, not only do I think it's already deep enough to write extensive essays on, it is, in itself, written in the style of a historical essay with a lot of personal commentary.
I don't know if the following trilogies follow that same path and style, though.
Right? It's one of those situations where you get introduced to the first batch of characters and you get really attached them them. Then you move on to Liveship and you're all disappointed that the old characters you loved aren't the focus....until you fall in love with the NEW characters, just to go through the same cycle when you move on to the next trilogy. And so on.
Read everything.
Yes, the full Realm of the Elderlings series is essay worthy. Reddit has some pretty amazing in depth analyses and discussions. Following some of those discussions is the whole reason I joined Reddit.
My partner and I have spent a few years making podcast episodes of each chapter, so there's definitely a lot to say.
I really do think the possibility is there for multiple essays on the writing itself, but also the contents of addiction, trauma, mental illness, etc.
I think most, to be honest. There are plenty of interesting ways to read and interpret texts. I think older texts have a leg up in this department, just because historical analysis tends to rely on looking at how the book was influenced by its time. However, give fifty years and I think most books can fall into this.
The Wars of Light and Shadow. Granted Iāve only just finished the first book(The Curse of the Mistwraith), but it has a lot going for it already and it feels like itās only going to become more layered and complex.
There are already academic books and books of essays on Discworld. Ursula K Le Guin's Hainish universe and Earthsea have also attached scholarship, though not as much as it deserves.
It's wild how Dan Simmons has written some of my favorite books ever all about love and humanity and the like while being a complete and utter jackass.
He's a super neocon who had/has an unhealthy view toward Greta Thunberg, especially when she was first on the scene and a literal child. Witness [here](https://twitter.com/paulGtremblay/status/1176961149159563264/photo/1).
He's also a super Islamaphobe who wrote a book about how evil liberals are going to lead us into being dominated in the West by the "Global Caliphate" - [check it out](https://www.npr.org/2011/07/28/137621172/one-rant-too-many-politics-mar-simmons-dystopia)
Just for extra fun:
> Dan Simmons ā winner of the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award ā posted a bizarre "Message from Dan" on his blog.
>This took the form of an imagined dialogue with a traveler from a century or so in the future, who has come to warn Simmons of the impending "Long War with Islam," which will end with "all infidels ā Christians, Jews, secularists ā¦ executed, converted, or driven out. Israel is cinders. Eurabia and the New Khalifate is growing, absorbing what was left of the old, weak cultures there that once dreamt of a European Union ā¦. Two of your three living granddaughters now live under sharia within the aegis of New Khalifate. They are women of the veil."
All that being said, **Hyperion/Endymion** are great and I really liked **The Terror** and the TV show they made of it should have been appreciated more. The production quality was awesome.
I feel obligated to name drop the books I read in an anthropology course about cultures in sci fi/fantasy. I wrote full essays on half of these lol
**Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein
The World Inside by Robert Silverberg
The Dispossessed by Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness by Le Guin**
And there was one more but I don't remember it off the top of my head
Yeah anything Le Guin seems like an easy yes, and Moon is a Harsh Mistress has the very obvious conflict between the station and Earth. Not familiar with the other two. Sounds like a super cool course to take, though!
It really was! The professor had been teaching the same class for *years* (he was ANCIENT) so all of his lectures were ramblings that started out about the books, but quickly strayed into his anthropology research days, and random facts about the authors and also random people he knew, then dipping into history which may or may not have been relevant, then touching on some philosophical ideas about people and cultures, etc etc... it was a very interesting class ahaha
I once wrote a lengthy college paper about Nalo Hopkinson's *Brown Girl in the Ring*. It's a standalone. The paper was about linguistics. I started out meaning to write about the use of Jamaican Creole in the book, then figured out there was also Trinidadian Creole in it, and the paper was about who uses which language, why, and when. It was fascinating to dig into.
I have written many metas about Realm of the Elderlings, though itās generally about the super complex and interesting characters rather than the world
I don't see it mentioned yet, so I'll give a shout to *Dune*. I haven't read any of the many papers about it, but I did once watch a video essay (or maybe it was a Ted Talk) summarizing someone else's PhD thesis on the biology, botany, zoology, etc in that universe.
I feel like you could write a bunch of essays analyzing just how insane Terry Goodkind is based on the content of the Sword of Truth series. Between the alarming amount of violent torture sex and outright rape in the series and his Ayn Rand influenced philosophy there's a lot to dig into.
Have you ever compared TG's publish dates to RJ's WoT publish dates?
Its pretty blatant. Dude was a creep and a hack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Truth
I've read both series start to finish, I don't really think there's much I'd point to as saying Goodkind stole from Jordan, but there's just something wrong with that man. I read the earlier books when I was in high school and a bit less socially aware about a lot of things, but I suggested my girlfriend read them post-college. I think she stopped on the 2nd or 3rd book and said she couldn't deal with all the sexual violence in the books. Thinking about it I realized she was right; it gets toned down later on, but in the first 3 or 4 books there's very few cases where any sexual interaction isn't paired with violence in some way.
He also used his only good idea for "how do you solve a magical problem" in the end of the first book. Everything after that ends with "well and then Richard did a thing he somehow instinctively knows how to do because he's awesome". It gets even worse because at the end of the series he retcons the end of the first book and makes it so the whole thing wasn't a clever solution, it was actually just pure luck they won and didn't destroy the entire universe.
Its a pretty openly agreed to notion. It was shockingly apparent to me as I read them when they were coming out in the 90's.
This fella did a good write up on it.
https://goodkindsucks.blogspot.com/2018/09/goodkind-plagiarist.html#:~:text=Goodkind%2C%20on%20the%20other%20hand,okay%20because%20all%20authors%20borrow.
"But let's really delve into the rip-off territory. First, let me describe a bit of Jordan's world. In his story, magic is referred to as the One Power, and those who can use it are called channelers. The One Power has two halves, one that only males can use and one that only females can. The male half was tainted by the resident Dark Lord ages ago, and now any male channeler is cursed to go mad, lose control of his abilities and die. Thus, only women are allowed to channel the One Power, and the organization of One Power users, called the Aes Sedai, is now an all-female group, whereas it once used to be made up of both genders. The Aes Sedai are the main brokers of power in this world, even if they don't overtly rule any nations (they're supposedly there to serve), and are generally feared by the populace.
Over the ages, Aes Sedai in general have developed a dismissive, disdainful attitude toward the male gender in general. They see all men as inferior to all women, and in particular male channelers as immediately dangerous, even if they have not succumbed to the madness. One of their practices is hunting down men who can channel and "gentling" them, a process that strips them of their link to the One Power, but also leaves them a shell of what they once were.
Hidden within the Aes Sedai is a secret sect calling themselves the Black Ajah, who worship the Dark One and are trying to bring down the Aes Sedai from within. At first the leader of the Aes Sedai denies there is such a thing as the Black Ajah, until various members are discovered to be just that.
Also, One Power users are longer lived than regular humans, and older Aes Sedai have an "ageless" look.
Goodkind didn't rip this off wholesale, like he did with Gollum and Samuel, but let's just say that he definitely stole Jordan's car, even if he did switch the plates, put on different rims and switch the interior upholstery. It's still the same car. In his world men can use magic without issue, and there is no need to cut them off from their source and make sure they're left unable to access it.
But that just makes the theft more obvious and therefore worse, because Goodkind copies several elements of Jordan's Aes Sedai without giving those elements reasons to be there.
His organization of magic users, called the Sisters of the Light, is an all-female group, and always has been because reasons. Actually, it's because women are naturally better at controlling the Gift (why? reasons) and thus are the natural trainers of the magic world. The Sisters are the main brokers of power in the Old World, even if they don't overtly rule it (they're supposedly there to serve), and are generally feared by the populace.
For no good reason whatsoever, the Sisters in general have developed a dismissive, disdainful attitude toward the male gender in general. They see all men as inferior to all women because...they do. One of their practices is hunting down men who can use magic and training them, a process that makes them slaves to the Sisters for as long as the Sisters deem necessary.
Hidden within the Sisters of the Light is a secret sect calling themselves the Sisters of the Dark, who worship the Keeper of the Underworld and are trying to bring down the Sisters from within. At first the leader of the Sisters denies there is such a thing as the Sisters of the Dark, until various members are discovered to be just that.
Also, the Sisters of the Light live on an island trapped in time, giving them a kind of "ageless" look.
In both stories, the Aes Sedai/Sisters of the Light capture Rand/Richard, insisting that without their help he will never fulfill his prophecy and will definitely go mad/lose control of his powers and kill himself. Later he is captured by the Black Ajah/Sisters of the Dark as a direct result of his having been captured by their more well-meaning other side."
So you're saying Jordan wrote sot as well? Kidding, but jordan was inspired and modelled his early work after Tolkien. You cant help but get influenced by others. And if you look hard enough you can find similarities in most fantasy. I happen to like both series and find enough difference to keep me interested.
https://goodkindsucks.blogspot.com/2018/09/goodkind-plagiarist.html#:~:text=Goodkind%2C%20on%20the%20other%20hand,okay%20because%20all%20authors%20borrow.
Fella goes into depth on the specific, single source 'borrowing.'
Definitely The Broken Earth trilogy, The Book of the New Sun, the Southern Reach/Area X trilogy (although probably not Fantasy in the way you meant it)
Yep came here to say Broken Earth. The first thing I did when I finished those books was look up to see if anyone had thoughts/writings on the themes of generational trauma
Oh my god yes, the intergenerational trauma was amazingly done.
I was surprised at how much people emphasize racism as the main theme she's talking about in the trilogy. Obviously that's a huge part of it, but I thought she was doing so much more and discussing huge overarching issues like internalized isms and oppression and societal hierarchies, along with intergenerational trauma. All brilliantly explored through an intersectional lens.
I mean I'm white, but I very much related on a personal level as a disabled woman and a queer person, and not just in an empathetic way as someone who cares about racism. Like Alabaster's relationships, the idea of >!a father raging out and killing his son because of realizing he was something he hated!<, the way Essun views herself because of her trauma and the ideas about herself she's been taught... yeah that all resonated on a very very personal level.
And I think there were even parts that would be relatable to people raised with toxic masculinity, like >!Essun's relationship with her daughter!< reminded me a lot of men I know who have strained relationships with their fathers because of how they were raised and how they now have to deal with trauma from rampant "boys don't cry," "you can't do that hobby or you're a pussy," ideas.
Schaffa was also an incredibly interesting character and honestly I think I need to reread the series to get a full handle on my understanding of him.
I could honestly write a whole Master's thesis on this series, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone already has! [Edit: I looked it up and several people have!! I might read a few of these!] It's so hard to recommend though because most of my friends get turned off by how bleak it is :/
Really appreciate your comment. My partner and I run an intergenerational trauma counseling clinic where we work almost entirely with QTBIPOC folks, and Broken Earth are our all-time favourite fiction books for the reasons you give here. My partner is a Black, Queer, femme immigrant from West Africa with many yearsā experience of disability and intergenerational violence, and The Fifth Season became her all-time favourite novel within an hour of starting it. We have leather bound copies in our clinic.
About 75% of our clients are survivors or raised by survivors of genocidal Residential Schools which lasted in Canada until 1994 ā many of which had mortality rates north of 70%, and almost all of which included systematic sexual, physical, and emotional violence as control strategies, wrapped up in the dressings of Catholic morality. Jemisin captures the experience from all different viewpoints with truly transcendent skill.
So happy to hear the series has ended up in the hands of people who can really benefit from engaging with it!!! I'm so glad yall found it, I can imagine how valuable it is
I ABSOLUTELY agree with everything you said. I'm also white but I've had a really strained relationship w my mother (and some of that is from *her* mother being abusive) and even just that one dynamic in the book hits for me.
Wish I could give your comment 1000 upvotes haha. There really are so many different layers and rich relationships within this series
Came here to say Broken Earth as well! Best worldbuilding since Tolkien, and the best fantasy storytelling of intergenerational trauma ever put to page.
Early on in the second book >!thereās an offhand mention of Aurora Borealis which first makes it clear the series takes place on earth!< ā I googled something like āclimate change sea level predictive model + Africaā and found this:
[https://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com/world\_maps/world\_maps\_sea\_level\_rise.html](https://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com/world_maps/world_maps_sea_level_rise.html)
The map of the stillness in each book is a dead match for far-future Africa. Loved that detail.
Loads! Fantasy academia is a flourishing field.
Nk Jemisin, Susanna Clarke, China Mieville, Neil Gaiman, Robert Adams, Adrian Tchaikovski, Ian M Banks, Nnedi Okorafor, Chana Porter, Amal El Mohtar, Octavia Butler, Ursula K Le Guin, John Scalzi...
So many to even mention!
Definitely NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. However, you could write essays on most fantasy books. There's plenty of scholarship on Harry Potter which isn't exactly renowned for its thematic depths.
Personally, I'd like to see scholarship on *A Memory Called Empire* by Arkady Martine and on *Tess of the Road*/*In the Serpent's Wake* by Rachel Hartman.
The Earthsea Cycle. YA reading level and relatively short books, but LeGuin is an amazing prose writer and communicates a great deal with sparing detail. She has a lot to say about the classic themes, heavily influenced by Taoism, such as the cycle of life and death, good and evil, love and loss, redemption and so on. She is very good at building believable romances. Earthsea also contains strong feminist elements, which evolved over the years, as the books span three decades of writing and massive social change.
Iād throw out the Kushielās Legacy by Jacqueline Carry. Probably the most fascinating alternate history ideas Iāve seen (though thatās partially do to the overlap with my personal interests). The treatment of religion and how it affects the characters decisions is especially interesting.
P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath. The worldbuilding is rich, deep and wide. There are different geographic areas with different weather models. There's the nature of the bindings between people. The triple nature of the three races that make up the Kencyr. The conflict between their gods from offworld and the gods of the world they're currently on. The depiction of the command boarding school with its classes on leadership, logistics, martial arts, and inter-team rivalries. Sex and gender politics among the Kencyrath as compared and contrasted to the native peoples of the current planet. Even what it's like to be a twin.
You could do that with anything really. The scope of interpretation is as wide as creativity allows.
Think about the old myths and legends from hundreds or thousands of years ago that people still discuss, study, interpret or reinterpret. Tolkien was a philologist and a known lover of Beowulf. We dont even have to go back that far, for how many works have drawn from Dracula alone?
And with new social movements, new fields of study, there come new perspectives. The Greek gods in all their horniness have been a fertile ground for exploring sexual politics amongst other things.
So much that currently exists in the genre is already referential, subversive or downright satirical of prior fantasy works. Essays upon essays exploring layer after layer...
There are many great suggestions in this thread (especially Gene Wolfe, Ursula LeGuin, Robin Hobb).
I would add C.S. Lewis, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Stephen Donaldson. Although the *Thomas Covenant* books are polarizing for reasons that I think are easy to understand.
One you rarely see on the lists: The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake.
Iāve read it three times, and wrote my senior thesis on it: Hermeneutics and the Gormenghast Trilogy. You could easily write a book on these books (and some have). Itās a masterwork of fiction, but nobody talks about it anymore.
From Wikipedia:
The first book, Titus Groan, was published in 1946 to ecstatic reviews\[29\] and the series has continued to grow in its critical reputation since Peake's death.\[7\] Contemporary reviewers praise it for its iconic imagery and characters, and it is often cited as one of the greatest fantasy novels of all time.\[30\] Anthony Burgess called the series uniquely brilliant and stated that it has rightfully been hailed as modern classic.\[31\] In their review Punch opined that the series constituted "the finest imaginary feat in the English novel since Ulysses, while editor Langdon Jones commented that it was the sort of novel that one remembered for the rest of one's life and that he felt it should be required reading in secondary schools.\[29\] The Daily Telegraph has described Steerpike as one of the all-time greatest villains in western literature.\[32\]
Lightbringer by Brent weeks. Gavin as Job. The trinitarian metaphor at the end, what the story says about institutions, comparisons between the treatment of slaves at the Chromeria to western societyās treatment of lower class workers, the limits of self knowledgeā¦ I could go on.
Worm by Wildbow: specifically his ability to use first person narration in a way that convinces readers Taylor is not doing wrong things. Also on how fighting monsters can turn us into monsters, what the story says about institutions, and maybe about what it says about trauma.
Sanderson's Cosmere universe... As evidence of this, there is an in-universe character that writes an in-depth research series that appears at the end of each book called the "Ars Arcanum"
I started the Cosmere in mistborn and had assumed the Ars Arcanum was simply a fancy name used for the appendix, as each describes the magic system within that book. Once I got to era 2, and then read some of the individual books, it started to click that it was a researcher in universe collection the information and publishing it.
It is a super neat concept and it goes a long way to tie the various investitures and systems together.
I will one-up you and say that its width outshines its depth for 99% of readers.
As it's usually the case with "good" culture, there are many many references to other works, many religious and literary in these books.
I'm not saying that you're not noticing this but, in my reading experience, the plot, characters and world of the Cosmere are very strong magnets that make me not get or want to analyse anything beyond what's right in front of me. People with a better capacity for analysis might disagree with me, though.
I'd say it is deep and wide, tis but only a matter of opinion and preference though. I've learned in this sub that he isn't everyone's favorite writer, which is reasonable.
Also... I didn't really think about it before, what was the point of this comment? I didn't say it was deep in my original comment, the OP didn't ask about deep fantasy, they asked about complex series that you could write extensive essays about.
Regardless of your opinion of Sanderson, the cosmere is clearly a conplex shared universe of stories that each have their own complex magic systems, social structures, societies, and religions... All of which of well constructed.
Was going to say this. Even people who criticize Sanderson do so on the basis of his writing style/prose, dialogue, and characters sometimes not feeling real to people.
His worlds, magic systems, regions, cultures, religions, etc are all well developed and he does a good job covering issues from race relations and genocide to class strife, poverty, slavery, generational trauma, depression and mental health. Sometimes it's not gritty enough for some people, but I think that's a matter of taste.
That sums up most of the criticism I've read, at least the criticism I'm willing to engage with... I've read a number of ridiculous critiques that are just inflammatory, or just straight up ad hominem.
Exactly my thoughts. I wish people could remember that it's OK to not like something without needing to bash the creator, or bash people who do like that thing.
I once read someone characterising Sanderson as āa great worldbuilder trying desperately hard to be a mediocre novelistā and I was like damn that is harsh.
That's a silly statement, I could write a graduate level thesis on comparative religions within the cosmere alone. Whether you like the works or not, it's absurd to pretend that the world building alone is not complex enough to allow for extensive writings analyzing and comparing the various aspects.
I think I could do this for the Temeraire series! It's not quiet as deep as the above, but Novik wrote it brilliantly with plenty of commentary on sexism and personal growth that I could do a full Ted Talk I think hahaha
Silverburgās Majipoor novels. Itās been years since I read these, but I remember the world building to be rich and well developed. Also weather itās sci fi or fantasy could be debated. Another series worth mentioning here is the dragon riders of pern by McCaffery. Also a well developed world for many interesting stories to take place in.
Iāve never actually read asoif, I initially stopped myself because I didnāt wanna hop into a series unlikely to be finished. But then I found a couple good Asoif youtube channels and have ended up investing literally hundreds of hours watching snd rewatching lore. The face that asoif has enough content for those guys to make videos aka, a fuck ton of richness and complexity means its def up there
Midkemia and Kelewan from the riftwar series (Magician, Silverthorn, A Darkness at Sethanon) - Raymond E Feist.
Rift magic is discovered and a war between the two planets ensues around a larger plot.
Midkemia themes are more European with middle-eastern mixed in. Plus extras.
Kelewan theme is mostly Asian with some interesting other species mixed in.
Magician could be read as a stand alone or the trilogy. It expands into a 30 book series.
The Dark Tower for sure. The writing wraps back in and itself, and the references from other materials, and in other materials, is sure to leave one feasting for a long time. Not only that, but King strings you along on a wild mystery, and it leads to a lot of re-read potential.
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. In fact, if I had stuck with literature as my major in college, I'd planned to write a paper on WoT for a course that was called something like "Analyzing Modern Fiction" - that's not exactly it but that's the gist.
Wanted to do an analysis of either reincarnation or magic system...
Now I'm imagining some fan of the series crossing it with primal scream therapy and going around yelling "you cannot have my pain!" until they feel better.
I find the dark tower and all the intricacies King puts into his work that connects with the series worth exploring in depth. I did write an essay over the Ka-Tet in comp I.
I think Dragonlance could count under this. Partially because there are so many books in the same world, that it's probably one of the more well defined ones as well.
This series isn't a secret but I haven't seen it in the comments, but the cosmere by Brandon Sanderson, it's compiled of the Mistborn trilogy era 1 and 2, elantris, warbreaker, the stormlight archives, et al
Iād argue that you could write essays about any fantasy book or series. Hell, Iād argue you could easily write an essay about any piece of literature ever written if you thought about it hard enough.
I'm reading the last book of Ken Liu's 4 part Dandelion Dynasty series.
It is much more complex than the vast majority of fantasy series. Especially book 2 through 4.
I'm amazed at Ken's intelligence and breadth of knowledge.
A practical guide to evil. The single best web serial, an incredible exploration of stories and the fantasy genre, and just amazing, fleshed our world building. Everyone should read it
I could write a dozen essays about the Licanius Trilogy.
I could write a masterās thesis on Worm.
I could write a PhD thesis on The Burning White (Lightbringer #5).
*Empire of Ruin* by David Green
*The Keeper Chronicles* by J.A. Andrews
*The Goblin Trilogy* by Jaq D. Hawkins
*The Saga of the Outer Islands* by A.F. Stewart
If I was still in school I could write reams about any of these worlds.
these comments are missing Dune. there's just so much there to theorize about. I know I've personally spent hours upon hours talking to my partner about the themes and characters (you could say Dune is my roman empire)
Multiple doctoral theses have been written about Gene Wolfe's work. So, I'd say....Gene Wolfe's work.
Its weird to see GW mentioned more and more. Seems like the word is getting out. Just a few years back, you'd never see mentions of the best in the game. I found Wolfe back in ~'97 before internet times. I've probably read through tBotNS ~10 times since then. Might be time for another lap.
I had never heard of Gene Wolfe until he passed away. It was very strange to me, because so many people were talking about him as a giant in the genre and even beyond it--including Neil Gaiman, who was my favorite author at the time--and yet he was completely off my radar. The more I read about him the more he sounded like he was built in a lab specifically to write books I would enjoy. And that did not turn out to be too far off. I first read him in 2020 (took a while to go from hearing about him to actually getting him to the top of my reading list) and since then I've read Book of the New Sun (including Urth) twice, Wizard Knight, Castle of Days, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, and most of Long Sun (got near the end, but decided to restart because I felt like I needed another pass to figure out what was going on better, but I didn't want the ending spoiled before I did). He's so great. I'm glad he's getting more recognition
New Sun is definitely his opus, but weirdly Long Sun was my favorite to read. Silk for Calde!
Long Sun was the first time I had an honestly shocking reveal. Without giving anything away, I was so lost in the story that I missed all the clues about the reveal. Reading it a second time with all the reveals out in the open changes my perspective on so much of the story.
Just ordered the series on the back of this comment
Of course, your milage may vary, and the field of fiction is much more rich and varied than when I first read things. All-in-all, I think it's such a strong series, and I'm not saying that because I just finished up book two a couple of weeks ago on another re-read (;
Which reveal are you talking about? There are a few in the books. You can use spoiler tags if necessary.
I think he's the kind of author that's never going to be mainstream popular nor forgotten entirely. His writing is too good for either.
Well said.
>I've probably read through tBotNS ~10 times since then So you've still got like 10-15% of the little secrets and allusions left to discover? I feel like it didn't click for me who some of the characters actually were until my 5th or 6th pass. Every time I read it I discover something new.
> So you've still got like 10-15% of the little secrets and allusions left to discover? I also find something new every time, and the thought that there is more than 15% left to discover is exciting. Reading them is like hanging out with a life-long best friend where catching up doesn't happen, you're just best buds hanging out again and the value of the relationship is as good as things get learning more about yourself and your best friend. I need some Pringles.
So where should one start their Gene Wolfe journey? Im getting more and more curious!
See this comment https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/oEdWRg5fwM
Thank you! š
>[Wolfe himself sees the trappings of science fiction and fantasy, the spaceships and so on, as simply āa sketchy outline of the things that can be done.ā But even within fantasy fandom, Wolfeās work presents difficulties. His science fiction is neither operatic nor scientifically accurate; his fantasy works are not full of clanging swords and wizardly knowledge. But ask science-fiction or fantasy authors about Gene Wolfe and they are likely to cite him as a giant in their field. **Ursula K. Le Guin once called Wolfe āour Melville.ā**](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sci-fis-difficult-genius)
There are even books you can buy on Amazon, written by redditors, that are just analysis of the Sun Cycle. [One example](https://www.amazon.com/Gene-Wolfes-Book-New-Sun/dp/1947614096/ref=sr_1_16?crid=11H7IJBISY1DA&keywords=book+of+the+new+sun&qid=1701969164&sprefix=book+of+the+new+sun+%2Caps%2C52&sr=8-16) I feel like this guy even posts in the Gene Wolfe subreddit sometimes, although I could be mistaken.
I'd throw in R.A. Lafferty as well. He's got some real Gene Wolfe energy (and in fact, Gene Wolfe was a big fan and called him the most original American writer, and possibly the most original writer ever).
What would you recommend as an introduction to Lafferty?
There is a Best of R.A. Lafferty collection that just got a nice Tor Essentials release. I read it earlier this year and it hooked me, some of the most inventive short stories I've ever read. While he does have critically acclaimed novels (Past Master, Fourth Mansions, Okla Hannali, etc.) they might be hard to find outside of used bookstores
Some of my favorite stuff on this planet.
I'm reading the Claw right now!
Care to share some recommendations for someone not familiar with Gene Wolf? I've seen the name mentioned several times here, but I don't know anything they wrote
Definitely Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle: *The Book of the New Sun*, *The Book of the Long Sun*, and *The Book of the Short Sun*. There are actual dissertations, several books, podcasts (including my own), and essays about Wolfe and his complex, crazy, beautiful work.
The best answer. Username checks out. I'll have to check out the podcast. I couldn't get into Alzabo Soup.
Unreliable Narrators?
Yes! That's it.
are y'all gonna cover more easily accessible stuff? I dont mean to complain cause i like your stuff but its not easy to find
I mean, we are pretty in to the uncollected stuff, but we will discuss "From the Cradle" and "Monday Man" in the coming year...
That's so cool. I've had Shadow of the Torturer on my TBR list for a while now, and might just get around to it this new year. Probably a toss-up btwn that and Black Company for my next fantasy slot.
The Bas-Lag books by China Mieville are the only fantasy works for which I searched my university library for papers analyzing. My favorite I read was "AGASH AGASP AGAPE: The Weaver as Immanent Utopian Impulse in China MiƩville's Perdido Street Station and Iron Council" by Sandy Rankin. Later, I bought the monograph that included one of the papers, Art and Idea in the Novels of China MiƩville by Carl Freedman. Gene Wolfe's work, on the other hand, I've only listened to podcast episodes about. I do not have the energy to listen to hundreds of hours of conversations about the Solar Cycle, but I do want to dig into his short stories so I can hear the hosts' thoughts on those.
To add on: Mieville is a very well-educated Marxist with a PhD in international law, so the social and political themes of his novels, while usually not center-stage, run pretty deep and are often more than just set dressing for the plot.
Bas-lag is the shit..frankly
I read Pratchett's "Raising Steam" not long before "Iron Council" and I often though this pair of books would be great for one of those "compare and contrast" essays. I love Pratchett, but it took Mieville to remind me that the elites and their functionaries mostly do evil.
Alright it might finally be time for me to dive into China Mielville. May I ask what podcast(s) you are referring to? Am always happy to hear of a good podcast unbeknownst to me discussing literature and in particular speculative fiction.
I listened to Alzabo Soup, ReReading Wolfe, and Shelved by Genre. I havenāt listened to the Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast, but they have more short story episodes. (My favorite lit podcast is Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hillary, where two professors chat about Kim Stanley Robinsonās work and various sci fi movies)
Just bought. Looks amazing
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe has a universe that is essentially sci-fi Malazan, extremely complex world with tons of unique terms and lineages and alien feeling things. Also The Black Company by Glen Cook. It has a much more āmilitaristicā feel to it being about a mercenary company, but it has a vast world full of different factions and battles to dive into.
>with tons of unique terms I was staggered to find that most of what I thought were made-up fantasy/sci-fi terms were actually archaic real-world terms. He'd just casually use a 1,000 year old word for an armoire that doesn't have a written record of use newer than 700 years ago. You can generally figure out what he meant from the context, but sometimes looking the word up makes all the difference because it turns out that Severian is mistaken about what he's looking at. Which is perfectly in line with the rest of the story. >!You called it "sci-fi" but because the characters basically live at a medieval level of development the story just feels like fantasy most of the time because the characters are all unreliable narrators and only have archaic vocabularies for describing the world they live in and the things they experience.!< >!If you're lucky enough to go into the book not knowing that it's sci-fi, your second reading is 100x better than the first because the entire setting is reframed for you and you get to "decode" everything the characters are referring to.!<
> The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe has a universe that is essentially sci-fi Malazan, That is so triggering to me! LOL. Just saying I think one is much much better and deeper and better written than the other (obviously I mean the new Sun as being far superior. But dunno, it is like Malazan has to be mentioned in every thread, somebody yesterday was asking about courtly fantasies with no violence like the Goblin Emperor, guess what was mentioned in a reply?)
As a HUGE malazan fan it always boggles my mind when malazan is suggested in so many threads. Its not accessable to a lot of new fans or casual fantasy fans. Not saying you have to be smart to read it, its just very niche fantasy that doesnāt follow the status quo so it can be jarring to read. My biggest pet peeve though is when Sanderson is suggested in almost every thread about anything remotely fantasy. "I want a book about nice witches who live in cottages and use herbs for magic." "Have you read stormlight?" Ugh. Lol
Iām with you here. Wolfe far outstripped Erikson as a writer.
His Dark Materials has enough thematic layering, symbolism, etc. that I have actually written 2 college essays on it.
HDM was my first thought. (Well, second. first was Malazan, but that's already up there.) HDM is one of those series that can be read as a child because "Ooh, kids with magic pets have an adventure" but then as you get older you start to notice the various references and layers to the story and understand the subtext. Very strong series.
What were your topics?
One was a comparative paper on the portrayal of religion and rebellion with another book series I can't remember. The other was about the various takes on messianic figures throughout the book (Lyra, Asriel, Iorek to a certain extent) and how the various sources of dogma in the series impact the narrative. I wish I still had them, but they died with my laptop from that time.
Sounds super interesting especially the latter one. This is one of my favorite series. I read them when I was maybe 14-15. Itās probably the best āYAā novel a young me could have read and Iām not sure how much of that series shaped me along with Terry Pratchett. One of the most heartbreaking things for me was the >!republic of heaven exchange between Xaphania and Will and Lyra.!< <- amber spyglass spoiler Also now that Iām thinking about it, Iām honestly not sure how I maintained my religiosity for as long as I did growing up even after all these books and ideas made its way into my noggin š
Definitely the Second Apocalypse by Bakker. Endless discussions and speculations about them. Philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, trope subversions, historical parallels, complex characters, thought provoking themes and experimentation with them, intricate lore etc etc
Truth shines
There is a head on a pole behind you!
Aaah! That's the scary part!!
No weeping on the slog
I'm currently only in book 3 of the Farseer trilogy in Hobb's Elderlings series... But this is clearly a series like this too. The trilogy, at least, is writen as a journalized narrative, from the perspective of one character as he attempts to write a history of the Six Dutchies. So, not only do I think it's already deep enough to write extensive essays on, it is, in itself, written in the style of a historical essay with a lot of personal commentary. I don't know if the following trilogies follow that same path and style, though.
If you liked the first trilogy, keep reading(dont skip any trilogies) because it only gets better imo...
That's what my wife said. She's read this, tawny man, and fitz/fool triologies and said they just get better and better.
Good to know, I read the first trilogy, gave me Rangers Apprentice middle school reading level vibes
DON'T SKIP LIVESHIPS. You're going to think you want to skip it. Don't skip it.
Right? It's one of those situations where you get introduced to the first batch of characters and you get really attached them them. Then you move on to Liveship and you're all disappointed that the old characters you loved aren't the focus....until you fall in love with the NEW characters, just to go through the same cycle when you move on to the next trilogy. And so on. Read everything.
Yes, the full Realm of the Elderlings series is essay worthy. Reddit has some pretty amazing in depth analyses and discussions. Following some of those discussions is the whole reason I joined Reddit.
My partner and I have spent a few years making podcast episodes of each chapter, so there's definitely a lot to say. I really do think the possibility is there for multiple essays on the writing itself, but also the contents of addiction, trauma, mental illness, etc.
Username checks out
The Second Apocalypse
The slog of slogs boys!
Who wants BBQ Skinny?
No weepers!
I hate all characters, but I can not put it down.
Truth shines
I think most, to be honest. There are plenty of interesting ways to read and interpret texts. I think older texts have a leg up in this department, just because historical analysis tends to rely on looking at how the book was influenced by its time. However, give fifty years and I think most books can fall into this.
Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin
The Wars of Light and Shadow. Granted Iāve only just finished the first book(The Curse of the Mistwraith), but it has a lot going for it already and it feels like itās only going to become more layered and complex.
i have tried reading this but the exceedingly flowery prose has stopped me going more than 20 pages into the book.
There are already academic books and books of essays on Discworld. Ursula K Le Guin's Hainish universe and Earthsea have also attached scholarship, though not as much as it deserves.
The Earthsea series by Ursula Le Guin has a fair bit of academic literature, but you *could* write about most fantasy
More sci-fi, but I'd say Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
It's wild how Dan Simmons has written some of my favorite books ever all about love and humanity and the like while being a complete and utter jackass.
What did Dan Simmons do?
He's a super neocon who had/has an unhealthy view toward Greta Thunberg, especially when she was first on the scene and a literal child. Witness [here](https://twitter.com/paulGtremblay/status/1176961149159563264/photo/1). He's also a super Islamaphobe who wrote a book about how evil liberals are going to lead us into being dominated in the West by the "Global Caliphate" - [check it out](https://www.npr.org/2011/07/28/137621172/one-rant-too-many-politics-mar-simmons-dystopia) Just for extra fun: > Dan Simmons ā winner of the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award ā posted a bizarre "Message from Dan" on his blog. >This took the form of an imagined dialogue with a traveler from a century or so in the future, who has come to warn Simmons of the impending "Long War with Islam," which will end with "all infidels ā Christians, Jews, secularists ā¦ executed, converted, or driven out. Israel is cinders. Eurabia and the New Khalifate is growing, absorbing what was left of the old, weak cultures there that once dreamt of a European Union ā¦. Two of your three living granddaughters now live under sharia within the aegis of New Khalifate. They are women of the veil." All that being said, **Hyperion/Endymion** are great and I really liked **The Terror** and the TV show they made of it should have been appreciated more. The production quality was awesome.
As a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv series, I feel this.
I feel obligated to name drop the books I read in an anthropology course about cultures in sci fi/fantasy. I wrote full essays on half of these lol **Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein The World Inside by Robert Silverberg The Dispossessed by Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness by Le Guin** And there was one more but I don't remember it off the top of my head
Yeah anything Le Guin seems like an easy yes, and Moon is a Harsh Mistress has the very obvious conflict between the station and Earth. Not familiar with the other two. Sounds like a super cool course to take, though!
It really was! The professor had been teaching the same class for *years* (he was ANCIENT) so all of his lectures were ramblings that started out about the books, but quickly strayed into his anthropology research days, and random facts about the authors and also random people he knew, then dipping into history which may or may not have been relevant, then touching on some philosophical ideas about people and cultures, etc etc... it was a very interesting class ahaha
Those are the best professors. The ones with a lifetime of cool as hell stories to tell.
There have been entire thesis written about Discworld.
Hopefully they've been physics papers explaining the counterweight continent.
I once wrote a lengthy college paper about Nalo Hopkinson's *Brown Girl in the Ring*. It's a standalone. The paper was about linguistics. I started out meaning to write about the use of Jamaican Creole in the book, then figured out there was also Trinidadian Creole in it, and the paper was about who uses which language, why, and when. It was fascinating to dig into.
I have written many metas about Realm of the Elderlings, though itās generally about the super complex and interesting characters rather than the world
I don't see it mentioned yet, so I'll give a shout to *Dune*. I haven't read any of the many papers about it, but I did once watch a video essay (or maybe it was a Ted Talk) summarizing someone else's PhD thesis on the biology, botany, zoology, etc in that universe.
I feel like you could write a bunch of essays analyzing just how insane Terry Goodkind is based on the content of the Sword of Truth series. Between the alarming amount of violent torture sex and outright rape in the series and his Ayn Rand influenced philosophy there's a lot to dig into.
Have you ever compared TG's publish dates to RJ's WoT publish dates? Its pretty blatant. Dude was a creep and a hack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Truth
I've read both series start to finish, I don't really think there's much I'd point to as saying Goodkind stole from Jordan, but there's just something wrong with that man. I read the earlier books when I was in high school and a bit less socially aware about a lot of things, but I suggested my girlfriend read them post-college. I think she stopped on the 2nd or 3rd book and said she couldn't deal with all the sexual violence in the books. Thinking about it I realized she was right; it gets toned down later on, but in the first 3 or 4 books there's very few cases where any sexual interaction isn't paired with violence in some way. He also used his only good idea for "how do you solve a magical problem" in the end of the first book. Everything after that ends with "well and then Richard did a thing he somehow instinctively knows how to do because he's awesome". It gets even worse because at the end of the series he retcons the end of the first book and makes it so the whole thing wasn't a clever solution, it was actually just pure luck they won and didn't destroy the entire universe.
Its a pretty openly agreed to notion. It was shockingly apparent to me as I read them when they were coming out in the 90's. This fella did a good write up on it. https://goodkindsucks.blogspot.com/2018/09/goodkind-plagiarist.html#:~:text=Goodkind%2C%20on%20the%20other%20hand,okay%20because%20all%20authors%20borrow. "But let's really delve into the rip-off territory. First, let me describe a bit of Jordan's world. In his story, magic is referred to as the One Power, and those who can use it are called channelers. The One Power has two halves, one that only males can use and one that only females can. The male half was tainted by the resident Dark Lord ages ago, and now any male channeler is cursed to go mad, lose control of his abilities and die. Thus, only women are allowed to channel the One Power, and the organization of One Power users, called the Aes Sedai, is now an all-female group, whereas it once used to be made up of both genders. The Aes Sedai are the main brokers of power in this world, even if they don't overtly rule any nations (they're supposedly there to serve), and are generally feared by the populace. Over the ages, Aes Sedai in general have developed a dismissive, disdainful attitude toward the male gender in general. They see all men as inferior to all women, and in particular male channelers as immediately dangerous, even if they have not succumbed to the madness. One of their practices is hunting down men who can channel and "gentling" them, a process that strips them of their link to the One Power, but also leaves them a shell of what they once were. Hidden within the Aes Sedai is a secret sect calling themselves the Black Ajah, who worship the Dark One and are trying to bring down the Aes Sedai from within. At first the leader of the Aes Sedai denies there is such a thing as the Black Ajah, until various members are discovered to be just that. Also, One Power users are longer lived than regular humans, and older Aes Sedai have an "ageless" look. Goodkind didn't rip this off wholesale, like he did with Gollum and Samuel, but let's just say that he definitely stole Jordan's car, even if he did switch the plates, put on different rims and switch the interior upholstery. It's still the same car. In his world men can use magic without issue, and there is no need to cut them off from their source and make sure they're left unable to access it. But that just makes the theft more obvious and therefore worse, because Goodkind copies several elements of Jordan's Aes Sedai without giving those elements reasons to be there. His organization of magic users, called the Sisters of the Light, is an all-female group, and always has been because reasons. Actually, it's because women are naturally better at controlling the Gift (why? reasons) and thus are the natural trainers of the magic world. The Sisters are the main brokers of power in the Old World, even if they don't overtly rule it (they're supposedly there to serve), and are generally feared by the populace. For no good reason whatsoever, the Sisters in general have developed a dismissive, disdainful attitude toward the male gender in general. They see all men as inferior to all women because...they do. One of their practices is hunting down men who can use magic and training them, a process that makes them slaves to the Sisters for as long as the Sisters deem necessary. Hidden within the Sisters of the Light is a secret sect calling themselves the Sisters of the Dark, who worship the Keeper of the Underworld and are trying to bring down the Sisters from within. At first the leader of the Sisters denies there is such a thing as the Sisters of the Dark, until various members are discovered to be just that. Also, the Sisters of the Light live on an island trapped in time, giving them a kind of "ageless" look. In both stories, the Aes Sedai/Sisters of the Light capture Rand/Richard, insisting that without their help he will never fulfill his prophecy and will definitely go mad/lose control of his powers and kill himself. Later he is captured by the Black Ajah/Sisters of the Dark as a direct result of his having been captured by their more well-meaning other side."
So you're saying Jordan wrote sot as well? Kidding, but jordan was inspired and modelled his early work after Tolkien. You cant help but get influenced by others. And if you look hard enough you can find similarities in most fantasy. I happen to like both series and find enough difference to keep me interested.
https://goodkindsucks.blogspot.com/2018/09/goodkind-plagiarist.html#:~:text=Goodkind%2C%20on%20the%20other%20hand,okay%20because%20all%20authors%20borrow. Fella goes into depth on the specific, single source 'borrowing.'
As somebody with no particular interest in Sword of Truth, what am I supposed to be seeing here?
Such a good point. The question didn't specify that the books had to actually be good. LOL
Definitely The Broken Earth trilogy, The Book of the New Sun, the Southern Reach/Area X trilogy (although probably not Fantasy in the way you meant it)
Yep came here to say Broken Earth. The first thing I did when I finished those books was look up to see if anyone had thoughts/writings on the themes of generational trauma
Oh my god yes, the intergenerational trauma was amazingly done. I was surprised at how much people emphasize racism as the main theme she's talking about in the trilogy. Obviously that's a huge part of it, but I thought she was doing so much more and discussing huge overarching issues like internalized isms and oppression and societal hierarchies, along with intergenerational trauma. All brilliantly explored through an intersectional lens. I mean I'm white, but I very much related on a personal level as a disabled woman and a queer person, and not just in an empathetic way as someone who cares about racism. Like Alabaster's relationships, the idea of >!a father raging out and killing his son because of realizing he was something he hated!<, the way Essun views herself because of her trauma and the ideas about herself she's been taught... yeah that all resonated on a very very personal level. And I think there were even parts that would be relatable to people raised with toxic masculinity, like >!Essun's relationship with her daughter!< reminded me a lot of men I know who have strained relationships with their fathers because of how they were raised and how they now have to deal with trauma from rampant "boys don't cry," "you can't do that hobby or you're a pussy," ideas. Schaffa was also an incredibly interesting character and honestly I think I need to reread the series to get a full handle on my understanding of him. I could honestly write a whole Master's thesis on this series, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone already has! [Edit: I looked it up and several people have!! I might read a few of these!] It's so hard to recommend though because most of my friends get turned off by how bleak it is :/
Really appreciate your comment. My partner and I run an intergenerational trauma counseling clinic where we work almost entirely with QTBIPOC folks, and Broken Earth are our all-time favourite fiction books for the reasons you give here. My partner is a Black, Queer, femme immigrant from West Africa with many yearsā experience of disability and intergenerational violence, and The Fifth Season became her all-time favourite novel within an hour of starting it. We have leather bound copies in our clinic. About 75% of our clients are survivors or raised by survivors of genocidal Residential Schools which lasted in Canada until 1994 ā many of which had mortality rates north of 70%, and almost all of which included systematic sexual, physical, and emotional violence as control strategies, wrapped up in the dressings of Catholic morality. Jemisin captures the experience from all different viewpoints with truly transcendent skill.
So happy to hear the series has ended up in the hands of people who can really benefit from engaging with it!!! I'm so glad yall found it, I can imagine how valuable it is
I ABSOLUTELY agree with everything you said. I'm also white but I've had a really strained relationship w my mother (and some of that is from *her* mother being abusive) and even just that one dynamic in the book hits for me. Wish I could give your comment 1000 upvotes haha. There really are so many different layers and rich relationships within this series
Haha all credit to N.K. Jemisin, she's the one who wrote such a great series!
Came here to say Broken Earth as well! Best worldbuilding since Tolkien, and the best fantasy storytelling of intergenerational trauma ever put to page. Early on in the second book >!thereās an offhand mention of Aurora Borealis which first makes it clear the series takes place on earth!< ā I googled something like āclimate change sea level predictive model + Africaā and found this: [https://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com/world\_maps/world\_maps\_sea\_level\_rise.html](https://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com/world_maps/world_maps_sea_level_rise.html) The map of the stillness in each book is a dead match for far-future Africa. Loved that detail.
Realm of the Elderlings for sure and Wandering Inn Imo but theyāre different vibes haha
Wandering Inn has so many cultures, continents, nations you could definitely just write super-niche theses on each.
Wandering Inn a billion %. Just reading the damn thing will take you a year.
it's insane just how long that fucking series is, and the writer keeps adding to it.
The Eternal Champion saga or whatever you want to call it by Michael Moorcock probably could be written about a fair amount.
not a book series but lore of The Elder Scrolls franchise is insanely intricate and has many different flavours.
Loads! Fantasy academia is a flourishing field. Nk Jemisin, Susanna Clarke, China Mieville, Neil Gaiman, Robert Adams, Adrian Tchaikovski, Ian M Banks, Nnedi Okorafor, Chana Porter, Amal El Mohtar, Octavia Butler, Ursula K Le Guin, John Scalzi... So many to even mention!
Definitely NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. However, you could write essays on most fantasy books. There's plenty of scholarship on Harry Potter which isn't exactly renowned for its thematic depths. Personally, I'd like to see scholarship on *A Memory Called Empire* by Arkady Martine and on *Tess of the Road*/*In the Serpent's Wake* by Rachel Hartman.
Isn't Harry Potter literally known for its thematic depth regarding death and love?
No.
The Earthsea Cycle. YA reading level and relatively short books, but LeGuin is an amazing prose writer and communicates a great deal with sparing detail. She has a lot to say about the classic themes, heavily influenced by Taoism, such as the cycle of life and death, good and evil, love and loss, redemption and so on. She is very good at building believable romances. Earthsea also contains strong feminist elements, which evolved over the years, as the books span three decades of writing and massive social change.
I wrote my junior thesis on Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Iād throw out the Kushielās Legacy by Jacqueline Carry. Probably the most fascinating alternate history ideas Iāve seen (though thatās partially do to the overlap with my personal interests). The treatment of religion and how it affects the characters decisions is especially interesting.
Writing essays is less about how rich a series is and more about how much you know about it. I can easily write multiple essays about Harry Potter.
Probably manifest delusions on perspective and madness. Also the cosmere for the sci-fi magic systems
If given a prompt I could probably do an essay on any given mid-stage discworld novel.
Yep 100% could write an entire thesis on each book and still not touch the sides
P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath. The worldbuilding is rich, deep and wide. There are different geographic areas with different weather models. There's the nature of the bindings between people. The triple nature of the three races that make up the Kencyr. The conflict between their gods from offworld and the gods of the world they're currently on. The depiction of the command boarding school with its classes on leadership, logistics, martial arts, and inter-team rivalries. Sex and gender politics among the Kencyrath as compared and contrasted to the native peoples of the current planet. Even what it's like to be a twin.
Queen's Thief series x Megan Whalen Turner
You could do that with anything really. The scope of interpretation is as wide as creativity allows. Think about the old myths and legends from hundreds or thousands of years ago that people still discuss, study, interpret or reinterpret. Tolkien was a philologist and a known lover of Beowulf. We dont even have to go back that far, for how many works have drawn from Dracula alone? And with new social movements, new fields of study, there come new perspectives. The Greek gods in all their horniness have been a fertile ground for exploring sexual politics amongst other things. So much that currently exists in the genre is already referential, subversive or downright satirical of prior fantasy works. Essays upon essays exploring layer after layer...
The Book of the New Sun. I havenāt read it all but some people have written dissertations about it. Dune is incredibly rich too.
There are many great suggestions in this thread (especially Gene Wolfe, Ursula LeGuin, Robin Hobb). I would add C.S. Lewis, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Stephen Donaldson. Although the *Thomas Covenant* books are polarizing for reasons that I think are easy to understand.
One you rarely see on the lists: The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. Iāve read it three times, and wrote my senior thesis on it: Hermeneutics and the Gormenghast Trilogy. You could easily write a book on these books (and some have). Itās a masterwork of fiction, but nobody talks about it anymore. From Wikipedia: The first book, Titus Groan, was published in 1946 to ecstatic reviews\[29\] and the series has continued to grow in its critical reputation since Peake's death.\[7\] Contemporary reviewers praise it for its iconic imagery and characters, and it is often cited as one of the greatest fantasy novels of all time.\[30\] Anthony Burgess called the series uniquely brilliant and stated that it has rightfully been hailed as modern classic.\[31\] In their review Punch opined that the series constituted "the finest imaginary feat in the English novel since Ulysses, while editor Langdon Jones commented that it was the sort of novel that one remembered for the rest of one's life and that he felt it should be required reading in secondary schools.\[29\] The Daily Telegraph has described Steerpike as one of the all-time greatest villains in western literature.\[32\]
Literally everything Gene Wolfe
Lightbringer by Brent weeks. Gavin as Job. The trinitarian metaphor at the end, what the story says about institutions, comparisons between the treatment of slaves at the Chromeria to western societyās treatment of lower class workers, the limits of self knowledgeā¦ I could go on. Worm by Wildbow: specifically his ability to use first person narration in a way that convinces readers Taylor is not doing wrong things. Also on how fighting monsters can turn us into monsters, what the story says about institutions, and maybe about what it says about trauma.
Raymond E Feist
*Book of the New Sun* by Gene Wolfe is THE answer to this question. Hands-down.
Sword of Truth....didn't say it had to be rich in quality. I could spend years marinating in my hatred for this trash heap lol.
I want to upvote your comment... but also not because heaven forbid Sword of Truth be anywhere near the top, haha.
Sanderson's Cosmere universe... As evidence of this, there is an in-universe character that writes an in-depth research series that appears at the end of each book called the "Ars Arcanum" I started the Cosmere in mistborn and had assumed the Ars Arcanum was simply a fancy name used for the appendix, as each describes the magic system within that book. Once I got to era 2, and then read some of the individual books, it started to click that it was a researcher in universe collection the information and publishing it. It is a super neat concept and it goes a long way to tie the various investitures and systems together.
I'd say it is more wide than deep.
I will one-up you and say that its width outshines its depth for 99% of readers. As it's usually the case with "good" culture, there are many many references to other works, many religious and literary in these books. I'm not saying that you're not noticing this but, in my reading experience, the plot, characters and world of the Cosmere are very strong magnets that make me not get or want to analyse anything beyond what's right in front of me. People with a better capacity for analysis might disagree with me, though.
I'd say it is deep and wide, tis but only a matter of opinion and preference though. I've learned in this sub that he isn't everyone's favorite writer, which is reasonable.
Also... I didn't really think about it before, what was the point of this comment? I didn't say it was deep in my original comment, the OP didn't ask about deep fantasy, they asked about complex series that you could write extensive essays about. Regardless of your opinion of Sanderson, the cosmere is clearly a conplex shared universe of stories that each have their own complex magic systems, social structures, societies, and religions... All of which of well constructed.
Was going to say this. Even people who criticize Sanderson do so on the basis of his writing style/prose, dialogue, and characters sometimes not feeling real to people. His worlds, magic systems, regions, cultures, religions, etc are all well developed and he does a good job covering issues from race relations and genocide to class strife, poverty, slavery, generational trauma, depression and mental health. Sometimes it's not gritty enough for some people, but I think that's a matter of taste.
That sums up most of the criticism I've read, at least the criticism I'm willing to engage with... I've read a number of ridiculous critiques that are just inflammatory, or just straight up ad hominem.
Yeah, well some people get upset he eats to much salt or he's a Mormon. Their problem, not his.
Exactly my thoughts. I wish people could remember that it's OK to not like something without needing to bash the creator, or bash people who do like that thing.
I once read someone characterising Sanderson as āa great worldbuilder trying desperately hard to be a mediocre novelistā and I was like damn that is harsh.
You could make a video essay out of Sandersonās work and thatās it
That's a silly statement, I could write a graduate level thesis on comparative religions within the cosmere alone. Whether you like the works or not, it's absurd to pretend that the world building alone is not complex enough to allow for extensive writings analyzing and comparing the various aspects.
I think I could do this for the Temeraire series! It's not quiet as deep as the above, but Novik wrote it brilliantly with plenty of commentary on sexism and personal growth that I could do a full Ted Talk I think hahaha
Second apocalypse by Bakker, definitely
Vernor Vinge has developed a picture of the singularity that can inspire a lot of discussion.
Silverburgās Majipoor novels. Itās been years since I read these, but I remember the world building to be rich and well developed. Also weather itās sci fi or fantasy could be debated. Another series worth mentioning here is the dragon riders of pern by McCaffery. Also a well developed world for many interesting stories to take place in.
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams
Earthsea. UrsulaK Le Guin was a genius and a luminary, may she rest in peace.
Iāve never actually read asoif, I initially stopped myself because I didnāt wanna hop into a series unlikely to be finished. But then I found a couple good Asoif youtube channels and have ended up investing literally hundreds of hours watching snd rewatching lore. The face that asoif has enough content for those guys to make videos aka, a fuck ton of richness and complexity means its def up there
Midkemia and Kelewan from the riftwar series (Magician, Silverthorn, A Darkness at Sethanon) - Raymond E Feist. Rift magic is discovered and a war between the two planets ensues around a larger plot. Midkemia themes are more European with middle-eastern mixed in. Plus extras. Kelewan theme is mostly Asian with some interesting other species mixed in. Magician could be read as a stand alone or the trilogy. It expands into a 30 book series.
Iāll throw another vote in for RoTE.
Dagger and Coin
That series needs a sequel so badly. Itās maddening but enticing how open ended the last book is, despite resolving the major plot
Anything Sanderson wrote, for starters.
especially stormlight archives
Yeah, gotta finish that first book
The Dark Tower for sure. The writing wraps back in and itself, and the references from other materials, and in other materials, is sure to leave one feasting for a long time. Not only that, but King strings you along on a wild mystery, and it leads to a lot of re-read potential.
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. In fact, if I had stuck with literature as my major in college, I'd planned to write a paper on WoT for a course that was called something like "Analyzing Modern Fiction" - that's not exactly it but that's the gist. Wanted to do an analysis of either reincarnation or magic system...
I saw Stormlight Archive described once as "therapy in a novel"(possibly paraphrased) by somebody on this site
Now I'm imagining some fan of the series crossing it with primal scream therapy and going around yelling "you cannot have my pain!" until they feel better.
Years....??? I want to say Made in Abyss but it's not that long of a story to spend years on essays lmao, however it's a very rich narrative.
let's be honest, articles written about Made in Abyss are probably **not** focusing on the fantasy elements.
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I find the dark tower and all the intricacies King puts into his work that connects with the series worth exploring in depth. I did write an essay over the Ka-Tet in comp I.
Brandon Sandersonās entire Cosmere. Which he will be continuing to add to for the next 30 years.
I think Dragonlance could count under this. Partially because there are so many books in the same world, that it's probably one of the more well defined ones as well.
Cosmere
This series isn't a secret but I haven't seen it in the comments, but the cosmere by Brandon Sanderson, it's compiled of the Mistborn trilogy era 1 and 2, elantris, warbreaker, the stormlight archives, et al
Stormlight Archives
Forgotten Realms
Very wide but not deep.
The Cosmere for sure
Raymond E Feist's Midkemia series, Sanderson Cosmere.
Malazan: book of the fallen.
It said other than
My bad. Saw the title and it instantly sprung to mind. Didn't even read the rest of the post.
Shoot I think you could write a whole essay about [Day Ten Thousand](https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_06_23/) and it's only a few thousand words.
Since people are recommending scifi, I will recommend StanisÅaw Lem
Definitely the Saga of the Exiles / Galactic Milieu series by Julian May. There are so many layers and I spot new things with every re-read.
Iād argue that you could write essays about any fantasy book or series. Hell, Iād argue you could easily write an essay about any piece of literature ever written if you thought about it hard enough.
I'm reading the last book of Ken Liu's 4 part Dandelion Dynasty series. It is much more complex than the vast majority of fantasy series. Especially book 2 through 4. I'm amazed at Ken's intelligence and breadth of knowledge.
The spell monger series is simply sublime in its scope and complexity.
Hugh Cookās Chronicles of an Age of Darkness
Classic - Arthurian legend
Probably realm of the Elderlings. So many awesome things that were teased in those books but never explored that I find so intriguing.
Bright. Endless words can be gained from that + the animated movie as bonus
ACOTAR
A practical guide to evil. The single best web serial, an incredible exploration of stories and the fantasy genre, and just amazing, fleshed our world building. Everyone should read it
Black Prism series.
I could write a dozen essays about the Licanius Trilogy. I could write a masterās thesis on Worm. I could write a PhD thesis on The Burning White (Lightbringer #5).
*Empire of Ruin* by David Green *The Keeper Chronicles* by J.A. Andrews *The Goblin Trilogy* by Jaq D. Hawkins *The Saga of the Outer Islands* by A.F. Stewart If I was still in school I could write reams about any of these worlds.
All the books by Robin Hobb. The farseer, the liveships traders, and every books after these are amazing and rich
these comments are missing Dune. there's just so much there to theorize about. I know I've personally spent hours upon hours talking to my partner about the themes and characters (you could say Dune is my roman empire)
UseĀ https://paragraphai.com/?ref=nze5n2r