After devouring it as a child, I find that I no longer read much sword and sorcery.

This is not to say that I no longer read fantasy — I do, and enthusiastically at that. But I find the kinds of things that epic fantasy tends to be creative on, like magic systems and pantheons, always seem to do so in societies that more or less all resemble each other.

An example is perhaps in order. At the insistence of a friend, I read “The Way of Kings” several years ago, and will admit to enjoying it well enough. I understand why Brandon Sanderson gets praise for world building. The intricate magic systems and unique religions are truly very interesting, but much of the rest of the world still seemed replete with tropes, perhaps tweaked but not undone. Women are restricted to specific roles, aristocrats squabble over land, there are soldiers and slaves, good lords and bad. This seems true throughout much epic fantasy: when it comes to governance, the same themes appear again and again — a sort of variant monarchism or theocracy, often with strict gender, class and caste rolls, rarely that far off from those we perceive as historical to a vaguely conceptualized medieval era. Even narratives that choose non-Eurocentric historical settings (Black Sun and the Dark Star Trilogy both come to mind) lean into what feel like variations of the same political settings.

I understand why this is the norm — there are narrative advantages in this deference to centralized authority, alongside traditions. A single Dark Lord allows a few compelling characters who are extraordinary wizards or warriors to alter history for the better (and any army such a Dark Lord leads will hopefully crumble once the fatal blow is struck against this single leader). On the other hand, a good king can usher in an era of Eden with a few decrees. In this sort of novel, the fate of the world turns on a few people, which lets the protagonists have plausible sole authorship of world-shaking events.

This is, I hasten to stress, not inherently a bad thing, if executed in a fun or different way it can highly enjoyable.[1] That being said, one reason I love the social sciences, particularly political histories and sociology, is learning all the myriad variations of what human society could look like. Other books mentioned in prior (and perhaps future) posts lay out visions of our own world that are vastly different from those found in the heirs of Tolkien. Kings with absolute authority but no ability to delegate that power to any lackey, societies that moved from egalitarian to authoritarian and back again annually, nations where rulers were constrained by independent judicial and poetic classes, councils, parliaments, and anarchy were all as historical as Charlemagne and King Richard.

It is in science fiction that I have most often found this crucial part of the human experience speculated on — Ursula K. Leguin’s “Dispossed,” Ada Palmer’s “Terra Ignota,” Octavia Butler’s “Earthseed,” Malka Oldman’s “Infomocracy,” Arkady Martine’s “Teixcalaan,” Jo Walton’s “Just City.”[2] These books are excellent for a host of reasons — characters that are compelling and develop in interesting ways, world building that is inextricably intertwined with the plot, real world issues addressed in innovative ways. But it is also that the society itself is vibrant and fascinating; not the same society with a different set of monsters and magic imposed over it, but truly different worlds to explore. I hope someday to find epic fantasy that is as creative in all aspects of its world.

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[1] As an aside, for this reason I like the “Mistborn” series by Sanderson much more, it is effectively a high-fantasy heist novel and I’m a sucker for a good con — and have enjoyed most of the rest of the epic fantasy cited here

[2] I do not know why political science fiction seems to be written disproportionately by women, but I cannot avoid the observation that it is