Five Fresh Eastern Fantasy Series

by Henry Lien
|
5 books
Chinese readers appreciate long, deep stories. After all, when you come from a culture that has 3,500 years of recorded history and a wall that spans 13,000 miles, you aren’t afraid to go big. Eastern storytelling, in general, has a long tradition of fantasies, such as “The Journey to the West” and “The 1,001 Nights”, that cannot be contained in any single book of normal length. Contemporary Eastern fantasy expresses that heritage in the form of series. Here are some of my favorite modern Eastern fantasy series, inspired by Eastern lore and/or written by authors of East Asian heritage.
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The Beast Player

Nahoko Uehashi, 2019
“The Dragons of Pern” meets “Free Willy” — A Japanese-inspired fantasy about a young woman with an ability to communicate with fantastical beasts who questions the ethics of their use as weapons.

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit

Nahoko Uehashi, 2014
“The Last of Us” meets “Lone Wolf and Cub” — A Japanese-inspired fantasy about a young warrior who vows to save one person for everyone she killed. That promise sends her on a mission to protect a young prince sentenced to death by his own father because he harbors inside him the egg of a demon.

Jade City

Fonda Lee, 2017
“The Sopranos” meets “Avatar: The Last Airbender” — Rival families that resemble mafia clans in an Asian-inspired metropolis battle for dominance over jade, a mystical substance that heightens martial abilities.

The Grace of Kings

Ken Liu, 2015
“A Game of Thrones” meets “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” — A sweeping fantasy about two comrades of war who find themselves pitted against each other in a battle of values for the throne of a vast empire. The series is inspired by Chinese history but also exhibits freshness in its worldbuilding that avoids the cliches of most such stories.

Across the Nightingale Floor

Lian Hearn, 2016
“Shogun” meets “The Lord of the Rings” — An epic fantasy inspired by Japanese lore about a young assassin trained from youth in a very special skill who ends up at the center of power struggles spanning the entire realm. The series refuses to conform to tidy Western notions of satisfying story arcs and is relentlessly thrilling. Note that the author has written numerous prequels and related books set in the world of this series.