# Fantasy Book Suggestions featuring Older Protagonists **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [January 4, 2023, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663 "2023-01-04T16:13:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/41 "2023-01-05T02:43:16Z")
> [@Lavender\_Pebble](#): > > Thanks again everyone, these all sound great Paladin of Souls does sound exactly like something I’d want to read! _Paladin_ is a sequel to _Curse of Chalion_, and flows from the events of that book, just so you know. But it’s sufficiently explanatory to be read as a standalone, I think. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I would have added that one too, but it’s definitely what I would call military sci Fi. Not as hard as it could be, but with wormholes, military fleets and extreme genetic engineering, among other things. Some of the first novels, yes. But then you get comedies of manners like _A Civil Campaign_, _Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance_, and _Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen_, which are really about relationships and the intersection of technology and culture. Indeed, what separates Bujold from space opera like, say, David Weber, is the way she’s able to weave human relationships into rhe fabric of her space stories. For instance, look at _Komarr_. The “A” plot is a purely sci-fi mystery, set around a plot to use a powerful secret weapon. But the “B” plot, which gets just as much focus as the sci-fi story, is centers on the dissolution of Ekaterin’s emotionally abusive marriage. And the resolution of that story plays directly into the climax of the “A” plot. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Well, the Witches series in Discworld. Sure, but would you describe the Witches series as a traditional swords-and-sorcery story? I wouldn’t; I’d call it a subversion and parody of that genre. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I really enjoyed the first book, but yeah, it has a slight veneer of “lovable old fashioned sexist” to it. I get a weird vibe from Jim Butcher. Seems like in just about every Dresden Files novel, Harry encounters some supernaturally hot woman (literally, in some cases), usually nude, who offers him amazing sex which he nobly turns down. Mab, Maeve, Lara Raith, Jenny Greenteeth, Molly Carpenter, Madeleine Raith, the Maenad who seduced Murphy - he’s fought off advances from any number of deadly _femmes fatales_. It just feels a little…fetishy. That, and Butcher seems to be allergic to the word “nipple”. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/42 "2023-01-05T02:48:41Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > For trad stuff, the [Dresden Files](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074CF4JMZ) is a really good series (if you don’t mind the fact that Dresden can be an annoying horndog sometimes). Several of the earlier ones were great fun, but the series is suffering from “each one’s gotta be bigger than the last” syndrome, and he should’ve ended it a half dozen books back. For an alternative–a really fun modern urban fantasy with a female protagonist–try _[The Rook](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10836728-the-rook)_, another book whose hero is an accountant (or maybe secretary, I forget), and is totally awesome. It has the funniest duck scene in all literature. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > What about the Gentleman Bastards series? The Lies of Locke Lamora? I loved the first two. The third one is pretty clearly the author’s therapy session as he’s trying and failing to get over his ex, but the first two were great. The author, responding to some incel’s whining about the second book’s female pirate captain, wrote: > [@Scott Lynch](#): > > Why shouldn’t middle-aged mothers get a wish-fulfillment character, you sad little bigot? Everyone else does. H.L. Mencken once wrote that “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” I can’t think of anyone to whom that applies more than my own mom, and the mothers on my friends list, with the incredible demands on time and spirit they face in their efforts to raise their kids, preserve their families, and save their own identity/sanity into the bargain. > > Shit yes, Zamira Drakasha, leaping across the gap between burning ships with twin sabers in hand to kick in some fucking heads and sail off into the sunset with her toddlers in her arms and a hold full of plundered goods, is a wish-fulfillment fantasy from hell. I offer her up on a silver platter with a fucking bow on top; I hope she amuses and delights. In my fictional world, opportunities for butt-kicking do not cease merely because one isn’t a beautiful teenager or a muscle-wrapped font of testosterone. In my fictional universe, the main characters are a fat ugly guy and a skinny forgettable guy, with a supporting cast that includes “SBF, 41, nonsmoker, 2 children, buccaneer of no fixed abode, seeks unescorted merchant for light boarding, heavy plunder.” ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/43 "2023-01-05T02:55:08Z")
I know. I own a copy of it, but I’ve moved three times since I read it last, so I just bought it for my Kindle as an alternative to finding my paper copy. It was a great sale price, and I had some credits, and the effort of searching hours to find one specific book seemed overwhelming. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/44 "2023-01-05T03:15:06Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Indeed, what separates Bujold from space opera like, say, David Weber, is the way she’s able to weave human relationships into rhe fabric of her space stories. That is indeed why I love her. Komarr is one of my favorites, and A Civil Campaign made me laugh so hard I fell off my couch. My absolute favorite, though, is Mirror Dance. I’ve read it four or five times to try to figure out how she made me have those feelings. But it is very sci-fi. I’m not sure I would call it soft sci-fi. If the OP wants to dip their toe in, there are a couple good standalones. Falling Free, which is a gentle love story/revolution story about an enslaved people genetically engineered to have four arms so they can work in Zero G, and Ethan of Athos, which is about a gay man from a planet of entirely men leaving said planet and getting his perception of women rearranged by a feisty badass. It could have been so gimmicky but instead it was funny and moving and realistic. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/45 "2023-01-05T04:08:24Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > For an alternative–a really fun modern urban fantasy with a female protagonist–try _[The Rook](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10836728-the-rook)_, another book whose hero is an accountant (or maybe secretary, I forget), and is totally awesome. It has the funniest duck scene in all literature. I just went and bought Rook. I’m only a page in, but it’s intriguing so far. My kindle unlimited stuff is getting difficult to wade through to find anything good. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/46 "2023-01-05T04:26:27Z")
I’ll add a much deserved 4th/5th/6th to Bujold, especially the Chalion novels. As for Lies of Locke Lamora, yeah, the first is excellent, the second okay, the third . . . meh. But the first and best is much closer to what the OP specifically didn’t want - a young generation that’s just so good at what they do! But mostly wanted to bring up that we have some of these same-ish suggestions in a related thread: > [@The age 40+ Chosen One?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-age-40-chosen-one/957622): > > I’m looking for fantasy or scifi or horror stories where someone is at least 40 years old when it is revealed that he or she is the chosen one who is destined to save their people or the kingdom or the whole freakin’ world (you know the trope). Note I don’t mean stories where the chosen one is currently middle-aged or elderly now but they’d been the chosen one for ages already in the prequels and/or their backstories, but only tales where the news is sprung on them when they’re already over 40.… ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/47 "2023-01-05T04:54:20Z")
Seanan Mcguire is an amazing author. I’ve read and loved her October Daye series and her Incryptid series. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/48 "2023-01-05T05:51:05Z")
We had a couple of quite [divisive](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-marion-z-bradleys-child-raping-has-come-out-does-it-change-your-desire-to-reread-her/691973) [threads](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-is-it-ok-to-say-i-shouldt-care-about-a-creators-morality/687588) at the time the revelations came out. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/49 "2023-01-05T06:38:53Z")
Of the series, #3 is best- [Blitz (The Checquy Files, #3)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55228104-blitz) Which kinda goes against the trope that sequels are not as good. _Blitz_ can be read without reading #1, but #2 needs the first, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/50 "2023-01-05T06:54:54Z")
_Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell_ by Susanna Clarke. A great fantasy novel albeit not in a classical fantasy setting. It’s basically early nineteenth century England except magic works. ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/51 "2023-01-05T15:38:01Z")
I really enjoyed the first few books in this series. > **[Dies the Fire (Emberverse, #1)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116445.Dies_the_Fire)** > > The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered o… ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/52 "2023-01-05T17:50:59Z")
This is a great shout. Piranesi by the same author is also worth reading. My contribution has absolutely got to be the Malazan series, Book of the Fallen. It’s ten very long, sometimes a bit florid books, and the narrative is notoriously inaccessible until you get there, but when you get there it’s so, so good. And it’s exactly what you describe. It’s got old protagonists (really old!), it’s got female protagonists, it’s got bored protagonists and growing and changing protagonists. It’s very trope-conscious, so at times you will read characters who _think_ they are amazing 19-year-olds in coming-of-age stories, but that won’t be the story they’re in. The first scene of the first book is a noble kid surveying the scene of a brutal battle, talking to a veteran soldier. The kid says he’s going to be a soldier and the soldier says “Only if you fail at all else, son.” Agh it’s so good. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/53 "2023-01-05T18:10:25Z")
Oh, I’ll read all three. I’ve been looking for something with some interesting world building. The last series I read was funny and I like the mc. I started different series and urg. Boring. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/54 "2023-01-05T21:34:03Z")
The issue here is that Stirling kept going and going and going, so there does not seem to be an end, and the series really declined after a while. But yeah, the first few- 3? 4? 5? are interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/55 "2023-01-05T22:33:41Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Stirling kept going and going and going, Totally agree. He is in contention with Orson Scott Card as the author who milks his book universe the most, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2023, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/56 "2023-01-06T03:51:17Z")
Third or forth on Stirling’s Emberverse and his overall tendencies to over-working his properties. But I’m only going to endorse the first 2-3 for this thread, because it very rapidly after that converts into prophesized young hero territory. Instead, I’d stick with the Nantucket trilogy - older characters, related (obliquely if explicitly) to the Emberverse, and substantially more grounded with less fantastic elements outside the originating event. ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2023, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/57 "2023-01-06T06:15:12Z")
Speaking of Orson Scott Card, his Seventh Son books are pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![omenran](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omenran/32/3318_2.png) [@omenran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omenran)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2023, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/58 "2023-01-06T08:55:56Z")
I have read and re-read _The Rook_ several times while waiting for a sequel. I really like it. Kristine Kathryn Rusch may be worth a look. I stumbled across a short story that was turned into a novel, _Diving into the Wreck_ a sci-fi novel that I had hoped was more about salvaging a mysterious spaceship wreck, so I lost interest, but it’s apparently a pretty big series now, and while not interesting to me- it was written on. I enjoyed _Radience_ by Catherine M. Valentine, which is more of a noirish detective story than sci-fi, kind of a _Citizen Kane_ novel. Iain M Banks’ The Culture is also great, and the Thursday Next series as well. And finally Ann Leckie and the Ancillary trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2023, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/59 "2023-01-06T14:00:07Z")
> [@Galactus](#): > > Speaking of Orson Scott Card, his Seventh Son books are pretty good. The title protagonist starts out as a child. I don’t remember whether he’s adult enough in the later vaolumes for what the OP is looking for. > [@omenran](#): > > the Thursday Next series Very good, and with an adult female protagonist, but very meta. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2023, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663/60 "2023-01-06T20:01:30Z")
I’m going to mention, with some reservations, the [Mercedes (Mercy) Thompson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Briggs#Mercy_Thompson_series) novels, as she’s in her very early thirties when the series begins IIRC. The primary character, despite her supernatural heritage and upbringing, is living as a car mechanic, and trying to balance paying her bills and keeping her independence in a world where the supernatural (both acknowledged and otherwise) keeps interfering. While the later books tend to go too far both into the romance and larger scale issues, the earlier books, more focused on the local situation were absolute fun, and it is at least aware that vampires, fey, and werewolves are all monsters. Often sympathetic, or mostly sympathetic, but monsters none the less. Warning though - while many parts of it read like a YA novel, bad things happen to good people. And often with lingering consequences. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-book-suggestions-featuring-older-protagonists/977663.md?page=4)