When you think of fantasy, the first things that come to mind may be nice hobbits who live in cozy holes in the ground, dashing knights eager to take on monsters, or wizards and the local dark lord. But sometimes fantasy is about much less likely characters: the morally ambiguous hired killer, the social outcast, the bumbling misfit or the downright weirdo.
These antiheroes have become a popular staple of the genre, perhaps because their imperfections make them relatable. They can be selfish, unpredictable and less than eager to put their lives on the line for others. In other words, they are a lot like us. What makes them heroic in the end are their choices to work toward the greater good, or against a greater evil — even if the path taken is more crooked than straight.
These are some of my favorite fantasy books starring outcasts and misfits from the past decade. I love the works of Joe Abercrombie and Glen Cook as much as the next reader, but I’ve chosen here to focus on books and writers that aren’t as well known — including a few that don’t fit “traditional” ideas of fantasy. And for this list, that’s just fine.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant
by Seth Dickinson
If there were a moral ambiguity Olympics, Baru Cormorant might take gold. When the puritanical Republic of Falcrest (more commonly known as the Masquerade) conquers her island home and kills one of her fathers, Baru vows to take down the empire from the inside. She excels at a Masquerade school, becoming adept at political machinations and wielding bureaucratic policy as a finely honed weapon. But as she works her way up the imperial ladder, Baru leaves chaos and ruin in her wake, destroying allies as well as enemies. Can the master’s tools be used to end oppression? Or do they inevitably create an oppressor of a different sort?
Black Sun
by Rebecca Roanhorse
The first book in Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas, is a tale of magic, gods and the mortals who live in between. It also has some awesome giant war birds. Serapio is a member of the Carrion Crow clan who was blinded and scarred as a child in a religious ritual, forging him into a vessel of the Crow God and a mystical weapon who can wreak vengeance on the tribe’s enemies. Serapio is undoubtedly one of the most problematic protagonists I’ve come across in fantasy — and he gets only more morally questionable as the series goes on. Yet Roanhorse writes him with such loneliness and inner turmoil that, as with all the best antiheroes, we can’t help rooting for him anyway.
Trouble the Saints
by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Set in an alternate 1940s New York, this noir mystery stars not just one social outcast but two. Phyllis LeBlanc is a mixed-race woman passing for white and doing the dirty work of a local crime boss with her “saints’ hands,” a magical touch with throwing knives that enables her to kill with absolute accuracy. Her on-again-off-again lover, Devajyoti Patil (known as Dev), who is gifted with preternatural foresight, is also in the crime boss’s employ — and a police informant. Despite their powers, Phyllis and Dev are both bound by the very real constraints of the color line, relegated to second-class status because of their race even as they are coveted for their skills. Their attempts to escape this trap to a place where they might live free lies at the heart of this beautifully written book.
She Who Became the Sun
by Shelley Parker-Chan
This historical fantasy, set in 14th century China under the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, follows a girl from a peasant family who takes her brother’s name, Zhu Chongba, upon his death and enters a Buddhist monastery, passing herself off as a boy. When the monastery is destroyed by a Mongolian general, Zhu joins the local rebel forces. With wit and cunning, she engineers a string of extraordinary military victories and rises to become the rebel commander. And she has no intention of stopping there. “She Who Became the Sun” follows the rise to power of an unlikely heroine, even as she struggles to understand herself.
The Blacktongue Thief
by Christopher Buehlman
“The Blacktongue Thief” is one of the most original fantasy novels I’ve ever read, set in a postapocalyptic medieval world reeling from war with an ever-ravenous goblin horde, giants who leash humans like dogs, murderous horse-size battle crows and sociopathic assassins with deadly tattoos — and that’s just for starters. The story centers on the misfit Kinch Na Shannack, a hapless thief mired in debt to the Takers Guild for his education in pilfering. A series of unfortunate events places him in an alliance with Galva, a (seemingly) young lady knight on a secret quest. Kinch just might be the most pathetic character you will ever meet in fantasy: He is also one of the most heroic and endearing, and his adventures are riveting.
The Unbroken
by C.L. Clark
The protagonist of this intense political fantasy, Touraine, is an outcast several times over. Stolen as a child, she was forced into the military of the Balladaire Empire. Now she and her fellow conscripts, called Sands, must return to her homeland to pacify rebellions among her own people. Touraine soon finds herself caught between loyalty to the Sands, her growing love for a princess determined to hold together a crumbling empire and a brewing insurgency that she is closer to than she ever imagined. “The Unbroken” is an unflinching examination both of colonialism, with its tools of control and oppression, and of what one person can endure in the struggle for power and freedom.
The City in Glass
by Nghi Vo
Vitrine is a demon. And the city of Azril belongs to her: She has shaped it, grown it and filled it with her people — refugees from far-off lands, merchants and scholars, sellswords and pirates — all of whom receive her blessings, or her curse. But one day, the angels arrive, destroying Azril in purifying holy fire. Powerless to stop the city’s destruction, Vitrine channels her anger into one angel, imbuing him with a curse that binds him to the ruins of the city he helped raze. “The City in Glass” follows these two misfits — the vengeful demon and the cursed angel — across centuries as they work to create a new city from the ashes while navigating trauma, loneliness, spite and growing companionship. Their story is delightful and beautiful, yet dark in some of the best ways. You will absolutely love it.
Read our review.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
by John Wiswell
Shesheshen is a shape-shifter whose lair lies on the outskirts of a small town; she slumbers there in peace, waking only when the periodic need arises to devour a few humans, whose flesh and bones give shape to her own formless mass. One day, she’s awakened early by would-be monster hunters, who leave her badly hurt. To her surprise, she is found and nursed back to health by Homily, a kindhearted woman who mistakes Shesheshen for a fellow human. Shesheshen soon falls head over blob for her savior. Homily seems like the perfect person to lay her eggs inside — and if they devour their loving co-parent from the inside, well, that’s nature’s way. But Shesheshen quickly learns that human love is more complicated than she imagined. This novel is monstrously perfect, in every way.
The post Great Fantasy Novels With Unlikely Heroes appeared first on New York Times.
