Fantasy Book Suggestions featuring Older Protagonists

Cafe Society
41

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.

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.

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.

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”.

42

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, 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 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:

43

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.

44

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.

45

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.

46

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:

47

Seanan Mcguire is an amazing author. I’ve read and loved her October Daye series and her Incryptid series.

48

We had a couple of quite divisive threads at the time the revelations came out.

49

Of the series, #3 is best- Blitz (The Checquy Files, #3)

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.

50

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.

51

I really enjoyed the first few books in this series.

52

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.

53

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.

54

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.

55

Totally agree. He is in contention with Orson Scott Card as the author who milks his book universe the most, IMHO.

56

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.

57

Speaking of Orson Scott Card, his Seventh Son books are pretty good.

58

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.

59

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.

Very good, and with an adult female protagonist, but very meta.

60

I’m going to mention, with some reservations, the Mercedes (Mercy) Thompson 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.