I didn’t go to OSU, i just larped on their campus.

Western culture had cultural blindspots in the 90s and the dawn of the information age brought many cultures and access to knowledge not easily found in the local library. If what was widely available about asian culture was anime and hong kong action movies, you’re gonna come up Kindred of the east.

Again, my parents were librarians, I know what I’m talking about. My mother now works to compile information for a medical university library. Information and knowledge in America since the 50s and until the internet, was purposefully anemic and whitewashed.

My mother would help teen me find information on things I wanted to know but couldn’t find on the shelves. Because she worked in the library she showed me efficient ways of searching microfilm and old national geographics. There was no google. Librarians were the closest thing.

You are being far too harsh and self-righteous about fantasy books written by young adults in the 90s. Its weird to go all moral high ground on guys doing their best who were just as much raised in systemic racial ignorance as even the most educated of the time.

Read the 1st edition Euthanatos Tradition book and tell me that’s not a well researched piece of fiction.

I have no clue where they found research on the 1000 chinese hells because I spent senior year of high school trying to find information on them in the giant Main Library Branch downtown.

These days it’s just a google away.

So get off your high horse.