Kay has written other series set in European-inspired worlds (also narrated by Vance in their audiobook editions), but it was the Asian ambience of 'Under Heaven' that drew me. When I crave the pleasure of being entirely enveloped in the imaginary world of a long novel, I want Vance to read it to me. To my ear, he strikes exactly the right balance between distinct characters and the unified sensibility of a third-person omniscient narrator.

Vance has taken me through a dozen books by Anthony Trollope, the entire 'A Dance to the Music of Time' sequence by Anthony Powell and miscellaneous other novels by Dickens, Hilary Mantel and V.S. It was a meeting shaped by audiobooks, since what I was looking for when I found it was a long multi-character story read by my favorite narrator, Simon Vance. Or so I thought until I stumbled upon Guy Gavriel Kay's 'Under Heaven,' a bewitching tale set in the invented country of Kitai, which is closely patterned after Tang Dynasty China. White have a hard time establishing worlds with a non-European flavor.

Even novels that deliberately try to break the conventions established by J.R.R. There's nothing inherently wrong with doublets, broadswords and castles, of course, but there's also no reason why so many works in the genre have to adopt them, either. Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series on which the HBO show is based, epic fantasy's Medieval settings can get old. Much as I look forward to each new episode of 'Game of Thrones' and the less-frequent but even more engrossing books in George R.R.

River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay