Nautical Fantasy

[jason taylor]

Does anyone know of fantasies based on traditional nautical folklore?

[Anaraxes]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "nautical folklore". Presumably something more fantastic than the Aubrey-Maturin books or Horatio Hornblower.

• Sinbad (might as well start with the classics)
• Jason and the Argonauts
• Gulliver's Travels
• Peter Pan
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (fantastical, but presumably more SF)
• Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Red Seas Under Red Skies (Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards #2)
• The King's Buccaneer (one of Feist's Mikdemia novels)
• Assassin's Fate (#3 of Robin Hobbs' Fitz and Fool books) is the most nautical. (Seaborne invaders are important in all of them, but the first two don't spend a lot of time at sea.)
• Liveship Trilogy (More Hobbs, supposed to be about ships and magic, but I haven't read this one)
• The Princess Bride (okay, the nautical bits are mostly offstage)
• Life of Pi (maybe "magical realism" instead of "fantasy", but I find it hard to distinguish those two)
• The Aeronauts' Windlass (Jim Butcher) Airships and steampunky, but it wouldn't be hard to pare it back to traditional fantasy decoration

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "nautical folklore". Presumably something more fantastic than the Aubrey-Maturin books or Horatio Hornblower.

• Sinbad (might as well start with the classics)
• Jason and the Argonauts
• Gulliver's Travels
• Peter Pan
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (fantastical, but presumably more SF)
• Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Red Seas Under Red Skies (Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards #2)
• The King's Buccaneer (one of Feist's Mikdemia novels)
• Assassin's Fate (#3 of Robin Hobbs' Fitz and Fool books) is the most nautical. (Seaborne invaders are important in all of them, but the first two don't spend a lot of time at sea.)
• Liveship Trilogy (More Hobbs, supposed to be about ships and magic, but I haven't read this one)
• The Princess Bride (okay, the nautical bits are mostly offstage)
• Life of Pi (maybe "magical realism" instead of "fantasy", but I find it hard to distinguish those two)
• The Aeronauts' Windlass (Jim Butcher) Airships and steampunky, but it wouldn't be hard to pare it back to traditional fantasy decoration

The Odyssey and Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides also seem relevant.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Does anyone know of fantasies based on traditional nautical folklore?

Every mermaid romance ever written. The Pirates of the Caribbean series. And of course the Flying Dutchman.

[The Colonel]

The 2000AD series "The Red Seas" … which, at the start at least, has certain similarities with the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "nautical folklore". Presumably something more fantastic than the Aubrey-Maturin books or Horatio Hornblower.

• Sinbad (might as well start with the classics)
• Jason and the Argonauts
• Gulliver's Travels
• Peter Pan
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (fantastical, but presumably more SF)
• Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Red Seas Under Red Skies (Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards #2)
• The King's Buccaneer (one of Feist's Mikdemia novels)
• Assassin's Fate (#3 of Robin Hobbs' Fitz and Fool books) is the most nautical. (Seaborne invaders are important in all of them, but the first two don't spend a lot of time at sea.)
• Liveship Trilogy (More Hobbs, supposed to be about ships and magic, but I haven't read this one)
• The Princess Bride (okay, the nautical bits are mostly offstage)
• Life of Pi (maybe "magical realism" instead of "fantasy", but I find it hard to distinguish those two)
• The Aeronauts' Windlass (Jim Butcher) Airships and steampunky, but it wouldn't be hard to pare it back to traditional fantasy decoration

A fantasy with a core taken out of traditional sailor's tales, much as Lotr is taken from Northern Europe, and Prydain from Wales. It would look something like Pirates of the Caribbean but take itself seriously and be free of that stupid meme about pirate and sailor being synonyms.

Really this question doesn't belong here as it is about stories in general rather than roleplaying.