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compiled by Eshari
Please note that Amazon links are provided for informational purposes only,
and I do not encourage buying from Amazon except as a last resort. Buy used,
and/or support your local independent bookstores!
Non-Fiction | Fiction
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Recommended
Fiction
Elves
| Faery | Dragons | Other
Mythicals | Magic, Dreams, Glamour | Urban
Fantasy | Miscellaneous | Haven't
Read Yet
There is little fiction that is really about what we could call "otherkin", although you'll turn up a surprising amount of hits on Amazon these days if you use that as a keyword, which didn't use to be the case (although IMO some/many of the books you'll find misuse the term to mean non-humans in their natural form, rather than non-human spirits in human bodies). However, there is somewhat more
that falls into the genre of "urban fantasy" (that is, tales of magic
in the modern world), and of course, plenty of straight fantasy that is often
germane to otherkin. Some of these make the list because of their usefulness
to point to as references: "like that" or "sort of like that,
but not exactly".
Elves (return to
top)
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The
Lord of the Rings; The
Silmarillion; other various works set in same world (Middle-earth).
Perhaps more cliche now than ever before, but still one of the grandaddies.
Elves are the obvious and most common thing to relate to, but angelics might
find relevance in the Valar or Maiar; the idea of humans carrying non-human
blood also appears (the Numenoreans, which bloodline Aragorn is descended
from, have Elvish ancestry).
- Gael Baudino, Strands
of Starlight; Maze
of Moonlight; Shroud
of Shadow; Strands
of Sunlight; Spires
of Spirit. The elves in these books are described as "starlit",
which is a self-description which works well for a number of elven otherkin.
These books are apparently terribly hard to lay hold of.
- Wendy and Richard Pini, ElfQuest
and other various works. Presents a variety of elven types, from tall, slender
and artistic to small and feral, living in a variety of environments besides
just the stereotypical forest. Unfortunately, the older full-size,
colour hardcovers (or at a pinch, the paperbacks,
which are the original releases with better cover art, but the bindings are
flimsy and they fall apart with hardly any encouragement at all) are out of print and pricy on the used market.
Faery (return to
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- Parke Godwin, The
Last Rainbow. Imaginative interpretation of not-yet-Saint Patrick
trying to spread Christianity among the small, dark Faerie (or Prydain) people.
This is a small-dark-elder-race take on things, rather than faery being otherworldly
or supernatural.
- W. B. Yeats, various poetry, letters, etc. (Too many possible titles to
list any here.) Classic material absolutely dripping with Faery feeling.
- Greg Bear, Songs of Earth and Power (a compilaton volume of two novels, The Infinity Concerto and The Serpent Mage). This depiction of sidhe does not really match my own feeling (except perhaps some aspects of the city of Inyas Trai), but may be interesting to some. You can read some of it on Google Books.
Dragons (return
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- Anne McCaffrey, Dragonflight;
Dragonquest;
The
White Dragon; other various works set in same world (Pern). (Links
are to the editions I have, which are not the newest. Also, you can get an
e-book of Dragonflight and Dragonquest here.)
Other books tell the backstory, or stories in the same time period but about
different characters, but in the "core" books the society is mostly
Renaissance to early-modern in character, and the telepathic dragons partner
with special humans to protect the planet from an extraplanetary threat known
as Thread.
- Bob Eggleton and John Grant, Dragonhenge
and The
Stardragons.
- Baxil has posted a list of urban fantasy books featuring dragons on his LiveJournal.
Other Mythicals and Assorted Beasties (return
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- Peter S. Beagle, The
Last Unicorn. This is the closest to specifically talking about "otherkin"
that I know of, since it involves a unicorn being turned into a human girl;
she talks about the wrongness of the body, and it is mentioned that she will
forget being a unicorn if she stays human too long.
- Tad Williams, Tailchaser's
Song. Semi-anthropomorphized cats (in the vein of the rabbits in Watership Down).
The bits of cat-language are wonderful, and seemed to function well as "words
of power" for me when I was a teenager and young adult..
Magic, Dreams, Glamour (return
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- White Wolf, Changeling:
The Dreaming and supplements. (The second edition is far superior to the first in terms of gameplay, but if you're
just interested in atmosphere, it may not matter to you.) An old joke among
'kin used to be "who blabbed?" Yes, it's a role-playing game, but
some of the concepts are intriguingly close to how things seem to work for
some people (banality vs. glamour, importance of dreams, existence of chimaerical
creatures, sidhe or Tuatha de Danann houses, freeholds and balefires...). The new edition set in the New World of Darkness, Changeling: The Lost, trades on much different concepts and largely doesn't seem to me to have the same "oomph".
- C. S. Lewis, The
Chronicles of Narnia. Immersive fantasy.
- Katherine Paterson, Bridge
to Terabithia. Children create a magical land for themselves in a
nearby wood.
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
and Through the Looking Glass. (Link is a boxed set of both books.)
Adventures in a bizarre dreamland with creatures and plants that talk, as
well as plenty of nonsense that makes sense.
- L. Frank Baum, The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Similar vein to Alice, just different characters
and setting. Bizarre and fantastical.
- J. M. Barrie, Peter
Pan. (This particular edition is illustrated by Charles Vess, which
is a Good Thing. Charles Vess also did Neil Gaiman's Stardust, for
example.) Boy who decides to never grow up lives in fantasy land with pirates,
fairies, and all kinds of stuff. What do you mean you're not familiar with
this? (Ignore the part where everyone goes "back to reality.")
- P. L. Travers, Mary
Poppins. Imaginging things and going to strange lands with your umbrella-wielding
nanny is better than growing up to be a banker. Or something. (Travers actually
wrote a series of books with various continuation titles, such as Mary
Poppins in the Park and Mary Poppins Comes Back.)
- Neil Gaiman, Sandman.
Not a single work but a sprawling series or collection of graphic novels and
such, involving various other authors and artists. Modern myth and dreamlands.
- Michael Ende, The
Neverending Story. Boy enters world of all human stories and dreams
(Fantasia) through identifying with main character of magical book. Some urban
fantasy elements. Somewhat more philosophical or "high-brow" than
the popular movie.
Urban Fantasy (return
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Weird Stuff & Miscellaneous (return
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- Madeleine L'Engle, A
Wrinkle in Time;
The Wind in the Door; A Swiftly Tilting Planet. (Link is
to a boxed set that also includes Many Waters.) Strange tales of twisting
time and space.
- William Sleator, The
Boy Who Reversed Himself. Similar general basis as A Wrinkle in Time (travel through higher dimensions, and beings who live there), but a rather
different interpretation.
- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger
in a Strange Land. Mars-born human has trouble adjusting to Earthling
humans.
- Robert Holdstock, Mythago
Wood; Lavondyss;
The
Hollowing; Gate
of Ivory, Gate of Horn; The Bone
Forest. (Also Merlin's Wood,
which is the same idea set in the forest of Broceliande in France rather than
in England.) The Mythago series just doesn't fit in any one category. It's
part magic-world-dreams, part urban fantasy, part other-mythicals. A magical
wood spawns mythic creatures from the minds and ancestral memory of those
who enter it. The books are not really a series in the linear sense (although
you can place the events within them in a chronological order), but rather
a collection of stories all looking in on the same wood from the points of
different characters, and sometimes at different times in their lives. It's
rather like the several paths into Ryhope (the wood of the title) itself.
Lastly, some suggestions which seem likely to be
good, or which others have vouched for, but which I haven't checked out myself:
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- Roger Zelazny, The Amber Chronicles. (The
Great Book of Amber compiles them all in one large volume.) "A
treatise on the manipulation of reality." From the review
at Green Man: "...Amber, a place at the center of reality. All other
places are mere shadows, and can be reached only by manipulating reality,
changing it bit by bit until you arrive at the place you want to be. Earth
is a shadow, too, you may be surprised to learn..."
- Storm Constantine, The Grigori Trilogy: Stalking
Tender Prey; Scenting
Hallowed Blood; Stealing
Sacred Fire. "For angelics." The Grigori are the Watchers,
that is, fallen angels (loosely).
- Storm Constantine, Wraeththu
and related works. Metahumans; evolving genomes from humanity.
- Patricia Kennealy-Morrison, The Keltiad: The
Silver Branch; The
Copper Crown, The
Throne of Scone. "Tuatha de Danann in space."
- Holly Black, The
Spiderwick Chronicles.
- Charles de Lint, The
Wild Wood. From the review
at Green Man: "It's a haunting that is peculiarly suited to an artist,
to see things in one's work that one did not put there. But Eithnie's haunting
grows; the creatures in her pictures step out into the world around her, and
she begins to see them everywhere in the familiar woods around her home, overwhelming
her with the beauty and terror of the unknown." Illustrations by Brian
Froud.
- Terri Windling, The
Wood Wife. From the review
at Green Man: "Windling's Arizona desert comes alive with fey beings,
shapeshifters small and great that are as mysterious and amoral as any European
Fair Folk, yet practical and earthy and distinctively Native American in their
coloration."
- Lisa Goldstein, Dark
Cities Underground. From the review
at Green Man: "Dark Cities Underground is a story of what ifs. What
if Alice in Wonderland was a true story, but rather than Lewis Carroll being
the originator it was really Alice Liddell who experienced the adventure and
told the story to Charles Dodgson?"
- James A. Hetley, The
Summer Country. (Get an e-book here.)
From the review
at Green Man: "The Summer Country evokes some of the best of Charles
de Lint, with roots both in gritty urban reality, and a fantastic otherworld
filled with dangers and magic. [...] In short, they're the Fae of Tam Lin,
of Thomas the Rhymer, of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, the otherworldly creatures
named the Fair Folk because you fear or respect them, but don't know or trust
them."
- Ian McDonald, King
of Morning, Queen of Day. From the review
at Green Man: "Fans of Charles de Lint will delight in Enye's sword-wielding
encounters with pookas and other mythic creatures in the back alleys and underpasses
of modern Ireland. Anyone who has read Robert Holdstock as well as de Lint
will certainly find ley lines of similarity between McDonald's "phaguses,"
Holdstock's "mythagos," and de Lint's "numena." Like his fellow authors, McDonald
also asks serious questions about our modern, civilized world, which seems
so stripped of the numinous."
- Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon, Bedlam's
Bard. From the review
at Green Man: "Even after he makes it back home to L.A., with the
aid of some sympathetic friends, he finds that life is stranger than ever
before. For one thing, there's an elf in his apartment. A pointy-eared, cat-eyed,
too-beautiful-for-words elf, wearing Eric's best cloak and making himself
at home in Eric's apartment."
- Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill, Beyond
World's End. From the review
at Green Man: "No one ever said it was easy to be a Bard in New York.
Luckily, he's got friends and his own Bardic magic, and hopefully he'll be
able to stop a three-way war between the good guys, the Sidhe, and the drug
producers before it gets out of hand."
- Rebecca Lickiss, Eccentric
Circles. From the review
at Green Man: "That's right, Grandma Dickerson's cottage is on the
border of Earth and Fairy, and is actually something of a portal for the creatures
that inhabit the area."
- Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold (eds.), Borderland
and Bordertown:
Where Magic Meets Rock & Roll.Terri Windling (ed.), Life
on the Border. Will Shetterly, Elsewhere
and Nevernever.
Emma Bull, Finder.
Terri Windling and Delia Sherman (eds.), The
Essential Bordertown. This is a collection of urban fantasy set in
the world of Bordertown. See the review
of all of them together at Green Man.
- Laurel Winter, Growing
Wings. From the review
at Green Man: "There's no explanation given for why Linnet or Sarah
grew wings — or why any of the other winged characters in the story did. There
are hints, guesses, but no facts. It is not important where the wings came
from, only that they are there — and that they are as painful as they are
joyful."
- Dennis Danvers, Wilderness.
From the review
at Green Man: "With Wilderness we are exposed to the concept of werewolves
living amongst us. In fact, one is living right next door to college professor
Erik Summers, one he has actually met and spoken with in regard to her status
as a career student."
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