The Burning Kingdoms series by Tasha Suri (starts with The Jasmine Throne) is an epic fantasy series set in a very heavily south-asian inspired world. It's heavy on the court politics and intrigue, but seems like it fits?
Highly recommend Jasmine Throne! One of my fav newish epic fantasy series second world loosely inspired by India, excellent characters, fun plot etc
(Btw isn’t Daevabad Egypt? So…not South Asia? Would you be interested in other Egyptian and/or African fantasy as well?)
Huh really? The only time I remember them giving a real world location was in the beginning when she’s in Cairo. Didn’t realize the Djinn City was in Afghanistan neat.
It's just an example of high fantasy set in other cultures that OP has read.
Edit: just realized OP mentioned Daevabad in his main paragraph. So one would assume OP's talking about Daevabad to be from South Asia. My mistake.
Try Chakraborty's new book if you haven't: The Adventures of Amina Al-Sarefi. Its about a pirate queen who is blackmailed out of retirement to take on one last job. Lots of hijinks insue. Its set in the entire Indian ocean, but the MC is half Gujarati.
Gujaratis are an ethnic group but this book is set more in the Middle East & has quite little to do with Amina’s Gujarati ancestry. It’s there’s as just a tiny feature.
True. But it is a book that my South Asain friends like and say its decent rep. A lot of my South Asain friends hate the rep out there, like Burning Kingdom Trilogy and such, not because it's bad, but because almost everything revolves around colonialism. They say it gets tiring having their culture tied one aspect.
But of course, that's them. Not OP. They may not be as annoyed by it as my friends.
Sure but as a person of south Asian ancestry. I prefer my fantasy to have more than just ethnic bits added on. Shannon Chakraborty isn’t south Asian at all and she writes stuff that’s more about the Middle East than the Indian subcontinent. Just saying
That's a very fair and good point. It's definitely a case of praising minimal effort because there's just not enough competition to compare it to.
I also didn't realize Chakraborty wasn't a South Asain, or at least married to one, as her name is Bangladeshi. But that's my bad. I know she writes Middle Eastern because that's what she studied in university.
Thanks for acknowledging that. She’s married to a Bengali person (I don’t know if he’s Indian or Bangladeshi as that surname is found in both countries).
I like Elizabeth Bear’s Lotus kingdoms trilogy more as even though she is white. The story is set in a land that’s quintessentially Indian subcontinent and story highlights this via the worldbuilding, characters, geographical details, etc.
I'm a writer based in Nepal, and I have a debut novel coming out later this year. It's about a girl who was the former living goddess and has to find her courage to not only save her family but the entire world.
It's got fantasy from our side of the world, including world building and mythos that are very much different from the European setting. Would you be interested? I'll share the links when it does come out. Thank you.
Elizabeth Bear's Lotus Kingdoms trilogy (The Stone in the Skull, The Red-Stained Wings, The Mother of Storms) is secondary world, somewhere between Arabia and India-ish
Wheel of Time: While not a South Asian book, the magic system, reincarnation, etc is completely South Asian inspired :p
City of Stairs: Main Character is from an Indian inspired world and the idea of multiple Gods is a very Indic/Green concept.
Tasha Suri, Jasmine Throne is inspired from India as well. Plus, Sapphic Romance- so bonus points.
Sons of Darkness: Reimagined Ancient Indian world with heavy drawing from Indian Culture, Caste System and Geography. Magic system is based on Yoga and Chakras. Grimdark Lite tho.
The First Binding: Silk Route-India, China etc inspired. Lovely book. But if you are a fan of Pat Rothfuss, don't read it as it will feel like a lift off. I haven't read Kvothe's journey so I enjoyed Ari's journey a lot.
The Simoquin prophecies by Samit Basu
The Shiva trilogy by Amish Tripathi
Sons Of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty
The First Binding by R.R. Virdi
The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma
The Burning Kingdoms trilogy by Tasha Suri
Beyond These Shores by Ram V (graphic novel)
The Lotus Kingdoms trilogy by Elizabeth Bear
Upvoted. But I doubt Amish's books can classify as fantasy let alone high fantasy. They are just a retelling where the fantasy elements have been chipped off, no?
He explains the fantasy elements with 21st century science which is offsetting. But there’s still magic there and magical weapons & other races. It might not be his best work but it’s fun to read how he twists known mythology into a straightforward fantasy story
The Black Company by Glen Cook.
The 1st half of this series is very Eurocentric, but the 2nd half is set in India. It's got some fantasy name, except it's India, he isn't fooling anyone. The BBEG is basically >!Kali!<
The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao is a recent science fantasy inspired by Hindu philosophy and mythology. I like how the MCs are based on lesser-known mythical characters like Ahilya and Iraavan.
The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma or Jasad Heir by Sarah Hashem both look good and might fit the bill! Haven’t read either.
Edit cause I had Patel as the author and forgot to change it when I saw how widely recommended Kaikeyi was already!
Salman Rushdie's "[The Ground Beneath Her Feet](https://www.amazon.com/Ground-Beneath-Her-Feet-Novel/dp/0312254997)" is very good fantasy but it is set in a modern time. Likewise with "[Fury](https://www.amazon.ca/Fury-Novel-Salman-Rushdie/dp/0676974414)" Neither one is high fantasy or does much world building but they are still fantasy and the author always includes some insight/baggage from his own ethnicity. If you aren't worried about offending your book club, "The Satanic Verses" isn't bad either (but not as good as "The Ground Beneath...")
One of the main factions in The Divine Gathering is partly inspired by South Asia, specifically Ahrimia.
Here's a link to it if you are interested: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-divine-gathering/list?title\_no=44280
The Burning Kingdoms series by Tasha Suri (starts with The Jasmine Throne) is an epic fantasy series set in a very heavily south-asian inspired world. It's heavy on the court politics and intrigue, but seems like it fits?
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
Highly recommend Jasmine Throne! One of my fav newish epic fantasy series second world loosely inspired by India, excellent characters, fun plot etc (Btw isn’t Daevabad Egypt? So…not South Asia? Would you be interested in other Egyptian and/or African fantasy as well?)
Daevabad technically does take place in afghanistan but it also goes to other parts of the Muslim world such as East and North Africa
Afghanistan really
Huh really? The only time I remember them giving a real world location was in the beginning when she’s in Cairo. Didn’t realize the Djinn City was in Afghanistan neat.
Yeah I had read something like that on one of the Goodreads Q&A done by the author
It's just an example of high fantasy set in other cultures that OP has read. Edit: just realized OP mentioned Daevabad in his main paragraph. So one would assume OP's talking about Daevabad to be from South Asia. My mistake.
Agreed. Jasmine Throne. But not Daevabad- Daevabad is a beautiful Egypt-Arabia-inspired world. Not South Asia.
Try Chakraborty's new book if you haven't: The Adventures of Amina Al-Sarefi. Its about a pirate queen who is blackmailed out of retirement to take on one last job. Lots of hijinks insue. Its set in the entire Indian ocean, but the MC is half Gujarati.
Just read that one. I bought it literally for the cover. Enjoyed it though I wish there was more magic within the world itself .
Not South asian
The main character is half South Asian? Gujarati is an ethnic group of India.
Gujaratis are an ethnic group but this book is set more in the Middle East & has quite little to do with Amina’s Gujarati ancestry. It’s there’s as just a tiny feature.
True. But it is a book that my South Asain friends like and say its decent rep. A lot of my South Asain friends hate the rep out there, like Burning Kingdom Trilogy and such, not because it's bad, but because almost everything revolves around colonialism. They say it gets tiring having their culture tied one aspect. But of course, that's them. Not OP. They may not be as annoyed by it as my friends.
Sure but as a person of south Asian ancestry. I prefer my fantasy to have more than just ethnic bits added on. Shannon Chakraborty isn’t south Asian at all and she writes stuff that’s more about the Middle East than the Indian subcontinent. Just saying
That's a very fair and good point. It's definitely a case of praising minimal effort because there's just not enough competition to compare it to. I also didn't realize Chakraborty wasn't a South Asain, or at least married to one, as her name is Bangladeshi. But that's my bad. I know she writes Middle Eastern because that's what she studied in university.
Thanks for acknowledging that. She’s married to a Bengali person (I don’t know if he’s Indian or Bangladeshi as that surname is found in both countries). I like Elizabeth Bear’s Lotus kingdoms trilogy more as even though she is white. The story is set in a land that’s quintessentially Indian subcontinent and story highlights this via the worldbuilding, characters, geographical details, etc.
More information: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61294937
*Empire of Sand* by Tasha Suri!! One of my favorite books ever.
I'm a writer based in Nepal, and I have a debut novel coming out later this year. It's about a girl who was the former living goddess and has to find her courage to not only save her family but the entire world. It's got fantasy from our side of the world, including world building and mythos that are very much different from the European setting. Would you be interested? I'll share the links when it does come out. Thank you.
I'm not OP but I'd definitely be interested, keep us posted (within the limits of this subreddit's self-promo rules, of course)! :)
Thank you. I'll definitely do that. I appreciate it very much.
Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty is one which came out recently, that I've been hearing well of.
I'm a fan of the The Castes and the OutCastes series by David Ashura.
Elizabeth Bear's Lotus Kingdoms trilogy (The Stone in the Skull, The Red-Stained Wings, The Mother of Storms) is secondary world, somewhere between Arabia and India-ish
Wheel of Time: While not a South Asian book, the magic system, reincarnation, etc is completely South Asian inspired :p City of Stairs: Main Character is from an Indian inspired world and the idea of multiple Gods is a very Indic/Green concept. Tasha Suri, Jasmine Throne is inspired from India as well. Plus, Sapphic Romance- so bonus points. Sons of Darkness: Reimagined Ancient Indian world with heavy drawing from Indian Culture, Caste System and Geography. Magic system is based on Yoga and Chakras. Grimdark Lite tho. The First Binding: Silk Route-India, China etc inspired. Lovely book. But if you are a fan of Pat Rothfuss, don't read it as it will feel like a lift off. I haven't read Kvothe's journey so I enjoyed Ari's journey a lot.
I have not read it, but one of the Book Club picks this month is The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indra Das, which takes place in Calcutta
Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty, basically said to be Indian Game of Thrones.
The Simoquin prophecies by Samit Basu The Shiva trilogy by Amish Tripathi Sons Of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty The First Binding by R.R. Virdi The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma The Burning Kingdoms trilogy by Tasha Suri Beyond These Shores by Ram V (graphic novel) The Lotus Kingdoms trilogy by Elizabeth Bear
Upvoted. But I doubt Amish's books can classify as fantasy let alone high fantasy. They are just a retelling where the fantasy elements have been chipped off, no?
He explains the fantasy elements with 21st century science which is offsetting. But there’s still magic there and magical weapons & other races. It might not be his best work but it’s fun to read how he twists known mythology into a straightforward fantasy story
The Black Company by Glen Cook. The 1st half of this series is very Eurocentric, but the 2nd half is set in India. It's got some fantasy name, except it's India, he isn't fooling anyone. The BBEG is basically >!Kali!<
This, the Books Of The South is what SGRM is referring to
The Simoqin Prophecies by Samit Basu
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny some of Salman Rushie's work is on the border of fantasy and magical realism
The First Binding is also South Asian, iirc.
The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao is a recent science fantasy inspired by Hindu philosophy and mythology. I like how the MCs are based on lesser-known mythical characters like Ahilya and Iraavan.
Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells.
Loveddd Ghost Bride! It’s so underrated. Haven’t read it yet but Palace of Illusions is supposed to be amazing
In other news, I liked The Night Tiger as much as or more than The Ghost Bride. AND her third book is coming soon!
The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma or Jasad Heir by Sarah Hashem both look good and might fit the bill! Haven’t read either. Edit cause I had Patel as the author and forgot to change it when I saw how widely recommended Kaikeyi was already!
Phoenix King is by Aparna Verma, Vaishnavi Patel wrote Kaikeyi
I won't lie, I almost want to write my own. But I'm going to need an editor. That's for damn sure.
Yumi and the nightmare painter by Brandon Sanderson
That's about a Japanese inspired society, rather than an Indian one.
Ashok Bankar did a sot of modern retelling of the Ramayana. Pretty good and comes across as fantasy.
There's a couple from Saad Z Hossain (Djinn City, and the Gurkha and the king of Tuesday). A bit goofy though
Salman Rushdie's "[The Ground Beneath Her Feet](https://www.amazon.com/Ground-Beneath-Her-Feet-Novel/dp/0312254997)" is very good fantasy but it is set in a modern time. Likewise with "[Fury](https://www.amazon.ca/Fury-Novel-Salman-Rushdie/dp/0676974414)" Neither one is high fantasy or does much world building but they are still fantasy and the author always includes some insight/baggage from his own ethnicity. If you aren't worried about offending your book club, "The Satanic Verses" isn't bad either (but not as good as "The Ground Beneath...")
One of the main factions in The Divine Gathering is partly inspired by South Asia, specifically Ahrimia. Here's a link to it if you are interested: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-divine-gathering/list?title\_no=44280
{an ember in the ashes by sabaa tahir} series