NonWestern – Page 3 – Marked for Plot

Rakesfall

The Saint of Bright Doors (Chandrasekera’s first novel) has been raking up award nominations from pretty much every major award, whether it be popular vote, juried, or a combination. It’s also a book I enjoyed quite a bit. I initially hadn’t because weirdly enough psychadellic tracings of two lovers across timelines/memories/reincarnations/whatever is weirdly popular in 2024 releases (see Welcome to Forever, Emperor and the Endless Palace, and Principle of Moments), and I’d already read a few. However, when comparisons to one of my favorite novels of all time, The Spear Cuts Through Water, were made by some reviewers, I knew it was time to give this acid-trip of a book a try.

Read If Looking For: Experimental Literary Fiction, layered metaphors, books that benefit from easy access to encyclopedias and dictionaries

Avoid if Looking For: light or mildly difficult reads, anything remotely straightforward in plot or structure

The Emperor and the Endless Palace

Reincarnation and recursive gay romance books seem to be a running theme of 2024 releases. I didn’t read all of them, but The Emperor and the Endless Palace seemed like the type of gay romance that was going to push past the cliches plaguing gay romances both in and out of fantasy spaces at the moment. And despite some classic debut-novel issues, it was exactly what I was looking for.

Read If Looking For: romances that aren’t quite Romances, looping narratives, lustful gay men, historical queer representation

Avoid if Looking For: saccharine queer stories, or books that aren’t romance heavy

The Brides of High Hill

I’ve got a great love for The Singing Hills Cycle, and picking up the newest release was a relatively easy decision for me. The series of novellas focuses on a historian cleric on various adventures, collecting the stories of the people and creatures of their world, which has clear Chinese and Mongolian influences. Storytelling, perspectives, and the meaning of truth are running motifs throughout the series, and they can be read in any order.

Read If Looking For: gothic horror, haunted houses, light mystery elements, quality prose

Avoid if Looking For: deeply thematic works, traditional fantasy storytelling

Empress of Salt and Fortune

I credit my relatively newfound love of Novellas to Empress of Salt and Fortune. I used to be the type of reader who loved doorstopper books – and I still do! – but had a ‘more is always better’ approach to books. Now, I think that the length of a novella gives space for writers to do really interesting, focused stories. I tend to find them more cohesive on the whole, and Empress of Salt and Fortune is a great example of Novellas at their finest.

Read If Looking For: framing narratives, the human impact of rebellions, emotional stories, character studies

Avoid if Looking For: traditional action and politics to happen on screen

Convergence Problems

I don’t read a ton of short fiction, but I’ve been trying to pick up more anthologies after loving Exhalation by Ted Chiang. Convergence Problems features the story A Dream of Electric Mothers, which is one that had been on my list to try out. What I found was a book of stories I burned through in a few afternoons.

Read If Looking For: anthologies, gorunded Sci Fi, parallel storytelling, the link between cultural beliefs and technology,

Avoid if Looking For: a novel,

Masquerade

I’ll be honest that Masquerade was a bit of an impulse purchase. Heterosexual romance focused books aren’t something I read a ton of, but the idea of a Persephone story in precolonial Africa was intriguing.

Read If Looking For: romance with a twist, competent characters, evil characters

Avoid if Looking For: high fantasy

Walking Practice

Translated Novels tend to be some of the more unique reads. It’s easy to forget how much cultures have self-reinforcing patterns in their writing, even across subgenres. Walking Practice is a great example of how translated fiction can be an engaging experience that confronts your notions of how stories go.

Assuming you’re reading in English and not Korean, I highly recommend reading Victoria Caudle’s translation notes, which will provide key context for what the hell is going on with this book’s typesetting.

Read If Looking For: horror with deep themes, gruesome depictions of bodies, gore, and sex, utterly alien narrators

Avoid if Looking For: something like what you’ve read before

The Scarlet Throne

Fantasy and Science Fiction with unique inspiration points are always interesting to me. So when I heard about a debut novel based on the Living Gods of Nepal, it was easy to make space in my reading life to check it out. It was pretty easily my favorite debut of 2024, and didn’t show any of the shakiness that often plague debut novels.

Read If Looking For: villain stories with actual villains, fire breathing goats, toxic family dynamics

Avoid if Looking For: flashy stories, books where villains are simply misunderstood

Jade City

When I heard about Jade City, the things people told me about were great fight scenes and cool magic systems. I picked it up because I love these things. Instead what I got was an intensely character focused family drama with organized crime (kind of) as a backdrop. Plus some cool fight scenes, of course.

Read If Looking For: morally grey leads, deep themes, character focused writing

Avoid if Looking For: lots of fight scenes

The Fox Wife

Historical Fantasy isn’t my go-to subgenre, but The Fox Wife grabbed my attention from the cover art and a plot summary that had me intrigued. Foxes have been a running theme of my reading for around a year, with them popping up in expected and unexpected places, so it felt apt from a motif standpoint as well.

Read If Looking For: atmospheric books, Chinese and Japanese historical settings, few fantastic elements, charismatic characters, feminist themes

Avoid if Looking For: tightly-written mysteries, political intrigue, or action scenes