Hey, modern fantasy authors!
Dec. 30th, 2007 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dsrtaoIf your lead character is living in the modern world or an analog thereof, they need a day job. Detective, bounty hunter, mercenary, cop, fixer, minor mafioso, vampire executioner and professional reanimator -- these are all good choices, as they keep the character busy and naturally lead into situations that are interesting for the reader and provide plot hooks.
When your protagonist blows off the day job to become The Special Snowflake, that's pretty much the end of the story unless you are writing a political thriller. Are you?
Jim Butcher is doing well with Harry Dresden, who is still gaining power 9 books in, and is still not Special Snowflake, or even well-respected. Rachel Caine did an OK job with the Weather Wardens, where Joanne Baldwin has been three kinds of Special Snowflake in four books, but keeps losing it. Laurell Hamilton went berzerk with Anita Blake after book 5, and in the very first book of the Meredith Gentry, Special Faerie Snowflake Princess story. John Ringo writes male versions of Special Snowflake, who really need a preternatural explanation for the endurance, dexterity, combat prowess and resistance to STDs that they all display.
Has anyone written a book in which the hero what gains The Power is present but not the primary character? I'm not interested in Watsons.
When your protagonist blows off the day job to become The Special Snowflake, that's pretty much the end of the story unless you are writing a political thriller. Are you?
Jim Butcher is doing well with Harry Dresden, who is still gaining power 9 books in, and is still not Special Snowflake, or even well-respected. Rachel Caine did an OK job with the Weather Wardens, where Joanne Baldwin has been three kinds of Special Snowflake in four books, but keeps losing it. Laurell Hamilton went berzerk with Anita Blake after book 5, and in the very first book of the Meredith Gentry, Special Faerie Snowflake Princess story. John Ringo writes male versions of Special Snowflake, who really need a preternatural explanation for the endurance, dexterity, combat prowess and resistance to STDs that they all display.
Has anyone written a book in which the hero what gains The Power is present but not the primary character? I'm not interested in Watsons.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-30 08:29 pm (UTC)"A Fire Upon the Deep" -- Pham Nuwen gains the special power, but isn't really the PoV character.
... But you said "fantasy", right?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-30 08:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-31 12:27 am (UTC)Hmm. To a certain extent the Gandalara Cycle qualifies; amusingly, the non-PoV character who becomes the Special Magic Snowflake does, in fact, become a politician-equiv.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-31 01:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-31 01:57 am (UTC)The main character is the muscle and has, it turns out, the special power of being exceptionally resistant to other people's psionic powers (he also gets a magic sword, but its magic isn't all that). He gets a... partner... in several senses of the term who is an adept at psionics. She ultimately becomes the Super Psionic Bad-Ass of the World, which, it turns out, is necessary to saving it. So, it turns out, is her getting crowned basically queen of the world ("High Lord"). Which it turns out she is in line for. About six books of plot machinations are required to tease that fact out and get her back to the royal city with the necessary McGuffins to do this.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-31 03:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-31 03:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-31 03:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-31 08:01 pm (UTC)Oh! LotR qualifies. Both Gandalf and Aragorn gain a great deal of The Power, but the Hobbits remain the primary characters.