Oh, man, that link about the famines under the British Empire was fantastic, thank you for sharing. I'm going to have to read that whole book.
I have a lot of recs! I want to second a few people have already said, particularly Everfair by Nisi Shawl and Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, both of which I really enjoyed.
Ursula Le Guin is another great rec; I'd particularly point out The Word for World is Forest, which is about a small, monkey-looking alien species whose world has been colonized by humans and who have been forced into slave labor, but who rebel and take back their world. It's a novella, so it's a short read, and it's VERY 1970s (when it was published), but it sounds like what you're looking for.
Another fantasy novel about imperialism is The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley, which deals with a British botanist in the 1860s, sent to Peru to investigate plants with commercial uses, who ends up involved with a village of locals and adapts to their mystical beliefs.
Like others have said, there's not a lot of portal fantasy being written today, possibly because many authors have realized the inherent problems with having new people come in and take over a world. But on the other hand, that means there's no direct answers to Narnia or the Magicians unfortunately. But there recently has been a trend to write antiracist answers to HP Lovecraft, which might interest you as a general response to old, problematic fantasy tropes? Of this new genre, I'd particularly recommend The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, which I LOVE SO MUCH. It specifically takes a minor black character from HP Lovecraft's 'The Horror at Red Hook' (considered one of Lovecraft's most racist stories, but you don't need to read it to understand LaValle) and makes him into the protagonist. It's just so, so good. Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff is more a series of interconnected short stories than a full novel, but it's about multiple members of a black family in the 1950s who are chased by a coven of New England wizards. The Green Book (the actual historical document, not the recent movie) is a major part of the plot. It's being adapted into a HBO series by Jordan Peele, which might be another fun reason to read it.
The best recent fictional work on imperialism that I can think of is mostly happening in sci-fi. I highly recommend The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie and The Machineries of Empire trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee. Both deal with being a minor member of an intergalactic empire with serious ethical problems, and how a single individual deals with the guilt of being part of such a society, as well as how it's possible to create change in such huge systems. Both of them also have a ton of queer characters and do interesting things with gender, btw. And they're both really good!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-03-14 05:10 pm (UTC)I have a lot of recs! I want to second a few people have already said, particularly Everfair by Nisi Shawl and Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho, both of which I really enjoyed.
Ursula Le Guin is another great rec; I'd particularly point out The Word for World is Forest, which is about a small, monkey-looking alien species whose world has been colonized by humans and who have been forced into slave labor, but who rebel and take back their world. It's a novella, so it's a short read, and it's VERY 1970s (when it was published), but it sounds like what you're looking for.
Another fantasy novel about imperialism is The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley, which deals with a British botanist in the 1860s, sent to Peru to investigate plants with commercial uses, who ends up involved with a village of locals and adapts to their mystical beliefs.
Like others have said, there's not a lot of portal fantasy being written today, possibly because many authors have realized the inherent problems with having new people come in and take over a world. But on the other hand, that means there's no direct answers to Narnia or the Magicians unfortunately. But there recently has been a trend to write antiracist answers to HP Lovecraft, which might interest you as a general response to old, problematic fantasy tropes?
Of this new genre, I'd particularly recommend The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, which I LOVE SO MUCH. It specifically takes a minor black character from HP Lovecraft's 'The Horror at Red Hook' (considered one of Lovecraft's most racist stories, but you don't need to read it to understand LaValle) and makes him into the protagonist. It's just so, so good.
Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff is more a series of interconnected short stories than a full novel, but it's about multiple members of a black family in the 1950s who are chased by a coven of New England wizards. The Green Book (the actual historical document, not the recent movie) is a major part of the plot. It's being adapted into a HBO series by Jordan Peele, which might be another fun reason to read it.
The best recent fictional work on imperialism that I can think of is mostly happening in sci-fi. I highly recommend The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie and The Machineries of Empire trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee. Both deal with being a minor member of an intergalactic empire with serious ethical problems, and how a single individual deals with the guilt of being part of such a society, as well as how it's possible to create change in such huge systems. Both of them also have a ton of queer characters and do interesting things with gender, btw. And they're both really good!