Reminds me of Raymond Feist's Riftwar Cycle. The Tsurani's planet was devoid of metal so they had all wooden armor and weapons... uncomfortable silence
Basically, as materials science goes, they skipped everything about metallurgy and went straight to ceramics, polymers, and composites. Seems like Feist took the concept from Teng-dynasty paper armor and just ran with it, including the pseudo-Asian flavor of the Tsurani.