[revenant]

i read the eye of the world last month. i just started reading another fantasy book a couple days ago. they both seem to be about this pure innocent children going off to fight some pure evil.

i was wondering if all fantasy is like this? is all of it young children going off in adventure? is their anything out there that has maybe a hero that is possibly not under the age of 18, that is not innocent, and is fighting a tangible enemy with his own personal possibly non-evil motivations?

if so.. please suggest!

thanks in advance.

[Shehzad]

Plenty, my friend, plenty. There are a good number of fantasy books out there with original characters with ambiguous motivations, books like the Elric series by Michael Moorcock, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson, Acts of Caine by Matthew W. Stover, and of course, A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, just to name a few. Have a look at the "Grey characters" thread as well...

[revenant]

Originally posted by Shehzad
Plenty, my friend, plenty. There are a good number of fantasy books out there with original characters with ambiguous motivations, books like the Elric series by Michael Moorcock, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson, Acts of Caine by Matthew W. Stover, and of course, A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, just to name a few. Have a look at the "Grey characters" thread as well...

thank you very much. i appreciate the reply

[Nevyn]

I would also like to recomend authors such as G G KAY , Robin Hobb and Gene Wolfe . CHECK THIS OUT (http://www.sffworld.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3179) as well :)

[eraymer]

I'd strongly recommend China Mieville's Perdido Street Station and The Scar. These books are anything but typical fantasy, and they're ripe with moral ambiguity and complex characters.

Also, as Shehzad mentioned, the Elric series is worth checking out. I'm in the middle of it right now, and enjoying it. For a while, I was turned off by the seemingly carbon copied high fantasy books too, but there's a lot of stuff in the genre that is definitely worth your time.

[Cymric]

try david gemmel alot of his books have heros that are actully adults

[Evil Agent]

Some of the recommendations, such as Martin and Hobb, DO still have at least one character who is kind of the young boy growing up to be a hero... but they also have many other characters (especially Martin, who probably has over 100 main characters), and even the heroes of these stories are more realistic: flawed, grey, or ambiguous characters...

[Evil Agent]

Some of the recommendations, such as Martin and Hobb, DO still have at least one character who is kind of the young boy growing up to be a hero... but they also have many other characters (especially Martin, who probably has over 100 main characters), and even the heroes of these stories are more realistic: flawed, grey, or ambiguous characters...

But if you don't want to read the simple farmboy saving the world stories, stay away from Eddings, Brooks, Jordan, and maybe Feist (though I haven't read enough to really say).

[Erfael]

Originally posted by Evil Agent
...but they also have many other characters (especially Martin, who probably has over 100 main characters)


That takes a pretty loose definition of "main" character, no? What's a main character, Evil Agent?

[Evil Agent]

Sorry, I guess that was vague... what I really meant was that he probably has about 100 characters who have at least had a decent amount of characterization and importance to the story... And at least 50 of them are VERY important to the story.