Why know epic fantasies set in the Far East?

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I don't really buy into the whole "writing what you're familiar with" aspect of all fantasy being medieval Europe.

What people are familiar with is (as you point out) a nonsensical caricature of medieval European culture. "Familiar with" and "accurately informed about" are not the same thing. Most Westerners expect fantasy to look like the fantasy they've seen before, and the fantasy they've seen before is Fake Medieval European. So when people read and write it, they expect and create Fake Medieval European.

 

[Ophiucha]

I would argue it, but as I read fantasy, I can't really deny that it's true. True of every genre, really. How many paranormal romances are there where the girl is the vampire and the boy is the human? One out of every hundred, maybe. But one would hope that the writers of a genre, if not the readers, have read enough of it to be sick of seeing the same thing a thousand times. Then again, if the readers don't get sick of it, then neither do the publishers...

Which, on the topic, is part of the reason you likely can't find much in the way of Far Eastern fantasy. Publishers want what sells, and aside from the recent breakout success of anime and manga in America, none of these Far Eastern fantasy stories have done particularly well. Not poorly, per se, but I'm not sure any of them made it to the NYT Bestseller's List. There seems to be a trend away from medieval towards... Renaissance... after books like Lies of Locke Lamora became successful.

There's also the... unfortunate likelihood of racism in the Western publishing industry. People of East Asian descent are the ones most likely to write stories set in an East Asian-inspired world... but look at all the examples we've given. Avatar: The Last Airbender, created by two white guys. Barry Hughart, unsure, but not East Asian. Lian Hearn, white. Kylie Chan, lived in China (Hong Kong, specifically), but appears to be white. Glenda Larke, well travelled, but appears to be white. Guy Gavriel Kay, white. Of the ones I've read (or seen), they did a great job and wrote some fantastic material. But the only East Asians anyone mentioned are referring to original Chinese or Japanese works (anime, the Chinese classics, etc.). No Asian-Americans/Australians/English/Canadians. So... there's that, as well.

(The same is likely applicable to African-inspired fantasy, but there's so little of that it'd be hard to even come up with numbers. The only examples I can name are by African and African-American authors... but "the only examples I can name" are, in all likelihood, the only examples period.)

 

[Devor]

There's also the... unfortunate likelihood of racism in the Western publishing industry. People of East Asian descent are the ones most likely to write stories set in an East Asian-inspired world... but look at all the examples we've given. Avatar: The Last Airbender, created by two white guys. . . .

I don't think it's necessarily racism. There is a massive stylistic gap between the way stories are told here and the way they're told in these parts of the world. High-context. All that. It's a known phenomenon that most story-telling mediums have failed overwhelmingly to cross the cultural divide between East and West. It should come as no surprise that East Asians struggle to write something that appeals to American audiences; the publishing industry here has been struggling just as much to find works that will sell over there.

 

[Ophiucha]

I could go for that for translated works of Japanese and Chinese fiction - lord knows I've read some dreadful translations (my friend from high school really liked this manga that got three books written as sequels; the way they translated them was... baffling), but Asian-Americans are learning the same stylistic techniques and reading the same books as the rest of us, they're just inspired by their heritage instead of our own. And yet they are very rarely published, let alone making it to the charts. There is also documented racism against African-Americans in the publishing industry, and it's not a hard step to make to assume it's there for Asian-Americans, as well. Hell, half of the publishers out there are still a bit antsy about signing white women and encourage us to use gender ambiguous names (I've been asked to switch my author name to "Alex" from "Alexandra" while submitting poetry several times outwardly to "increase readership"). It's not absurd to think they do the same to minorities, particularly if they have a clearly Asian name.

 

[Devor]

It's not absurd to think they do the same to minorities, particularly if they have a clearly Asian name.

Maybe. But in other genres there are plenty of examples of minority writers being successful writing about East Asia. I find it hard to blame racism in the publishing industry for a dearth of examples in fantasy. There have to be other reasons.

 

[Ophiucha]

Oh, certainly other reasons, as well. The aforementioned fondness for medieval England that dominates the genre not being the least of those. But it's important to address this kind of issue, particularly when we are talking about a culture-specific type of fantasy.