Isekai non isekai books.
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What books would you like to see an isekai MC or supporting character? I mean, what book do you think could be improved by having an isekai character?
I can think of a series that could use a big change, Lessa from Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Flight series. In the books she's stubborn, uneducated, and stupid. She has less than a second-grade education, is easily manipulated, and falls for an abusive guy just because he's the only guy she has ever had sex with. I actually hate her character, but then I thought, what if she was an isekai women from a war world? Very smart, can fight, and has magic but has to hide her abilities.
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I guess this is a boring idea.
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@folker46 - not boring, I just can't think of any western SF or fantasy that would be improved by adding an isekai'd character.
Reincarnation does figure into some fantasy and science fantasy like Lee and Miller's Liaden series, but usually not "OP protagonist with more advanced skills and knowledge" reincarnation since western lit is less often about that kind of power fantasy (it's other kinds :) ).
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“Improved” is an interesting choice of word because it implies a lack of quality that is not especially conducive to discussion, and furthermore, Western fiction is to broad a category to be defined within narrative parameters. Light novels, for good and for ill, is a medium whose borders are small enough that it is mostly defined by its tropes. I think that it would more conducive to ask what stories could be rejuvenated by the injection of isekai elements. I think Western fiction could benefit from the addition of the meta-fictional narrative concept and the injection of modern knowledge into a classical fantasy world; there are grand possibilities that lie here, especially for well-known works of literature.
That being said, I would choose to take Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d'Urbervilles and replace the eponymous Tess with a young lady who is not so pigheadedly pious that she passively persists in her own ruination! My god! Hardy didn’t believe anything good ever happened to anyone! If you ever want to ruin your day and for some god forsaken reason desire something bleak then pick up one of his novels.
PS I don’t think your topic is boring, I think people just need more time to respond 😊
“There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.” ― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
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@lily-garden said in Isekai non isekai books.:
I think Western fiction could benefit from the addition of the meta-fictional narrative concept and the injection of modern knowledge into a classical fantasy world;
To be fair to western lit, the time, space, and alternate reality travel versions like Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and H. Beam Piprer's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen have been doing it much longer than the isekai genre. In the 80s-00s there were several military SF stories and series about soldiers from civil war to present day ending up in fantasy settings with their modern weapons and knowledge.
Interestingly, the civil war soldiers had an advantage over Vietnam era because back then common soldiers often had a wealth of low-tech farming, brewing, crafting skills.
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For another classic example, consider Joel Rosenberg’s “The Guardians of the Flame” series. The first book was published in 1983, and the majority of the series revolves around the same concepts that we typically think of in connection with isekai: a group of college students transported to a fantasy world against their will, one that mirrored their D&D-like tabletop RPG. On arrival, they found that they had the bodies, skills, and equipment of the characters they had been role-playing, struggle with culture-clash, introduce contemporary ethics and technology such as campaigning against slavery and introducing guns and steam engines.
I’ve been wondering for a while whether the definition of isekai stretches to cover these kind of works, western fiction written before the term was known to western readers, or if it implicitly assumes that only originally-Japanese works qualify.
I do think it’s interesting to speculate about how other works might be different if the protagonist had been reincarnated or summoned into their circumstances. I love Diane Wynn Jones’s “Howl’s Moving Castle”, and part of the fun of the work is the protagonist’s awareness of fairy tale tropes, an awareness that comes from the common sense of the world she was born to rather than due to being transplanted from ours. For example, she believe’s she doomed to failure no matter what endeavor she starts, because she’s the eldest of three children and knows that it’s always the youngest who enjoys the most success.
So what if the main characters in Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” (“The Golden Compass”, etc.), shared that kind of mindset? Possibly because they were reincarnated from another world? Would it be a different story? Yes. Would the plot and setting need to be reworked to accommodate the change? Definitely to some degree. Would it be a “better” story? Probably not, but I do find it interesting to try and imagine.
I think there are probably some works with a grimmer tone that could be made over in a lighthearted way with an isekai protagonist. If they were, they’d probably lose the appeal they had to the original audience, but it could still be fun to consider.
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@dawnaxis said in Isekai non isekai books.:
I do think it’s interesting to speculate about how other works might be different if the protagonist had been reincarnated or summoned into their circumstances. I love Diane Wynn Jones’s “Howl’s Moving Castle”, and part of the fun of the work is the protagonist’s awareness of fairy tale tropes, an awareness that comes from the common sense of the world she was born to rather than due to being transplanted from ours. For example, she believe’s she doomed to failure no matter what endeavor she starts, because she’s the eldest of three children and knows that it’s always the youngest who enjoys the most success.
If you enjoyed that aspect of Howl, I'd strongly recommend Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicle series (Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, Talking to Dragons, and a couple of short stories in Book of Enchantments.) Cimorene, princess of Linderwall, hates embroidery and etiquette lessons - and is really irritated that her lessons in magic, and fencing, and Latin keep getting cut off because "They aren't proper, dear." So she runs off to become a dragon's princess before her parents can marry her off to a boring prince...
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@lily-garden said in Isekai non isekai books.:
I think Western fiction could benefit from the addition of the meta-fictional narrative concept and the injection of modern knowledge into a classical fantasy world; there are grand possibilities that lie here, especially for well-known works of literature.
The Incomplete Enchanter ISFDB (Harold Shea Series Wikipedia) works by Fletcher Pratt & L, Sprague de Camp, with additional works by various others does this, and began doing so in 1940.
They did it well.
The initial works at least; I haven't read the later stories written without Pratt's involvement. -
@dawnaxis said in Isekai non isekai books.:
For another classic example, consider Joel Rosenberg’s “The Guardians of the Flame” series. The first book was published in 1983, and the majority of the series revolves around the same concepts that we typically think of in connection with isekai: a group of college students transported to a fantasy world against their will, one that mirrored their D&D-like tabletop RPG. On arrival, they found that they had the bodies, skills, and equipment of the characters they had been role-playing, struggle with culture-clash, introduce contemporary ethics and technology such as campaigning against slavery and introducing guns and steam engines.
WTF, that sounds like the exact definition of the modern isekai genre, down to its main tropes. I might have to read that.
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@paulnamida - he wrote another series that's a mix of reverse-isekai and isekai of the "portal between worlds" variety rather than reincarnation or hero summoning.
Both series were pretty good, though Rosenberg sometimes has a dim view of human nature even for the "good" side.
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@harmlessdave said in Isekai non isekai books.:
@paulnamida - he wrote another series that's a mix of reverse-isekai and isekai of the "portal between worlds" variety rather than reincarnation or hero summoning.
Both series were pretty good, though Rosenberg sometimes has a dim view of human nature even for the "good" side.
Just looked, and he was born in 1954.
So he grew up with Cold War air raid drills and then the Vietnam War, culminating in the Watergate Break-in; there's a certain cynicism endemic in many of that generation.
I was born in 1960, so the Cold War was in it's last gasps by the time I had much awareness of things, although I do remember one air raid drill in school.Hadn't been aware he'd died in 2011.
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The Nine Princes in Amber from Zelazny has a nice isekai feeling to it, in the first volume of the series at least, when Amber's Prince Corwin wakes up on Earth with amnesia, not knowing what is this world and what he's doing here, and tries to put all the pieces together. Then again, it has a very nice isekai feeling when Corwin learns about Amber, tries to go back there, discover all this stunning new world bit by bit... until he gets his full memory back, knows everything and he starts acting as the full legitimate Prince of Amber he is, and the story was suddenly much less fun to read for me.
I really wished the 'isekai' part had lasted for a few volumes, as it was such a good read.
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@harmlessdave The Lost Regiment was pretty good, at least the first two or three novels, after that they really went down hill.
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@folker46 said in Isekai non isekai books.:
The Lost Regiment
That's the one! I read it 20+ years ago and had forgotten many of the details including the title and author. I was thinking maybe Harry Turtledove.
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@lily-garden Not so much improved I guess just more interesting. Dragon Flight (Dragon Riders of Pern) is well written, and the people are believable, but that is also why I didn't like it. Lessa is so obviously stupid and yet is the MC, she's abused and raped yet falls in love with her rapist, who is a total jerk to her and any other women who sleeps with him. Just because he's a "Dragon Rider" F'nar thinks he's special and can do pretty much anything he wants and is untouchable. I was disgusted with Lessa and totally hate F'nar. I think an isekai women from a war world would shake things up nicely, just the idea of her putting the beat down on F'nar (Eris Greyrat style) puts a smile on my face 😂. I am working on it as a fanfic, but my writing is pretty bad. 😢
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"Isekai non isekai books" isn't that just fantasy with extra steps?
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@melancholy Well I thought it might be an interesting idea but clearly not, and I have not been able to think of any other series that could use a isekai twist. I guess it's just an expression of just how much I hate how Dragon Flight's characters were written.
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@folker46 said in Isekai non isekai books.:
@melancholy Well I thought it might be an interesting idea but clearly not, and I have not been able to think of any other series that could use a isekai twist. I guess it's just an expression of just how much I hate how Dragon Flight's characters were written.
That was probably intended by the author, to show you how her potential was stunted by her lack of education and by society giving too much power to men.
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@dawnaxis Started reading The Guardians of the Flame and yeah, the authors dim view of human nature come across pretty well, it's kind of discouraging and off putting. It is kind of interesting watching them struggle with their character's original personalities but that also opens some big questions, did these people already exist and the students have just taken them over? Like demonic possessions or something?
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@folker46 I’m not sure how far along you are, so I don’t want to spoil anything. The series does pose some interesting questions, though. It does also go to some darker/less savory places, which is why I don’t often recommend it to casual acquaintances unless I know that it’s their genre. It’s also not all grim darkness and despair, either, though.
I think Rosenberg does a pretty good job of balancing “noble intentions and goodwill are often worthwhile” vs “reality can really bite”, at least as a whole. But as individual scenes or story arcs, some of them… yeah.
In short, there’s a lot to see here, and your mileage may vary.
