I'm thinking about books that haven't the tiniest bit of magic or the supernatural or a single mythical beast, no time-travel, but which I (and many others) would identify as fantasy because it takes place in an alternate reality. Not alternate history, or anything identified as happening in our future, but a place with its own history, geography, culture(s), etc, and therefore a story that could not possibly happen in our world because ... well, there is no place or time for it to happen.
This would not not include stories of low magic, or stories that would fit this category except for this one little thing -- I mean no magic of any kind, no supernatural intervention, not so much as the breath of a dragon.
What started me thinking was a YA novel I was reading yesterday, The Winner's Curse. At one point I thought that the main character's ability to tell when someone was lying to her or trying to cheat her might turn out to be some sort of magical gift, but by the end, when she had missed several outstandingly important lies and deceits, I decided she must simply have some good instincts, most of the time. But I still feel the book is fantasy because of the setting, an imaginary country in an imaginary empire in a world whose geography does not appear to match any part of our own. (As an aside, this book seems to fit in with "Teresa's Curse," in that it seems that recently everything I particularly like turns out to be the first book in a new trilogy, with the next book not coming out until sometime in 2015 at the earliest.)
So in trying to think of other books that fit, I came up with a few classic examples.
The Gormenghast books, of course. Even though it's not until the fourth book that the story opens out into a wider world, I would call the castle itself a micro-world: various, immense, dense with details, yet ruled by so many stifling rituals that the effect is claustrophobic.
Islandia, by Austen Tappen Wright is often cited as falling into this category, though I've never read it and therefore can't describe it. Maybe someone else who reads this thread has read it and can talk about it.
Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner. Nothing vaguely supernatural that I can think of, in the tradition of Ruritanian fiction, but not, so far as I remember, located (as Ruritania is), in any corner of our own world. Books like The Prisoner of Zenda clearly take place in Europe, and important character wander in from places like England and get caught up in the intrigues of the plots. But Swordspoint, though it displays many of the tropes of fantasy based in Western Europe, does not feel like it is in Europe.
I know I've read other books of the same type, but my memory is blocking out anything else. Can anyone come up with more examples? And if you have read them would you agree with my examples?
This would not not include stories of low magic, or stories that would fit this category except for this one little thing -- I mean no magic of any kind, no supernatural intervention, not so much as the breath of a dragon.
What started me thinking was a YA novel I was reading yesterday, The Winner's Curse. At one point I thought that the main character's ability to tell when someone was lying to her or trying to cheat her might turn out to be some sort of magical gift, but by the end, when she had missed several outstandingly important lies and deceits, I decided she must simply have some good instincts, most of the time. But I still feel the book is fantasy because of the setting, an imaginary country in an imaginary empire in a world whose geography does not appear to match any part of our own. (As an aside, this book seems to fit in with "Teresa's Curse," in that it seems that recently everything I particularly like turns out to be the first book in a new trilogy, with the next book not coming out until sometime in 2015 at the earliest.)
So in trying to think of other books that fit, I came up with a few classic examples.
The Gormenghast books, of course. Even though it's not until the fourth book that the story opens out into a wider world, I would call the castle itself a micro-world: various, immense, dense with details, yet ruled by so many stifling rituals that the effect is claustrophobic.
Islandia, by Austen Tappen Wright is often cited as falling into this category, though I've never read it and therefore can't describe it. Maybe someone else who reads this thread has read it and can talk about it.
Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner. Nothing vaguely supernatural that I can think of, in the tradition of Ruritanian fiction, but not, so far as I remember, located (as Ruritania is), in any corner of our own world. Books like The Prisoner of Zenda clearly take place in Europe, and important character wander in from places like England and get caught up in the intrigues of the plots. But Swordspoint, though it displays many of the tropes of fantasy based in Western Europe, does not feel like it is in Europe.
I know I've read other books of the same type, but my memory is blocking out anything else. Can anyone come up with more examples? And if you have read them would you agree with my examples?
