“How are you doing?” someone asks. A friend answers, “Okay. I mean, pandemic okay.”
Pandemic okay is a very specific kind of okay. It means, “Technically things are Fine yet nothing is fine.” Pandemic okay means something different for everyone, especially for people who were in precarious positions before this all happened.
In the face of “pandemic okay,” it’s easy to make some guesses about why I want a certain kind of read right now. How everyone exists within this kind of “okay”—or outside of it—is deeply individual. For me, on a reading level, it’s been a narrative about-face, a shift from the space-stress stories I wanted last year to a desire for stories about interiority, about people being okay with themselves. And these books feel hard to come by.
Here is a short and absolutely incomplete list of things the protagonists of my favorite fantasy books have done:
- Saved the world from the lord of death.
- Saved the world from monsters from beyond.
- Saved the land from a wicked king. (Many wicked kings in many books.)
- Saved the world from an invading host of monsters.
- Saved the world from an invading host from another world.
- Saved as much of the world as possible from total disaster.
- Fulfilled a prophecy and saved the world.
- Defeated a deadly spirit and saved the world.
You get the picture. The world-saving isn’t always specified as the whole world, but existence as the characters know it is threatened in some way, and they either have to or are the only ones who can save it. I love a good save. I love drama and high stakes and the impossible tasks that only a few people could possibly pull off. But right now, I want so little of that.
I have a Helen Oyeyemi quote written on a post-it on the wall by my desk: “I like the entire drama of whether the protagonist is going to be OK inside herself.” This, I thought when I read it. This is what I want to read.
You can have this drama of the self inside a story about saving the world; the books that can manage both are excellent. But lately I want things ticked down a notch, or several notches. Sometimes the world-saving is still there, but it hovers on the periphery, but almost incidental. Sometimes there’s a big mystery but it’s not as big as Oyeyemi’s question: Will the protagonist be okay inside herself?
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A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Where I run into trouble is when I want this question asked and answered in a fantasy setting. I want it in a world with magic and maybe dragons, with all the intense worldbuilding of epic fantasy; I want it taken fantasy-seriously. There are a lot of this kind of story to be found in the magical borderlands between fantasy and litfic, and I adore these books—the Oyeyemis, the Kelly Links, the Aimee Benders and Ruth Ozekis and Karen Russells; Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks and Madeline Miller’s Circe. I’ve found some in SF, too: Sarah Pinsker’s novels, Becky Chambers’ work, and Marissa Levien’s claustrophobic and terrifying The World Gives Way, among others. In SF, technology can provide the scale; the human crises can still be personal.
Does magic inherently raise the stakes? If we have magic, do we have to have conflict and power-based crises on a major scale? I know, technically, the answer is no. There is a whole small library’s worth of Patricia A. McKillip books that demonstrate that magic can exist and a book’s focus can still be low-key. Even Wicked, famous as it is, is about rewriting the Wicked Witch into her own story—not a figure out of nightmares but just a girl (albeit a green one) seen through the lens of a mythos she wants no part of.
But I want more.
I don’t like to call these small-stakes or low-stakes books, because the stakes of our own lives can feel anything but small or low. Maybe just personal-stakes books. Maybe they’re simply character-driven, though that can apply to so much. A friend recommended the thoroughly enjoyable The Ten Thousand Doors of January, which I liked a lot but felt had just slightly larger stakes than I wanted. A Twitter question on the topic offered up a lot of suggestions, many of which went onto a list of things to read soon. Others helped me narrow down some of my own personal criteria for books of this sort:
- No royalty or rulers of any kind as major characters;
- No chosen ones;
- No saving the world/kingdom/land/city.
What I want isn’t urban fantasy, though technically it often fits the bill, and isn’t light or comedic books, all of which are great in their ways but not what I mean by this specific kind of bookish desire. What I mean is a Kelly Link story grown to novel length. (Someday!) What I mean is Piranesi, in which the world is massive but it is home to only one lost man. What I mean is Karin Tidbeck’s The Memory Theater, which feels like the world and like one person’s dream at the same time.
I can think of these stories more in middle grade and YA spaces, perhaps because there’s an assumed coming-of-age aspect to many of those, and coming-of-age is about figuring out who you are and how you’ll be okay inside yourself. The first part of Lirael’s story, in Garth Nix’s novel, is entirely this: a girl trying to understand her place in a world that she doesn’t seem to fit into, adapting and growing and changing. Eventually she saves the world—twice! But that comes later. Destiny Soria’s Iron Cast and Michelle Ruiz Keil’s novels have this magical and intimate vibe, but take place in this world. But they inch closer to what I want.
Sometimes, well-known authors write these books and they get a little overlooked. Palimpsest is rarely the first Catherynne M. Valente book people mention, but it’s an absolute dream of intimacy, a magical sense of place, and bittersweet possibility. Robin Hobb is hardly unknown in fantasy circles, but her Liveship Traders series—books very concerned with the practicalities of life, with making a living and finding a place and surviving a difficult world—usually play second fiddle to the more epic-in-scope Fitz and Fool stories. (Though those novels, too, are grounded in the reality of her fantasy world, in the practical way Hobb uses work and status and power.)
But that’s what I want: fantasy books about people building their ordinary lives. Books about bookbinders and tavern-keepers, the people who raise horses and make boots, the troubled daughters setting out to find their own places in the world. (It often, for me, comes back to Tess of the Road.) You could maybe call it working-class fantasy, but that feels tied to capitalism in a way I don’t love. I want fantasy that breaks the rules of fantasy and lets the unheroic have their own life-sized adventures.
I try not to talk about Ursula K. Le Guin here too much, as I work part-time for her estate, and it can feel like tricky territory. But I have that job partly because I’m a lifelong Le Guin fan: A Wizard of Earthsea was the first fantasy novel I encountered, and that story looms large in how I read, and what I want from and look for in books. And it’s hard to think or write about reading and SFF without being influenced by Le Guin, who often asked still-relevant questions about science fiction, stories, and people, as she did in her 1976 essay “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown.”
Le Guin starts with Virginia Woolf, who wrote about Mrs. Brown, a woman Woolf observed in a train carriage, a “clean, threadbare” old lady, with “something pinched about her.” Woolf watched the woman, eavesdropped on her, and noted how she looked “very frail and very heroic” when she disappeared into the station. “I believe that all novels begin with an old lady in the corner opposite,” Woolf wrote. “I believe that all novels, that is to say, deal with character.”
Le Guin takes this premise, accepts it, and then asks a question that still resonates, almost 40 years later: “Can the writer of science fiction sit down across from her?” Her question is, “Can a science fiction writer write a novel?” by Woolf’s definition, and also, “Is it advisable, is it desirable, that this should come to pass?” She answers both in the affirmative, and says a lot of very interesting things along the way about gender, and about We and Islandia and Frodo Baggins and some of her own work; she argues against her own position for a bit.
It’s a brilliant piece, and what I take from it—what I still look for in books—is encapsulated by the image of Mrs. Brown in a spaceship. In which books is there room for her, or her magical equivalent? Is this all I’m asking for: a book that sees the value, the heroism, in a threadbare woman on a train?
I will keep looking for Mrs. Brown. I’d love to know where you’ve found her.
Molly Templeton lives and writes in Oregon, and spends as much time as possible in the woods. Sometimes she talks about books on Twitter.
I have been feeling this a great deal over the course of the past year or so. I’ve been seeking comfort reads, ones where I love the characters as people, and can rejoice in their successes and happiness.
I think you might enjoy the Dreamhealers series by MCA Hogarth. They start out with two mostly ordinary college students who form a friendship, struggle through school (complicated by the fact that one comes from a reclusive race who rarely leave their world and thus is both a subject of sensational romance, and quite unprepared for life in the broader universe), and eventually set up a therapy practice grounded in a psychic bond which has been slowly developing over the course of the series. They do become involved in greater things eventually, but those first four books are sweet and satisfying as the characters find their way to being more comfortable with each other in a completely platonic relationship. Also even when they become involved at the world-saving level, they remain the same people they started out as, just grown more into themselves.
I think Katherine Blake’s The Interior Life fits exactly what you’re looking for. There is magic and royalty and saving the world, but it’s all background to the more mundane questions of the main character learning to bake and taking over the PTO.
Manga is filled with those sort of ‘Slice of Life’ fantasy stories. They make for some of the comfiest reading around. “Hakumei & Mikochi” is one of my favorites, about two tiny women living in a world of talking animals that are just enjoying farmer’s markets and shopping trips into town. “Flying Witch” is about a girl who is a witch, but in a normal modern society, and chapters swing between watching magical sky whales and picking apples in an orchard. “Aria” is about girls who are gondoliers on terraformed Mars.
I agree that we need more of this in prose form. Sometimes I just want to go on a magical road trip.
I wonder if Joyce Thompson’s The Blue Chair might suit? Life-prolonging medical treatments are limited to those who have chosen not to have children; the protagonist, a poet in her 70s who had two children, is receiving palliative treatment for cancer and reflecting on her life.
Wonderful essay. Science fiction, and especially the world of comic books and superheroes, veers far too often in the direction of the bombastic. I also find myself longing for tales with a smaller, more personal scope.
As I read all I could think about was Ursula K. Le Guin. Her brilliant and compassionate mind is sorely missed. I came to love her work and thought that all SFF was like that. In all that I read I can not help but think of her as a lover muses on his one and only love, that love that can never be regained.
Lifelode, Or What You Will, and assorted other Walton books; Jane, Unlimited for a not-quite-gothic-not-quite-fantasy-not-quite-mystery that feels expansive and comforting at the same time.
I really agree there is too little like this! Even series that start out relatively low-key tend to become save-the-world as they go on as if the stakes must be higher for each book.
Here are some stuff that I think comes reasonably close, or at least closeish.
– Lifelode (Jo Walton)
– Lady Trent (Marie Brennan) Loved this series, partly because it has our heroine deal with sexism and funding.
– Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke) Not sure this technically belongs here, but it has that feel for me
– Beka Cooper (Tamora Pierce) It has been a while since I read these, so perhaps there was a bit more of saving-the-city than I remember?
– Summers at Castle Auburn (Sharon Shinn) There are some saving going on towards the end, but I still thinks it qualifies here. One of my re-read favourites.
– Some of Patrica McKillip’s books have this feel as well
– And while all of the Vlad Taltos (Steven Brust) books is about saving something, some of the individual books are about more low-key saving than others.
Sorcery and Cecelia, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. Written as an exchange of letters between two respectable Jane-Austen-esque young ladies, it’s brilliant and funny, the stakes of the magic-oriented plot are deadly but fairly local and in any case less important than the witty romance.
In general, I think F&SF tend to go big because the author has invented a whole world/setting just to write a couple of books in it, and so there’s a tendency to want to tell the world’s most important stories. Like it would be wasted otherwise. Even A Wizard of Earthsea is a story about The Greatest Archmage Ever, and in the third book, The Farthest Shore, Ged does in fact Save The World (and it’s an awesome book, just so we’re clear). So it’s clearly a hard temptation to avoid.
Mainstream fiction tends to go the other way, because it’s about the real world–all the big important stories aren’t so much “fiction” as “history”. If you did tell a story that went “big” it would be, you know, pretty obvious that that didn’t really happen. In fact, if you do tell a “big”, world-saving-level, story set otherwise in the real world, that in itself makes it SF by our genre conventions–it’s suddenly an “alternate history” story. The only way to tell big stories set in the real world is to do history/biography, and then you don’t get to control the story. So if you want to write fiction as such, you’re left writing about people who have no noticeable impact on anything.
Never Let Me Go by Kasuo Ishiguro
Although this is science fiction rather than fantasy, I really love The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling. There are only two characters in the whole book, and they aren’t even in the same place. The story includes great acts of heroism but is primarily concerned with the women’s past, their minds, and their relationship with each other.
Guy Gariel Kay’s novels frequently feature incidental characters whose only purpose is to observe some momentous action and then go about their lives untouched by the rest of the story, showing us that recorded history is largely meaningless to the vast majority of people who live through it.
In trying to think of titles for this, I was reminded of the delightful “The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe” by Kij Johnson, which I definitely think has elements of what you’re looking for. Some Jo Walton titles have this feel; I think of “Among Others,” perhaps. A lot of McKillip (“Solstice Wood” might hit the spot) and some of McKinley (“Chalice” was mentioned above, and I’d agree.) Perhaps “A Stranger in Olondria” by Sofia Samatar.
Surprised no one has mentioned the Sharing Knife series by Lois Bujold – gets a tiny bit wider at the end but most of the series is just two people sorting themselves out.
I also came in to suggest Sorcery and Cecelia* by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, as well as Mairelon the Magician and Magician’s Ward by Wrede.
A similar feel of “Regency with Magic” is Mary Robinette Kowal’s “Glamourist History” series – first book is Shades of Milk and Honey.
Another is Marie Brennan’s “Memoirs of Lady Trent” series, about a woman who breaks from gender norms to go out and study dragons in the wild – first book is A Natural History of Dragons.
Mercedes Lackey’s “Elemental Masters” series, especially the first few, are very detailed period fiction with secret magic, and also a vague hint of fairy tale.
I also recommend several by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon): Swordheart is about a magical warrior summoned not to save the world, but accidentally by a woman who is being held prisoner by her dead husband’s family because she has an inheritance and they want to force her to marry one of her husband’s relatives so they can get it. The journey isn’t to a faraway land but to a neighboring town in search of a lawyer. This is the same world as Paladin’s Grace, Paladin’s Strength, and just-out Paladin’s Hope, which are also fairly small-scale. These four are also romances, even if the romance is kindled while investigating the strange rash of severed heads in the city… Also the same world as the “Clockwork Boys” duology, which is a quest to kill the monsters and save the world, so not as much in the vein being sought here. She has also written several fairy tale retellings: Bryony and Roses, Seventh Bride, and The Raven and the Reindeer.
*Full title is Sorcery and Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country.
A few books your post brought to mind:
Fog Magic (1943) by Julia L. Sauer
”The Man Who Came Early” (1956) by Poul Anderson
Tam Lin (1991) by Pamela Dean
The Woman in the Wall (1997) by Patrice Kindl
Rose-Daughter (1997) by Robin McKinley
Big Fish (1998) by Daniel Wallace
Mem (2018) by Bethany Morrow
Frederik Pohl’s Gateway works for me for the reasons described – fascinating scenarios, but the stakes are basically just personal. I disliked the sequels because they degenerated into world-saving, getting worse each time.
I’ve been thinking along similar lines, inspired by a different Le Guin essay – the carrier bag one. I just read The Hands of the Emperor (Victoria Goddard) and I think it fits your wish. It’s not about the emperor (he has his own books), but a middle-aged man who works for him. As a young man he left home and joined the civil service, and has slowly and steadily been working to change the government and institute policies like UBI and health care for all, etc. We don’t see him doing that though, we don’t see impassioned speeches before the council, we see the day to day basic work and him reflecting on his life and his place in his community. A lovely story about a guy who is a hero because he made sure everyone in the world has basic human rights and a decent standard of living, not because he killed some evil megalomaniac with dragons.
I would also rec Saffron Alley (A.J. Demas), the second book in the Sword Dance trilogy. IIRC, the first one had stakes and fights and stuff, but the second one is all about the two heroes trying to fit their lives together (“my roommates are insecure about you” kind of stuff).
The Healer’s Road (S.E. Robertson) is about two healers who travel from town to town and deal with their baggage and become friends.
This is a great topic and I’m excited to check out the recs that I haven’t already read!
Witness for the Dead, by Katherine Addison–just a guy with a job, trying to fit in in a new small town, possibly a romance (left unresolved but hopeful); solve the occasional murder; dispel the occasional zombie; watch some opera–y’know, normal stuff.
The Thief on the Winged Horse, by Kate Mascarenhas–an insular family running a family-only business of dollmaking (magic dolls, of course) is confronted with a stranger who claims to be an offshoot of one of the family business’s founders who everyone had thought had died without children.
The Golem and the Genie, by Helen Wecker–two different immigrants to immigrant-era New York meet each other and try to find a place for themselves.
The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey–domestic drama about scientist who invented techniques for human cloning, whose dirtbag of an ex-husband appropriates those techniques to make himself a ‘better’ wife, cloned from the original scientist. Um, this one is not really a comfort read. Excellent, but not comfortable.
The House on the Cerulean Sea, by T. J. Klune–a government official tries to make sure an orphanage for magical children doesn’t get shut down.
All Men of Genius, by Lev A C Rosen–a delightful steampunk mash-up of Twelfth Night and The Importance of Being Earnest. Girl dresses up as her brother to go to steampunk academy. Many hijinks ensue. There is a degree of ‘save the school’, I guess, but it is such a romp that it doesn’t carry with it the weight of ‘save the world’.
Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series: What happens when children who went to wonderland or Oz come back and can’t find themselves a place in our world?
Binti trilogy: Coming to terms with a complex identity. I didn’t like this very much, but part of that was the heavy focus on introspection, which tends to bore me, but which might fit the bill here.
Jade City, Jade War by Fonda Lee: No saving anything here! The Godfather in Japan with magical jade.
Magic For Liars, by Sarah Gailey: PI goes to investigate murder in magic school. Twist: PI’s sister had magic, and got to go to school, and now teaches there. PI didn’t, and stayed in normie school. Lots of reflection about sibling rivalry and relationships and regret and jealousy, but no stakes higher than relationship (+ find the murderer).
Anything by Becky Chambers.
Under the Pendulum Sun, by Jeanette Ng: Missionaries in fairyland have a bit of a rough time.
The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, by Genevieve Valentine: Exquisite jazz age retelling of the The Twelve Dancing Princesses. All about growing up and finding a place for yourself in the world and relying on sisters.
Feed, by Mira Grant: It’s too late to save the world from zombies; they’re here to stay. But politics continues, and someone’s making trouble during the presidential campaign. Some bloggers are on the case!
The Wizard’s Butler by Nathan Lowell. This is a contemporary slice-of-life about an ex-EMT who becomes the butler for an elderly man who might be a wizard. A wonderful blend of the ordinary and low-key extraordinary.
Thanks for a very enjoyable post. I’ve no new titles to suggest as they’ve already been mentioned; I appreciate the mention of titles that are new to me!
I’ve been submerging myself in anthologies..literary “boxes of chocolates”..Echoes..Saga Book of Ghost Stories,Aliyah White,Elizabeth Bowen (prewar but other worldly re values etc).
Perhaps not as high minded as some choices but leaving THIS strange world behind,definitely.
I like a lot of these recs but very much want to second the rec for Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard – yes, one of the characters is royalty, but it is otherwise a very long and delightful comfort read, where the stakes are limited to the main character coming to terms with himself and his background and family. And incidentally establishing UBI, among other things.
@10
but the Archmage becomes a farmer and goatherd and partner and parent, and the protagonist of the last novel is a ex-priestess who later became a mother. They help a mutilated child save the world, and a neighbor, though.
@21 – the rest of Nathan Lowell’s work is gentle reading as well – some science fiction with shamans, some without; some shamans practicing science – some big things happen, but mostly about getting through the day, and making really good coffee.
The Man Who Bridged the Mist, by Kij Johnson. No world-saving, just an engineer trying to figure out how to build a bridge over a possibly-magical river in a world that isn’t quite ours, in a culture that isn’t quite his. If you like Becky Chambers, I think you’ll like this too. Unfortunately it’s a novella, so it ends far too soon!
I would throw The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison onto the list. It does violate your “no royals” rule, but it is the most interior-focused fantasy novel I’ve read in a long time.
@@@@@ 17, Sharon:
A few books your post brought to mind: ”The Man Who Came Early” (1956) by Poul Anderson
Harry Turtledove’s story The Man Who Came Late is a coda to Three Hearts and Three Lions.
Decades later Alianora is a housewife. Raising three children, married to the village smith.
Then the aging Holger Carlson shows up.
https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781476780597/9781476780597___5.htm
There is a lot of Mrs. Brown in The Last Unicorn’s Molly Grue.
Maureen McHugh’s China Mountain Zhang and… well, anything by Sarah Gailey, but especially Upright Women Wanted spring to mind.
M.C.A. Hogarth’s Twin Kingdom Romances fit the bill beautifully. (They are far more than “just” romances, but the focus is on the individual and family level.)
Peter S. Beagle’s A Fine and Private Place
This is more science fiction, and may be controversial, but a huge chunk of the Vorkosigan saga by Bujold is like this. There are stakes and running around and action, but a large chunk of the time is people (but just Miles) figuring out who they are. The ones that come to mind are Memory, Komarr, A Civil Campaign, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Gentleman Jole. Ekaterin’s journey, in particular, in Komarr always strokes me here. The story is really, at the heart of it, how she gets the strength to stand up for herself. I’ve read it like 30 times, and I always end up reading the everyday scenes: Nikki refusing to put his shoes on, shopping, the scene at the doctor’s office.
Above: “NOT just Miles” rather than “but just Miles.”
Diana Wynne Jones’s Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin spring to mind, as do many more of her books and stories. I’d also nominate Connie Willis’s books, which, while there is saving going on, are also intimate and often focus on the everyday. Oh, and don’t forget Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. McAvoy.
Threads like this are what increases the doom of my to be read stack to reach near infinite depths :)
Thanks for all the great recs
One book not yet mentioned:
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (V. E. Schwab)
Thumbs up for The Golem and the Djinn series and Binti. Also anything by Becky Chambers.
The Harper Hall series by Anne McCaffrey has much lower stakes than the rest of her books, and they are some of my favorites of her books. I also recommend Zenna Henderson. Most of her stories are very personal, character-based tales and her writing is impeccable.
I will second Luminous Dead, Binti, Cerulean Sea, and Wayward Children. And I will add on Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune and Haunting of Tram Car 015 (alas, just a novella, but excellent nonetheless) by P. Djeli Clarke.
Second MCA Hogarth, my favourite comfort read of hers is Girl on Fire (girl is exiled from home plant, discovers she really likes visiting new worlds, meeting new people and eating new food) but would highly recommend the Twin Kingdoms Romances (Thief of Songs and Cantor for Pearls) as well as Dreamhealers. T.Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking has some bread wizard heroics but lots of baking (Bread! I work with bread! Only bread!) and is as fluffy as it comes.
But I really came here to rec the third book in A.J Demas’ Sword Dance series, Strong Wine, which has a murder mystery despite managing to be mostly about people talking to each other. And it’s out today!
Also Becky Chambers, Katherine Addison, and the Vorkosigverse, especially A Civil Campaign, Komarr and Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
There was one niggling at my memory; now that I’m back by my bookshelves I have dug it/them up: Fanuilh by Daniel Hood, and some sequels. Typical fantasy setting, typical low-power-variant fantasy hero with his typical fantasy miniature dragon on his shoulder, human scale stories. Murder mysteries, plots and intrigue happening at fairly local levels. Main character can fight if he has to, may know a magic thing or two, but isn’t the ultimate swordsman or what you could call a wizard. All he is, is fairly capable and fairly smart and a fairly good guy.
More recently, I was impressed with Darkwalker by E.L. Tettensor, first in what seems like a series, of gaslight fantasy about Nicolas LeNoir, a detective in a Paris analogue. It’s, um, really well done. Harsh, dark, good characterization, suspenseful and all that.
There’s also a sizable bunch of books about various people dealing with crime and violence and the rapacity of the bourgeoisie (although that’s not quite how the books put it) in a big corrupt fantasy city, by Marshall Ryan Maresca. One sub-group is about a motley group of skilled criminals trying to protect their poor neighbourhood from crime lords, urban renewal by arson and so on (and pull some cool heists which, despite their skill, inevitably Don’t Go Smooth). Some others are about town watch. And a few are about a young man operating as a wizard college student by day and a disguised crime fighter going after the drug trade by night. They all happen in the same city and sometimes interact with each other. They’re fun and fast moving, and while they contain a fair amount of the fashionable modern fantasy requirement for angst in the major characters, they don’t wallow in it.
I got bitter toward world-saving stories when I started considering their endings too unrealistically happy. I stopped wanting to see fictional people stop a war, take down a tyrant, reverse an environmental catastrophe, or suchlike feats that nobody in the real world could do. A Song of Ice and Fire has been my go-to comfort reading for a decade.
But I also love many gentler stories when they’re of the slice-of-life variety or otherwise allow maximum focus on the settings and characters, story elements that matter to me much more than plots. Relatable problems (relatable in scale if not specifics) and realistic successes can be inspiring.
I do still enjoy some stories of world-saving, when the settings and characters are sufficiently interesting. But I like to seek out alternatives.
Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair.
The Astreiant books by Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett might work — they’re in an odd area of technically urban fantasy, because they’re in a city, but have the kind of cozy feel of some of McKillip’s work.
I’m not sure whether Swordspoint and Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner count. Both are low stakes, but there is some nobility in key roles.
Castle Waiting by Linda Medley. One issue of the comic has a plot involving dyeing hair and fixing a wagon.
The Wood Wife by Terri Windling.
When Voiha Wakes by Joy Chant.
Elizabeth Lynn’s Chronicles of Tornor trilogy starts off with higher stakes (though, relatively speaking, low), and the other two books lower the stakes.
I think Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Quartet might also fit the bill?
While Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain are higher stakes, the fourth book, Taran Wanderer, could work for what you want.
Some of the Liavek and Bordertown stories might work — for Bordertown, check out “Mockery” by Ellen Kushner and Bellamy Bach.
Owl Service by Alan Garner.
Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones. Possibly Eight Days of Luke, but this depends on where your borders are.
If you’re okay with angels as characters, The Vintner’s Luck, by Elizabeth Knox.
Dussie and Fair Peril by Nancy Springer work for me.
Lawrence Watt-Evans Ethshar books come to mind.
Strongly seconding Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison. When I read “the entire drama of whether the protagonist is going to be OK inside herself,” that’s the book that immediately jumped to mind. I just want Celehar to be OK! I want him to believe that he’s worthy of love and justice and happiness!
Beautiful essay and fantastic recommendations. I love me some epic world-saving, but yes, lately, that scope is a bit overwhelming. Double thumbs up for the Kingfisher, McKillip, Chambers, Walton, Clarke, Klune, Bujold/Vorkosigan, and Brust shoutouts, and I’m looking forward to reading the other recommendations from the commenters.
Some additional recs:
Paul Cornell’s Witches of Lychford – I enjoyed the first, which felt small in scale even though the village is on top of a hellmouth. Maybe the 2nd and 3rd got more epic, they’re on my neverending TBR pile.
Emily Tesh’s Silver in the Wood. Yes, there’s some forest-saving, but the story is so much more than that and focuses primarily on the small number of characters and their relationships.
Kai Ashante Wilson’s A Taste of Honey and Sorcerer of the Wildeeps. These are just magical and oh so intimate, with zero world-saving. Maybe a monster slaying or two.
Does Murderbot count? There’s some friend-saving, but I think most folks read it for the interior feels.
Those are all novellas. Apparently, novellas sometimes tend to be cozy. :)
On the novel side:
Josiah Bancroft’s Senlin Ascends is more of road trip by airship with found family, through exotic lands, under the guise of saving the girl.
The Sol Majestic, by Ferrett Steinmetz. They’re not saving the universe, just the universe’s best restaurant, with lots of introspection and character development along the way.
I decided in January 2020 that I had what I think of as “apocalypse fatigue”… little did I know, right? I had been thinking about how high-stakes movies, books, and podcasts must be related to the way we act as if every conflict is about saving the world. We aren’t superheroes or saviors; we’re people doing our best. So thanks for the article. Recommendations: Provenance, by Ann Leckie. Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon.
I love To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. It’s funny and gentle, fantastical and realistic at the same time. There are times it’s hilarious. An overworked time traveler is sent to rural Victorian England to relax, but of course, nothing happens as it should. The subplot and mystery of cats is charming. A fine novel to read if you don’t want saving the world and where the things that need saving include an ugly Victorian vase called “the bishop’s stump” and cats.
A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers is a good-hearted novella that is optimistic for the future. With so many troubles in the world, it felt good to read a book that shows an environmentally clean climate, healthy people and equality for all. Still, people are trying to find themselves, as is the tea monk protagonist of the story.
Sarah’s Lion is a beautiful picture book about a princess hemmed in by expectations.
Adult books include The Golem and the Jinni/Helene Wecker, Night Watch/Sergei Lukyanenko and Sunshine/Robin McKinley.
And of course Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune!!!
You put your finger on something about a lot of my favorite fantasy that I hadn’t been conscious of – so many of people’s recommendations here are books I love! And thanks for some new ideas. Here are a few I didn’t see listed:
Melanie Rawn’s Touchstone series (especially theater-lovers)
Elizabeth Lynn’s Chronicles of Tornor
Martha Wells’ Raksura books
In SF (where this may actually be more prevalent because sometimes the worldbuilding is so much of the story that day-to-day life is fascinating): most of C.J. Cherryh’s Union-Alliance novels (as well as the Chanur series, and to some extent her ongoing Foreigner series – there’s a big-picture arc, but some of the books barely advance it and are mostly about family and politics); a lot of Melissa Scott’s novels
Some of Margaret Mahy’s older kids and ya stories. Diane Duane’s Wizardry series, a few of which sneak in quite profound moral questions (Deep Wizardry!). Zen Cho’s books set in modern Malaysia families where older magics keep complicating things. In a bleak fashion, Caitlin Kiernan stories. Daniel Older’s Shadowshaper. Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle. Doing this on a tablet where writing is awkward leaves me just listing. Oh.. Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant novels.
I’ve mostly been reading fan fiction during the pandemic, for precisely the reasons you state. The characters do plenty of world-saving or galaxy-saving in canon, but in fanfic, all of that is background, and the focus is on the relationships between the characters and how they come to know themselves and one another.
Of course, there’s a lot of dreck in fanfic — Sturgeon’s famous Law applies — but there are some gems there, too.
I’ll be glad of world-saving and galaxy-saving canon when the pandemic is over, but while real life is so fraught, I’m turning to the smaller, more personal stories of fan fiction.
@16–A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is also good by Kingfisher, though there are Saving the City elements there. However, I strongly recommend that Bob the Evil Sourdough Starter *never* meets Horace, the mobile/sentient cheese from the Tiffany Aching books. It would be Wrong
The Peter Grant (Rivers of London) books are often not world-shaking, but Fun Police Procedural With Magic.
Lots of Jo Walton books mentioned here, but I’d like to add ‘Tooth and Claw.’
It’s an 19th century domestic novel (inspired by Trollope) except that everyone is a dragon. The closest it gets to saving something is the outcome of a complicated court case and protecting a woman’s reputation.
In Caroline Stevermer’s The Glass Magician, the stakes are only personal.
Can Thalia Cutler escape the manticores? Avoid arrest? Dine at Delmonicos? Control her inner swan? Regain her life as a stage magician?
I came in to comment about Kingfisher, McKinley and Bujold (I’d add Pen & Des to Vorkosigan and Sharing Knife), and I’m happy to see they’re already mentioned. I’ve needed comfort reads for about the last couple years, so I’m glad for all the new recs, too. Lots of samples just picked up.
I’ll contribute two short series by Ilona Andrews: The Edge and Innkeeper. The former is set in a sort of bayou, the latter predominantly in an inn. I’ve read all the Andrews books by now, and these are the series I come back to for a little break from the real world.
This post fits my mood/ reading tastes exactly, and so many of the books mentioned are my favorites! I wanted to thank Brendaa above for her recommendation on the Elemental Masters series… I read Serpent’s Shadow and LOVED it. So perfect for me, how did I miss this series before?
A suggestion: House In the Cerulean Sea. A delightful warm hug of a novel where there is magic and fantasy, and it’s about a middle aged, lonely government worker who learns about friendship and connections and falls in love. The characters are lovable and witty, the writing is hilarious at times and heartfelt at others. I’ve lent this book to three people and counting. I can’t recommend it enough.