I'm still working my way through "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow (which, despite being eminently readable and full of delightfully dry wit, is rather dense and requires being read and reflected upon in small chunks at a time). Still an absolute banger though.
One of the things I'm taking away from this book is a profound disappointment in most mainstream fantasy writing, which is dreadfully boring in how it always seems to be set in the same sort of medieval-esque society with a king (or, for the really progressive works, a queen), knights, noblemen, great houses, the lot. The main avenue for social change is just "replace bad king with good king" - the abysmal final season of "Game of Thrones" even has a scene where a character suggests the Westerosi equivalent of a modern, liberal representative democracy and is mocked and derided for this idea, before the council decides to simply install a new king and leave all the power structures effectively intact.
Once you start to comprehend the myriad of forms that politics and societal organization has taken in the real world, it really starts to seem like a bizarre lack of imagination to see so much of an entire genre (a genre that is supposed to be about fantastical imaginings!) that feels like endless riffs on the vibe of 14th century western Europe.
So: I'm looking for non-traditional fantany recommendations! Any medium is fine (are there any good original fantasy podcasts?)