Representation in Fantasy
13 Authors to Add to Your Reading List
Fantasy is often thought of as stories set in an English or Germanic medieval setting. That is partially the fault of J.R.R. Tolkien, who reshaped the genre with The Lord of the Rings. However, fantasy doesn’t have to mean men in shiny armour riding forth to rescue yet another hapless princess. There are writers who are re-defining the genre and filling it with richer, more colourful characters.
Marlon James: Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Marlon James is a Jamaican author best known for his Man Booker Prize winning book, A Brief History of Seven Killings. After winning the prize, he announced he was going to write an “African Lord of the Rings.” Black Leopard, Red Wolf is the first in his planned epic fantasy series. It pulls from the mythology of various African countries to create an epic world of magic and danger. The main character, Tracker, is a queer man who experiences well-developed relationships with other male characters.
It is the most violent book on this list with themes of rape, paedophilia, and sexual assault.
JY Yang: The Tensorate Series
JY Yang is a non-binary Singaporian writer and post-colonial feminist. Their Tensorate series is an epic silkpunk world where people can choose their gender when they feel ready. Gender identity is an important element to the story but is balanced well with the plots of revolution and imperial family drama. The characters in the series are a mixture of women, men, and non-binary people and LGBT+ relationships are presented as a normal occurrence.
Ahmed Saadawi: Frankenstein in Baghdad
Ahmed Saadawi is an Iraqi author whose book, Frankenstein in Baghdad, was published in English in 2018. Frankenstein in Baghdad is a comic horror story that focuses on a man creating a human being out of body parts he finds at car bombings in Baghdad. It is a twist on a horror story set in a place of ongoing conflict; it deftly balances spiritual horror with real world terror.
Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda: Monstress
Monstress is possibly one of the best examples of representation done right in the comic genre. This fantasy comic tells the story of Maika Halfwolf, an Asian woman who lost her arm in a mysterious accident and who shares a body with an interdimensional monster. The world Liu and Takeda have created is full of women and people of colour. The majority of characters are women — including background characters. LGBT+ relationships are presented as normal and commonplace, and the society is primarily matriarchal.
Naomi Novik: Spinning Silver
Naomi Novik is an American fantasy author. Her most recent books, Uprooted and Spinning Silver, draw from her Polish and Jewish heritage to create worlds immersed in Eastern European mythology. Spinning Silver focuses on the intersecting lives of a Jewish woman and a Lithuanian noblewoman, both of whom find themselves in unwanted arranged marriages. Novik’s invocation of Judaism in her work is a great example of introducing religion into a story (in a meaningful way) without letting it take over the plot.
Nnedi Okofafor: Binti and What Sunny Saw in the Flames
Nnedi Okofafor is a Nigerian-American writer who calls her works “Afrofuturism” and “Afrojujuism.” They focus on Nigerian characters and heavily draw from Nigerian beliefs and mythologies. Binti is the first of a series of science fiction novellas; it focuses on Binti, a Himba woman who is the first of her people to attend an intergalactic university. What Sunny Saw in the Flames is a YA book focused on a Nigerian-American albino girl who discovers that she is a member of a magical community known as the Leopard People.
G. Willow Willson: Ms Marvel and Alif the Unseen
G. Willow Willson is a Muslim author who writes science fiction and comics. She is best known for Ms Marvel, the first Muslim Marvel superhero. Ms Marvel is the story of Kamala Khan, a Pakastani American girl who discovers she has super powers. Kamala Khan is surrounded by a community of fellow Muslims, all of whom help to support Kamala in her heroic endeavours. G. Willow Willson is also the author of Alif the Unseen, a book that combines science fiction and Islamic mysticism. It follows Alif, a man from a fictional Arab country, who tries to build a quantum computer with the help of two djinn.
Saladin Ahmed: Throne of the Crescent Moon
Saladin Ahmed is an Arab American writer, best known for his work on comic books such as Black Bolt. However, he also wrote his own fantasy book: Throne of the Crescent Moon. It is set in an Arabic fantasy world. The enemies are djinn and ghuls, and the characters are from fictionalised Arabic and East Asian countries. It is an example of what a fantasy story can do when it leaves behind a medieval Western European setting.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Gods of Jade and Shadow
Gods of Jade and Shadow is the most recent novel of Mexican writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It follows a Mexican woman as she aids the Mayan god of death in his quest to regain his throne. The main character, Casiopea, is described as a mixed race woman - her mother is of Spanish heritage and her father is a native Mexican. Women like Casiopea are not traditionally portrayed as heroines - they are more likely to be the serving staff in the background of a story rather than a heroine in her own right. This makes Gods of Jade and Shadow compelling, beyond is cosmic plot.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: Palace of Illusions
The Palace of Illusions, by Indian author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, is a retelling of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata. The Palace of Illusions retells the Mahabharata from the perspective of Draupadi, a woman who married all five of the Pandava brothers in a rare case of polyandry. The story remains grounded in reality — it uses magical realism to retell a religious text. Even though Hindu gods like Krishna are main characters, their divinity is shrouded in doubt. This allows Divakaruni to retell Mahabharata and add depth and humanity to the characters.
Robin Hobb: Realm of the Elderlings book series
Robin Hobb is most famous for her Elderling universe, which includes The Assassin’s Apprentice and the Liveship series. The universe she creates has a conventional European setting, however, the Fool — the person who connects these books together into a single universe — is far from standard. When we first meet the Fool, he is presented as an eccentric, and possibly magical, man. However, as the series progresses, the Fool is increasingly represented as gender fluid. Unlike the Tensorate series or Left Hand of Darkness, gender hasn’t been removed from society. The Fool just doesn’t let that define his own identity.
Ursula le Guin: Left Hand of Darkness
When people think of a science fiction book that plays with gender, they almost always think of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. And for good reason — The Left Hand of Darkness is a compelling story focused on Winter, a planet where gender doesn’t exist. All of the inhabitants of Winter are nonbinary (as male and female genders do not exist on the planet). A human man is left facing his own understanding of gender while trying to negotiate a treaty with the people of Winter.
Stephen Graham Jones: Mapping the Interior
Stephen Graham Jones is a Blackfeet Native American who primarily writes horror. Mapping the Interior is a ghost story about a man who comes to haunt his son. Native Americans have long been an important element of horror games, especially those related to World of Darkness. If we as RPG players are drawing from Native American stories, we should read their authors and their ghost stories and use them as the basis of our own stories.
The people on this list are just a few of the authors creating diverse fantasy and science fiction worlds. We hope this gives you a good place to start.
This list was compiled by Sarah Pipkin, secretary and co-founder of No More Damsels. If you have any suggestions that you think should be added to this, or future booklists, you can contact her at nomoredamselsrpg@gmail.com.
Sensitivity reading was done by JP Casey and Diamond Irwin.