ext_6576 ([identity profile] mindstalk.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] swan_tower 2009-04-21 08:27 pm (UTC)

Merchant Princes has a bit of that: women from a feudal America encountering the modern USA. And all the tech and wealth they get from us, since it's a two-way portal world. MP also handles languages naturally: the Clan has learned English, and Miriam has to learn other languages the hard way... though I think the third world speaks English, it being a parallel Earth.

Other points:
Time travel stories can be a form of portal story, e.g. Connecticut Yankee or Lest Darkness Fall. This may provide more male characters than the straight portal fantasies. Also something like Stasheff's Warlock books. Julian May's Pliocene Saga is a multi-character time travel portal story.

Japan has some number of portal stories: Twelve Kingdoms novel and anime (features: political not romantic, divine magic solves the language problem, limited two-way contact); Fushigi Yugi, Escaflowne, Mahou Shoujoutai (Magical Girl Squad Alice, brought over as Tweeny Witches *cries*). Female-centric, though in 12K Taiki is a male who's crossed and back, and the anime brings a male and female companion for Youko that she didn't have in the novel. Plus two very important other characters are males from Japan... though most of these are actually 12K natives who got blown to Japan as fetuses.

12K also deconstructs standard portal fantasy a bit: Youko has a rough time of it; Suzu is an actual Japanese girl who has an even rougher time of it (not being a ruler, she doesn't get the magical language facility); the anime companions include a girl who takes the whole fantasy portal scenario to heart... but *isn't* the chosen one.

Other portals: Rick Cook's Wizardry Compiled books (male), and yeah, vaguely remembered books where people got sucked into a D&D world, with dice rolling across the sky and real hexes. Oh, and the D&D cartoon.

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