Sofia Samatar‘s A Stranger in Olondria (2013) stands out most of all for its literaryness, it you’ll allow the word.
This is a fantasy novel that reads more like historical fiction, like a finely detailed account of lives lived a few centuries ago. But, with light touches of fantasy/magic sprinkled throughout. The general form of the narrative–a journey from the isolated hinterlands to the thriving capital, and beyond–is well-traveled, but the world Samatar creates is very thick, in the best sense of that word, and the attention to detail–to the sights and smells, to the professions and social structures, and to the lived experience of the lives of her characters–stands out.
Your enjoyment of the novel will depend, at least partially, on your addiction to pace: a lot happens, but nothing happens terribly quickly. This is a novel to savor and enjoy–and to some, that screams boredom, but I would argue that, in a genre so dominated by page-turners with little to remember about the specificity of their settings, it’s a rare pleasure.
A Stranger in Olondria is followed by 2017’s The Winged Histories, which I hope to get to sometime this year.