NonWestern – Page 3 – Marked for Plot

The Rage of Dragons

Recently, my epic fantasy books have been political and social in nature. They’re wonderful, but I’ve been itching for the style of Epic Fantasy featuring big armies and world-ending cataclysms. The Rage of Dragons lived up to that promise admirably. It’s more action-heavy than a traditional epic fantasy, with less emphasis on worldbuilding than is traditional. It lived up to the hype, and while I’m not planning to rush into a sequel, its a series that’s on my list to return to sometime in the next few years.

The Premise:
Tau is a Lesser, one of the grunt class who is used as pawns in the great war of the Omehi people. He is smaller, weaker, and slower than the nobility, even before the ability of some nobles to turn into The Hulk with the help of the mages (who can also call dragons). His plans to join the military and earn early retirement with his sweetheart via grievous injury are ruined when his father is murdered by the nobility. Now, he swears to work tirelessly to grow stronger, and to kill the three men who are responsible for his father’s death. At the same time, the war grows more dire, and best laid plans will go awry.

Read if Looking For: lots of fight scenes, quick pacing, the power of friendship & hard work, African-inspired fantasy settings

Avoid if Looking For: chosen one protagonists, unproblematic romance subplots, dragons as a major part of the story (probably more in sequels though)

The Jasmine Throne

The Burning Kingdom’s Saga is a great example of what modern Epic Fantasy looks like, and it’s been on my to-read list for several years. There’s quite a few ambitious sapphic fantasy series that have made waves in the 2020s, and this is a great addition to that list. I didn’t love everything about The Jasmine Throne, and am very excited to see where the series heads.

The Premise: set in an analogue of India, this series focuses on the people of a small territory under the rule of an oppressive empire. Their religious temples have been destroyed, their spiritual leaders killed. Rebel groups fight for freedom, and those in power respond by punishing all who live in the province. Our story focuses on two lead characters: Priya, a temple child with mild supernatural powers who escaped the fate of her elders and temple siblings; and Malini, a princess living in exile as punishment for refusing to burn herself alive at her brother’s throne When Priya becomes Malini’s maidservant, both see an opportunity to change the fate of themselves and their people.

Read if Looking for: creepy plant gods, worldbuilding set up to explore sexism and racism, varied depictions of what female strength can look like, characters making hard (and not always ethical) choices

Avoid if Looking for: epic fight scenes, deep political scheming, instalove romance

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Sometimes, incredible books fall in your lap for no seeming reason (and by no seeming reason, I really mean Audible’s algorithim has learned that I like books about gay men). It’s certainly not my normal fare: I don’t read a ton of magical realism, and even less that pushes more on the literary end of things than the genre fiction side of that subgenre. Yet I’m so incredibly thankful I indulged the whim to dive into this book. It isn’t perfect, and likely won’t crack my favorite reads of the year, but it’s going to stick with me for a long time.

The Premise:
Maali is dead, stuck in a queue to find his way to the next life. He doesn’t know how he died, but he knows that he has unfinished business in the land of the living. He’s a war photographer in 1990 Sri Lanka, a gambler who loses more money than he makes, and a slut who has trouble remaining monogamous to the boyfriend he really does dearly love. He learns he has seven days before he is stuck forever in the in-between, and promptly sets off to try and get his partner and best friend to find his photographs, which have the power to topple a government.

Read if You Like: Magical Realism, ghosts, critiques of colonialism, dry humor

Avoid if You Dislike: tight plotting, morally upright characters, books lacking answers hard questions they bring attention to

Toward Eternity

It’s been a while since I read a book whose back cover so poorly represents what is in the book itself. Anton Hur was done dirty by his publisher on this one, because the premise for the book is much more interesting than what’s shared. I expected a story about how society is adapting to technology that turns people immortal, with a focus on a patient/researcher and his poetry AI bot. While all that is indeed there, this story is actually a millennia spanning reflection on what it means to be a person, a unique individual, and how choices can echo across time. It has at least seven different POV characters who almost never repeat past a single chapter. A much more ambitious novel than it appears; it reminded me a lot of The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez, which is about as high of praise as I can possibly give.

The Premise:
Okay, let’s try to do a better job than the publishers. This book starts in a near-future world where emerging research shows nanomachines can turn you immortal and cure pretty much any ailment. Dr. Beeko runs this lab with Yonghun (who has undergone the research) and who has disappeared mysteriously. One of the only witnesses is Panit, Yonghun’s AI poetry-analysis machine who has been collecting dust for years. From this setup, we start exploring these events from these character’s points of view, then shifting to other patient’s experiences with nanotherapy, before jumping forward in time to explore a new version of the world where we see how these nanobots have shifted the world again … and again … and again. To give some sense of scope, the book is split into five sections: near future, future, distant future, very distant future, and eternity, and the choices of the original cast filter down into later storylines, they aren’t lead characters continuously throughout the novel.

Read if Looking For: books spanning millennia, philosophical musings, epistolary novels

Avoid if Looking For: straightforward stories, single POVs, everything explained in the end

Small Gods of Calamity

This seems to be the week of book club reviews for me. I’m very happy to be a regular participant in r/fantasy’s Beyond Binaries Book Club, which focuses on queer speculative fiction. This month brings us to a supernatural police procedural story. It wasn’t quite as dynamic a story as I would have liked, but I really enjoyed the lead character, setting, and magic. If you want to check out the mid-way discussion of book club, check it out here!

The Premise
Kim Han-Gil is a police detective, one wildly unpopular with his own department. He’s aloof, a bit strange, and trouble follows him. He’s also part of the spiritualist community, helping keep ghosts and spirits from causing trouble. Currently, he’s hunting down spiritual worms causing a spate of suicides and murders in the city. These worms also took his mother when he was a child. Combine that with a new partner (who knows how long this one will last), and memories Kim Han-Gil’s past, and he’s in for a rough week. Doesn’t help that he hasn’t refilled his anxiety meds for the past four months either.

Read if You Like: loner cops, creepy possession spirits, immersive magic

Avoid if Looking For: thrills and chills, resolutions to all loose threads, critiques of criminal justice systems

The Sunbearer Duology

As a middle and high school English teacher, I get a lot of book recommendations from kids. YA and Middle Great books are fantastic, though I don’t tend to read very many of them. When some books – especially the books my LGBTQ+ students are recommending – get student momentum behind them though, I’ll give them a try. Sunbearer Trials was pitched as a mashup of Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games with a trans lead, which was a pretty convincing pitch. Add in that Aiden Thomas wrote one of my favorite paranormal romances in Cemetary Boys, and I was happy to throw a few audiobook holds at the library. In the end, I don’t think this duology is as tightly written as Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, or Cemetary Boys, but it has a lot of heart and will land well for its target audience.

Read if Looking For: quality Trans-Masc representation, teenage angst, Aztec Mythology references, tournament arcs

Avoid if you’re Looking For: nuanced worldbuilding or themes, YA books that diverge from genre conventions

Spirits Abroad

Short Fiction Anthologies are the types of books that I add to my TBR list, but never seem to get around to. I say I want to read more short fiction, say I want to try out some magazines, but never commit the time to it. Spirits Abroad is a first step in trying to make progress on that front and, while it definitely isn’t the best anthology I’ve read, provided several enjoyable reads, including one that I’ll be using in the high school genre fiction class I teach!

The Premise:
As with any anthology, it’s tough to give a succinct summary of the entire experience of this book. However, the collection is consistently grounded in Malaysian culture, folklore, and mythology. Oftentimes immigrant experiences or examinations of how misogyny uniquely affects Malaysian women are themes and motifs. You should also expect to encounter Malaysian terminology and dialect in each story (the audiobook narrator does a fantastic job), and while most foriegn terms aren’t explained, both absorbing general ideas up from context or pausing to do research can work for a good reading experience. You should also expect darker elements in many stories, with some verging into horror territory.

Read If Looking For: Urban Fantasy or Magical Realism short fiction, tight focus on Malaysian communities around the world, simple and straightforward language, feminist themes

Avoid if Looking For: writing that experiments with style or structure

The Truth of the Aleke

The Lies of the Ajungo captured my attention with how deftly Moses Ose Utomi mixed fable elements into a simple, but tightly written novella with an entrancing setting and eye for exploring power as a motif. The Truth of the Aleke continues that journey, jumping forward several hundred years, abandoning the folktale-esque vibes for something more traditionally ‘epic’ while still maintaining the thematic core of the series.

The Premise:
Several hundred years after the events of The Lies of Ajungo, The Cult of Tutu (the now-dead main character of Lies) has conquered the entire desert. Only the City of Truth stands free, relying on its warrior-seers to protect the city from the onslaught. Osi is a peacekeeper who dreams of bigger and better things, and his impulsivity leads him far closer to the action than he ever thought was possible. He wants to save his city, but Truth is not always as simple as it seems

Read if Looking For: interesting takes on traditional story beats, fallible characters

Avoid if Looking For: deep worldbuilding or complex magic systems

The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales

Generally speaking I only read two books at a time: one audiobook and one text copy. This book, however, has been sitting on my nightstand for around a month. Filled with 2-4 page stories (and the pages aren’t big) this collection of fairy tales and fables was perfect to read before bedtime, chipping away at it whenever I wanted to read, but didn’t have the brain power to commit to my longer novels.

The Premise:
With 26 stories in 100 pages (several of which are only art), there’s a lot of variety in content and characters here. However, there’s a through line of in this stories of hopeful vibes, queer characters, and magical worlds. Even the science fiction stories feature magic or magical creatures, and it always felt very fitting.

Read if Looking For: stories that can be read 5 minutes, hopeful and magical vibes

Avoid if Looking For: complex or deeply thematic reads

Split Tooth

Split Tooth is not a novel I should have enjoyed. Despite being an English major in college, Literature with a capital L has always rubbed me the wrong way. Even the more experimental Fantasy stuff I love tends to have strong roots in genre fiction tropes, like The Spear Cuts Through Water. Split Tooth was none of what I typically love, but I found that it became my first five star read of 2025.

The Premise:
Split Tooth follows a girl in Nunavut through her childhood and adolescence. While the story defies traditional plot arcs, you’ll find reflections on her family life, navigating school, pregnancy and motherhood, and the bridging of spirit and physical worlds.

Read if Looking For: books that blend poetry and prose, sparse magical realism stories, books with sharp edges, indigenous voices

Avoid if Looking For: traditional fantasy plot structures, easy reading