Slavery in fantasy novels?

This is still in my To Read stack, so I'm not sure how well this would fit, but you might try Kindred by Octavia Butler.

And welcome!

Nicole

There's a whole series of novels (at least 20) set on a planet called Gor (aka counter-earth, because it is in earth's orbit, on the far side of the sun) by a guy named John Norman. They're big on male domination and the submission of women as sex slaves. The books are kind of frowned on by a lot of people because they are very un-PC. I suspect that most people who hold these opinions haven't read many of the books in the series, though.

Not all the slaves are women. In one of them the MC, Tarl Cabot (originally from earth, brought to Gor by his father), is enslaved. He was of the warrior caste, and when he chose slavery over death he dishonored his caste. When he later escaped he refused to resume his status, took a new name, and moved to Port Kar, a city renowned for being the underbelly of civilization. Many of the books after that are about his slow redemption, in his own eyes. Some of the other books are about other people taken from earth to Gor. There are 3 books about a guy named Jason (I think) who was brought to Gor as a slave, and fought as a gladiator until he won his freedom.

While people may find some of the philosophy of the books objectionable, the stories are generally interesting, and the world building is pretty good, you get a sense of a highly varied civilization different from our own.

The title character of Maia by Richard Adams (same guy who wrote Watership Down) is also a slave girl.

The MCs of one of the Kushiel books are enslaved for a while.

Hmm, surprisingly I can't think of that many fantasy works with slavery in them.

TheFox said:

Anyone have any experience writing slavery into fantasy novels? I've done a little research into some slavery experiences in the real-world, things like payment, treatment, children born into slavery, trading, etc., but it seems like pretty common sense stuff.

EDIT - forgot the question. Wanted to know if there are any novels that have done slavery successfully and if there are any opinions on ways to handle this from the slaves' POV and the slave owners' POV (other than the basic stuff that is).

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First of all - Welcome

Second; If you are writing Fantasy - just go ahead with the slaves. They've been around for thousands of years, and in hundreds of cultures in our world. Not to mention how often they've been used in SF as robots! Not like it's an unknown subject. And if you are afraid that you might not be PC - buy yourself a sewing machine and turn gay!!!

There are so many novels dealing with this subject... huh! Check the library and you'll get your fill!

My WIP has slavery in it. One of the major characters is a slave for a while. I don't approve of slavery, obviously, but I tried not to foist my modern views off on my characters.

At one point a man who's accustomed to having slaves around says he supposes slavery would be hard to get used to if you were born free, but if you were born into it he assumes it feels natural. Then he adds that he doesn't mistreat his slaves because he regards them as an investment. I was trying to figure out how a relatively decent person who had grown up with slavery and thought it was normal would talk about it.

I don't think slavery is hard to do successfully. To be honest I have more of a problem accepting the idea that all men are slaves based solely on their gender.

There have been some slavery novels. Recently, Carol Berg's work comes to mind. Richard Adams's Maia is about a young girl sold to be a slave-girl/whore. C.J.Cherryh has a whole range of novels about Azi, who are people bred to be slaves (either slightly bioengineered or programmed or both, I do not remember exactly) - check out her Cyteen, which is very good. Also an earlier novel of hers, Hunter of Worlds, has slavery in a SF setting. Gor novels have already been mentioned.

Of course, Ursula Le Guin's Four Ways to Forgiveness is about slavery and emancipation. Genius.

And my WIP has slavery, if this is of interest. Also my novelette, which is in an SF universe. Some of my readers had hard time accepting the premise where the heroine does not struggle against her "predicament" (she does not really see it as a problem). So yeah, slavery can be a touchy topic.

Conan the Barbarian?

got to be more - there's always the enslaving of Britons in 'Carry on Cleo'
as Julius Caesar says:
'Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me!'

I think slavery pops up in a lot of fantasy worlds, hell it was in the last episode of Star Trek I watched. I rather like RA MacAvoys 'Raphael' where an angel is cast down to earth and enslaved.

Although I am one of those who finds Gor books very icky, and have read 1.5 of them. It shows slavery has diverse purposes in fiction. Sexual, to drive the plot, just part of world building etc.

There are plenty of ways to explore slavery in fantasy. How it is managed and who can be a slave can say much about a society and their hierarchy.

In some cases, only enemies captured in battle can be slaves. This makes slaves suited only for abuse, negligence, or hard labor. No domestics, unlikely to be freed or allowed to breed.

Another society that allows ""citizen" parents to sell children into schools for slaves would be very different. Slaves would be well trained in unique skills, and would be vital to commerce, education, etc. They would be well trusted and treated as an asset.

Or you could have both in one.

Freedom's Choice, Freedom's Challenge, Freedom's Landing...three books that dealt with aliens invading Earth, enslaving a portion, and then dumping the troublesome populations on seemingly uninhabited lands to test out the viability of the planet.

Tamora Pierce's Trickster's Choice & Trickster's Queen are YA fantasy novels that deal with a race that is kept in slavery/kept beneath another race.

You can be quite creative with slavery...have fun!

Samuel R. Delany's Neveryon (I may not be spelling it correctly, but I also don't know how to get the right diacritical marks in here) books have slaves, and there's a fair amount about the structure of the cultures and the ways it affects people's thinking in them.

oscuridad said:

Conan the Barbarian?

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I'm trying to remember if Robert E. Howard ever wrote a slavery bit with Conan or if that was something created just for the movie and the comic.

Shadow_Ferret said:

I'm trying to remember if Robert E. Howard ever wrote a slavery bit with Conan or if that was something created just for the movie and the comic.

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no - I'm not sure either.

The Daughter of the Empire series has slavery in it. They're by Raymond E Feist and Janny Wurts. I think. Anyway, good reads.

oscuridad said:

no - I'm not sure either.

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It's a creation of John Milius/Oliver Stone for the movie version; in REH's originals (recently re-released by Del Rey), Conan was born on a battlefield and at 15 or so took part in the sack of the Aquilonian border outpost of Venarium; maybe a year or two later -- depending on what chronology you follow -- he wandered south into the civilized lands. The rest is history

A good fantasy that has slavery as one of its central themes is David Anthony Durham's Acacia.


Best,

Scott

NicoleMD said:

This is still in my To Read stack, so I'm not sure how well this would fit, but you might try Kindred by Octavia Butler.

And welcome!

Nicole

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I read Kindred, by Octavia Butler. It's considered sci-fi, but I liked it alot. A woman time travels to the past, at first with her husband, who is white. It really touches on a lot of important issues about American slavery and America in general. I think it's a really important book.

Also remember there are different sources of slaves historically, from criminals, to debters, prisoners of war. The source of the slaves can help with world building. Even indentured servants to me sounds like a form of slavery.

Office jobs are a form of slavery.

Naomi Kritchner (I think that's who, and I'm sure I spelled that wrong) has a series that deals with slavery from the POV of a woman who used to hunt for escaped slaves and eventually became an escaped slave herself.

The culture in my WIP is loosely based on imperial Rome, so there's plenty of slaves. MY MC is the daughter of a freedwoman.

And welcome!

Ravenlocks said:

Office jobs are a form of slavery.

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I hear that being a desk jockey chained to my desk.

Historically, one of the most common forms of slavery was as kidnapping victims (one reason why it was so dangerous to travel more than 20 miles from where you were born).

This type of slavery could happen to people of any race, gender or social status, and it was regarded as quite normal in many cultures. You stay and work until your family agrees to pay the ransom. It could take years for them to raise the money. If nobody cares enough about you to pay off your captors, then you end up being a slave for life.

jamiehall said:

Historically, one of the most common forms of slavery was as kidnapping victims (one reason why it was so dangerous to travel more than 20 miles from where you were born).

This type of slavery could happen to people of any race, gender or social status, and it was regarded as quite normal in many cultures. You stay and work until your family agrees to pay the ransom. It could take years for them to raise the money. If nobody cares enough about you to pay off your captors, then you end up being a slave for life.

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This still happens in parts of the Caucasus. I remember reading a fascinating story in Kommersant once about how their correspondent in (I think) Dagestan encountered and freed someone who was being kept as a slave by a local family.

If you decide to go this route, there should be some interesting reading around on this kind of slavery.

Mandingo, get your sword!

Ravenlocks said:

This still happens in parts of the Caucasus. I remember reading a fascinating story in Kommersant once about how their correspondent in (I think) Dagestan encountered and freed someone who was being kept as a slave by a local family.

If you decide to go this route, there should be some interesting reading around on this kind of slavery.

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Yes, many people are kept as POW-slaves in the Caucasus as the result of the Russia/Chechya conflict. There is an excellent movie "Prisoner of the Mountains" dealing with this topic (it has English subtitles).