This week's two picks share something: neither is set in the vaguely medieval Western Europe that much of epic fantasy still treats as home.
The Wolves of War by John Gwynne: Slavic Mythology Epic Fantasy
Gwynne has spent more than a decade building a reputation on shield walls and loyalty, first with The Faithful and the Fallen and then the Norse-inspired Bloodsworn Saga. His new series, The Wolfheart Chronicles, turns to Slavic mythology. The Clans have been conquered by northern invaders, and a father named Ivan wants only to keep his family alive. His daughter Halia has been, in the publisher's words, "trapped in her own body since birth." At night she dreams of running with wolves and speaking with the fae of the forest, and the power waking in her may be the only thing that saves them.
We are highlighting it because a heroine whose body does not cooperate with her is rare at the centre of a major epic fantasy launch. We have not yet seen how the book handles Halia's experience, and readers with disabilities will judge that for themselves, but the choice to build a series around her is worth noticing. Mark Lawrence's advance praise also says it is a good place to start for anyone new to Gwynne. It runs to about 500 pages, with an 18-hour audiobook, and is available to preorder in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audio.
Mark of the Warrior by Shannon Lee and Fonda Lee: Wuxia YA Fantasy
This is the second and final book of the Breathmarked duology, co-written by Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, and Fonda Lee, the World Fantasy Award winner behind the Green Bone Saga. The first book, Breath of the Dragon, followed Jun, a boy born without the dragon-scale mark that grants power, as he fought through a tournament to restore his family. The finale sends him east to find the twin he was separated from as a child, who now guards the very scroll Jun has sworn to recover.
It is shelved as young adult, and it earns a place here for two reasons. It is a complete story in two volumes, which matters to readers who have been burned by series that never ended. And it is epic fantasy built from wuxia and Bruce Lee's philosophy rather than European folklore, with fight scenes that reviewers from The Washington Post to independent blogs keep singling out. If you know a reader, younger or not, who has drifted away from fantasy because it all started to feel the same, this duology is a good way back.
Map's Edge Media looks for stories that widen the map, and these two do.
