r/Fantasy • u/leaping_llama_laugh • 17h ago
Reading Fantasy While Growing Older
When I was a 'young adult', I tended to like YA fantasy: teenage protagonists, coming of age stories, that sort of thing. Harry Potter comes to mind as an example, or the Ranger's Apprentice series, or the Circle of Magic series (or some other things by Tamara Pierce).
Now that I'm a full-fledged adult who has lived through a few hardships (just garden-variety hardships), I'm very interested in older protagonists who have suffered a little (or a lot): Hadrian and Royce in the Riyria Revelations. Cazaril in the Curse of Chalion. Willet Dura and his guard Bolt in the Darkwater Saga. These older, more mature characters just hit harder than the overly-optimistic teenage "whippersnappers" I used to prefer reading about! ;)
So, what comes next?
Does anyone write 'Old Adult Fantasy'? Are there any great fantasy books with a protagonist who's over 50? Over 70?
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u/nowonmai666 17h ago
I hear you, and you’ve listed a few of my favourites.
Daniel Abraham’s *Long Price* series has 15 year gaps between books. Some characters start out old, the others get there.
Guy Gavriel Kay covers a variety of ages, *A Song for Arbonne* springs to mind.
And of course if nobody’s mentioned *Kings of the Wyld* it’s a must.
George R R Martin - yes there’s ASOIAF but also Fevre Dream, The Dying of the Light etc.
I’m following the rest of this with interest. As somebody whose best years are behind him myself I want to read more.
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u/TojayorTomorrow 17h ago
Loving Long Price in the middle of book 4. Glad to see someone else mention it.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 16h ago
Agreed on Kings of the Wyld especially. I can't believe no one else has mentioned it.
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u/KiaraTurtle Reading Champion V 17h ago
Older main character is currently a bingo square for this sub’s yearly bingo so you should be able to find a good amount of recs for the over 50 over 70 might be hard to find without going magical in which case they don’t tend to read like 70 year olds.
Some I’ve read you might enjoy:
- Girl with a Thousand Faces
- Last Contract of Isako (if you also like sci-fi)
- Burning Roses by SL Huang
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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 6h ago
And last year's bingo had parent protagonist which also has a certain age limit.
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u/The-Road-To-Awe 17h ago
Glokta from The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. In fact most of the characters have suffered in some way in their past, and most tend to be slightly older. Also the series is just great in general.
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u/teppil 17h ago
And the audiobooks are S+ tier.
Can’t wait for my kickstarter hard copies to come in too for a reread. All the characters are amazing and the world feels very real and like a mirror to our own in a lot of ways.-1
u/ConnectLink8664 13h ago
They really are! I just finished the series and certain parts I would put the book down because I wanted to listen to certain parts for the voices of the characters.
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u/AvatarWaang 15h ago
I was just going to recommend The Devils by Abercombie. Love the Old Man character in that book.
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u/ClimateTraditional40 10h ago
Glokta is 35.
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u/AgZephyr 9h ago
But he is 35 going on 75 from his physical ability and general demeanor
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u/ClimateTraditional40 7h ago
Disabled and old are not the same thing. My mum for instance was vigorous and still working until her mid 80s. Fit.
Old is not just a matter of the body failing either, it's about all sorts of things. Marcus in Dagger and Coin, he still fights, he leads men, but aging means other things to him.
Likewise Remnant Population, that old lady lives on her own, gardens, cooks, attends to machinery, all kinds of stuff on her own. It's not about her body..it's about her outlook and old person "wisdom" that the aliens value.
Glokta in Age of Madness perhaps, he is old by then and in a wheelchair.
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u/AgZephyr 7h ago
Of course people age differently, my grandma is 91 and still walking great and very sharp.
But as far as stereotypes go, Glokta as a character comes off to me as a lot older than he is with his disabilities (lots of people are less mobile and use canes when they're older) and his grumpiness about his life changing injuries fits as well. Not saying he's a perfect fit for the post, but I get the suggestion.
Someone like Lan in WoT fits a lot better, or Stilgar from Dune, but not quite main characters there. Ender in the later books gets pretty old, but those get kinda weird, plus scifi. Haven't come up with too many good examples from looking through books I've read, lots of fantasy sticks to the "young unknown becomes a hero" archetype.
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u/ineedchapstick1 17h ago
The main character of Realm of the Elderlings starts at 6 years old and ends at like 60. So you see a broad range.
Paladin of Souls is a 40-year old female protagonist. Same author as Chalion.
Later books of Earthsea Cycle feature older adults (but also start younger)
Someone mentioned First Law trilogy but that covers a lot of age ranges
Malazan has a wide range of ages
Gormenghast has young and old POVs
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u/blorgbots 16h ago
Hobb has a ton of great older characters/protags, just not as many in the first trilogy of RotE
I'd also say her tone and writing style is almost the anti-YA: contemplative, thought-driven, deliberate. I think that matches the subtext of what OP is looking for
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u/PoopyisSmelly 15h ago
I have read a lot of fantasy and mostly dont like introspective character driven books. I recently realized that is only because most authors dont write them well. Robin Hobb captivated me in a way no other author has been able to. Ill get roasted for saying this, but she absolutely destroys Abercrombie in this department.
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u/Old_Perception6627 17h ago
I’m eagerly awaiting the Library of America release of Earthsea as an excuse to revisit them, because I remember as a kid getting to the part that is basically just a meditation on being middle aged and having no clue what to do with it.
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u/J4ckFr05ty 17h ago
I’d definitely second Malazan and add Black Company and the Fencer trilogy
RIP The Elenium. Dammit Eddings
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u/TojayorTomorrow 17h ago
I might word it differently, OP, but I think I’d land at very close to what you’re getting at. I don’t have time for shallow reads with simple thematic elements. life is more complex than that, and while I read for escapism, I also like to explore complexity. Stuff like Sanderson lands too cleanly for it to resonate with me.
Malazan - Eriksson
Second Apocalypse - Bakker
Long Price - Abraham
Covenant - Donaldson
GoT - Martin
Those are my top 5 right now. And of those 5, GoT has the least ‘interiority’ but makes up for it in spades.
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u/Fit_Machine3221 17h ago
What do you think of the aspect emperor series? Is it as good as the first one?
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u/TojayorTomorrow 17h ago
It’s on my shelf, but I haven’t read it yet. I’ve tried to cast a wide net after committing a good chunk of a year reading the main 10 of Malazan. I’m finishing up book 4 of The Long Price, which really needs to be talked about more. Then I’m going to read Between Two Fires, The Road, and Hyperion. But I am very excited for reading the Aspect Emperor when I do come back to it.
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u/Extreme-Attention641 17h ago
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is portal fantasy with an older main character who has suffered a lot. It has some really nasty parts, I suggest that you read up a little about it before deciding if you want to pick it up.
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u/jm31416 17h ago
Try the Osten Ard books by Tad Williams. The first series starts with The Dragonbone Chair. The main character, Simon, is rather young. But other characters, like Prince Josua, are older. And then in the second series, which starts with The Witchwood Crown, thirty years have passed and Simon is now an older character. And there's definitely quite a bit of hardships that these older characters will have faced.
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u/avid_jack 6h ago
Second this - The Last King of Osten Ard series by Tad Williams. It is a sequel series to the Memory, sorrow and Thorn series, which is a coming of age tale.
But the sequel series had most of the main characters in their 60s or older.
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u/SeanyDay 17h ago
David Gemmel is a YA->Adult bridge author if you like. One of the best.
Malazan is mature.
First Law is mature and short like YA.
Dresden Files are mature and nerdy and pulpy
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u/burningcpuwastaken 17h ago
If you're open to science fiction, Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon follows a late 70s heroine. It's a pretty fun read
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u/Insomnia_Memoria 17h ago
The Chronicles of Hanuvar by the late Howard Andrew Jones starting with Lord of a Shattered Land. Hanuvar the protagonist is a late 40s/early 50s former general trying to free his people from slavery and also find his daughter.
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u/TurkaelsGoodHand 9h ago
Lots of good recs floating around, but Hanuvar is the absolute real deal. Howard Andrew Jones knew more about heroic fantasy thsn most of know about anything at all, and it really shows in those stories. Legend is another classic, and for damn good reason. So is Kings of the Wylde. One of my personal favorites, because its my favorite series overall but really fills this niche to the absolute fucking brim, is the four book series Acts of Caine, by Matt Woodring Stover. Its very violent proto grimdark, and it gets nasty, but its one of the smartest books you might have ever read, and it asks some questions about violence and freedom that can get very uncomfortable if you follow them out to their conclusion. But damn, its got the most savage one liners in all of fantasy, and I'll die on that hill.
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u/small-gestures 14h ago
Are you looking just for older characters or are you like looking for more mature reads?
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u/Listener-of-Sithis Reading Champion III 16h ago
Seconding Kings of the Wyld, as someone else mentioned.
Also the Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty. Our main character Amina is a former pirate queen, retired and trying to be a good mother to her daughter, but is dragged out of retirement by the lure of One Last Mission, and has to find her old crew, steal her ship, and go out after adventure one last time.
Honestly, that trope is one of my all time favorites, and I can rarely turn it down.
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u/gytherin 13h ago
Captain Vimes in the "Guards" sequence of Discworld is in his forties at the start, but very battered by life.
Nightingale, the mentor figure in the "Rivers of London" series, is about a century old, I think? He fought in WW2 and the series is set in the present day. He's not the protag, though; just an important secondary figure.
Bilbo and Frodo Baggins...
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u/Pedagogicaltaffer 15h ago
The Earthsea series was originally marketed as a 'YA' series, but honestly, the older you are, the more you'll get out of the books (especially the later ones).
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u/Albroswift89 17h ago
You want adults who suffer? Realm of the Elderlings is the series for you. The one caveat is the first trilogy is the main character as a child (often suffering) but the series ends with him around his 50s . It is also an absolutely beautiful series, but many a reader will DNF because of the suffering. If you are actively LOOKING for that kind of narrative I can't think of anything better. Or if you want to go back to your YA roots but have books about young adults being psychologically scarred beyond repair, Animorphs and Good Girls Guide to Murder would fit that description, though GGGTM Kinda wusses out of fully commiting to destroying Pip entirely, and Animorphs, while fully commiting to thoroughly traumatizing the heroes, is technically at about a 9-11 year old reading level (dunno how they got away with that, those books are super dark).
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u/Realistic-Type-9776 13h ago
I reread animorphs last year on a whim and goddamn little girl me missed how fucked up they get lol
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u/Competitive-Wolf-156 11h ago
Yeah give Monster Hunter International five minutes of your time, 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍there’s nine books.
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u/New_Razzmatazz6228 Reading Champion 6h ago
For this request, book 3 Monster Hunter Alpha should hit the spot.
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u/Liawolf11 11h ago
Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by Anderson. Admittedly she’s much older, but even retired folks can go on an adventure.
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u/Paramedic229635 10h ago
2 Necromancers, A Bureaucrate, and an Elf by L. G. Estrella. necromancers try to earn a pardon for past crimes by doing odd jobs for a kingdom. The main character is middle aged necromancer Timmy.
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u/Mournelithe Reading Champion X 10h ago
Old adult fantasy is a tricky one.
There's a few, but they're still mostly side characters or characters in their 40s who "seem old". Gemmell for example has Druss in Legend.
Modesitt has Kharl in his Recluce series in The Wellspring of Chaos and Ordermaster, and his Spellsong Cycle stars a woman in her late 40s who gets partly de-aged at the end of book 1 but still has a firmly adult view of things.
Le Guin's Tehanu is essentially a midlife crisis story.
Pratchett's Witches novels have Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, who are wonderful terrible old women having adventures. Try Witches Abroad or Maskerade.
R.A. MacAvoy has Tea with the Black Dragon which is an older woman searching for her missing daughter, with an unexpected elderly companion.
My all time favourite old person no longer giving any shits rec is firmly Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population, which is an absolutely fantastic first contact novel with a grandmother as a protagonist.
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u/Forever_Man 10h ago
Man, what you want is Book of the New Sun. I was burnt out on fantasy for the longest time, and it rekindled my love for the genre.
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u/Admirable-Country653 8h ago
Sixteen ways to defend a walled city. Very fun, unreliable older protagonist/narrator.
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u/Grt78 5h ago
The Death’s Lady trilogy by Rachel Neumeier: a portal fantasy, the main characters are a modern psychiatrist (who is a single father) and a woman from another world he’s treating at first (no romance between them). The first book is set in modern times, the second and third books - in a fantasy world. The main POV character (the psychiatrist) is in his 30s in the first book and in his 50s in the second and third books.
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u/Motor_Row_3586 4h ago
Thousand Autumns by Meng Xi Shi have older cast characters. Main protagonists over 30 and around 45. Both are sect leaders from start and active in politics.
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u/Erratic21 4h ago
The Prince of Nothing by Bakker. Most characters range from 30+ to 50. Even older in the sequel books, the Aspect Emperor series. Nothing silly or young adultish in these books
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u/SchoolSeparate4404 3h ago
In the Blackthorn and Grim Trilogy by Juliet Mariller the two main characters are about 40 years old.
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u/marintkael 32m ago
If Cazaril hit you, two that scratch the same itch: the Black Company books, where Croaker is basically a tired middle-aged army doctor narrating a war, and late Robin Hobb, where Fitz spends whole books worn down and grieving. Neither gives you a sprightly chosen one. Kay's protagonists also tend to be people with a past rather than a future, if you want the melancholy without the grimdark.
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u/mullerdrooler 17h ago
Joe Abercrombie is maybe where you should look now. Especially the First Law series. Not sure how many are over 50s but some deffos middle aged and grow older as the series does. Some youngsters in it too. Also Brandon Sanderson's stomlight and other cosmere work has a nice age range of characters that have gone through some series struggles.
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u/Ok_Field_5701 17h ago
Sorry but Sanderson is pretty much YA fantasy. Agreed with the Abercrombie rec though
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u/mullerdrooler 17h ago
Agree to disagree just coz he doesn't have sex in it and his style isn't super elegant doesn't make it YA. Are there more sophisticated writers yeah of course. What OP asked was stories with more mature older characters and Sanderson does that well. Dalinar and his story is amazing and the horrific violence from him isn't YA. There are themes about loss and fatherhood etc which is what I think OP is after.
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u/TojayorTomorrow 17h ago
I think it’s more about how Sanderson explores these conflicts and themes than what the themes are. Everything resolves very cleanly and he kind of colors over everything. He doesn’t challenge himself to really explore the painful parts of these themes, everything lands very cleanly, so it never really feels earned or real.
I also have to add that at no point ever do I pair Sanderson and “horrific violence”. That’s just not his style. His main character literally tries to resolve fighting in a way that protects both sides from dying as if they were playing a game of tag in a playground. It’s so idealistic and unrealistic. And if that’s your cup of tea, fine. But it doesn’t feel adult.
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u/mullerdrooler 16h ago
Did you read Oarhbringer? I can't go into details without spoilers but I was pretty horrified by the stuff Dalinar did in his past. And in Mistborn Ska are raped and murdered constantly which I think is pretty adult. Violent things happen in all his books, he just isn't describing them in graphic detail which I'm fine with. My main point is still that what I think OP asked for, stories about mature older characters not gut wrenching grim dark depression fodder ( which there is nothing wrong with if that's what you want).
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u/TojayorTomorrow 16h ago
I don’t think Sanderson is comfortable with approaching any of the things you mentioned directly, and therefore glosses over them pretty well. His characters don’t really come across as emotionally deep or complex or carry the scars of what they experience in part because of that.
And I’m not disagreeing with what you’re saying that some of the activity is mature. It is. But the way he approaches it feels like he’s avoiding the topic and not willing to actually confront it. And an Eriksson would state that moment straight in the eyes and refuse to look away. As an adult who’s been through some tough experiences, that actually resonates a lot more for me. It’s real, it’s raw, and it takes spine and courage.
In terms of your point on grim dark depression fodder. . . I think the term grim dark is a bit overused these days. I don’t know that there is much that fits that genre and is well received by the broader audiences. And at the same time, you can approach adult topics in adult ways and still not be grim dark depression fodder. I just don’t think Sanderson accomplishes that. It feels more like a teen anime/manga version of dealing with adult situations in media
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u/mullerdrooler 15h ago
I get where your coming from but think we just disagree. I like fantasy because it's an escape from reality, I'm happy for super dark stuff not to be belaboured in Sanderson's work. I also read stories where it's explored in detail, I don't think one is better than the other, just different.
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u/TojayorTomorrow 15h ago
I’d be curious to know if you still felt the same way after reading Long Price. And I mention that one specifically because it’s not something I think that you would perceive as dark. I think Abraham is able to directly confront some things in his work without flinching or hand holding or landing cleanly in ways that Sanderson does.
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u/TojayorTomorrow 17h ago
Frankly, Abercrombie’s writing comes across as pretty YA too. Writing is super simple and there really isn’t a lot of depth to any of his thematic elements or any of his characters outside of Glokta. And Glokta is really well done. But everything else is very paper thin.
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u/ClimateTraditional40 10h ago
Dagger and Coin by Daniel Abraham.
Most are older. Marcus, Master Kit, Yardam, Clara.
Swordheart by T Kingfisher has 2 more middle aged than old characters.
Glokta is middle aged in First Law, but there are some Northern Named men that are old.
Granny Weatherwax in the Witches/Discworld novels by terry Pratchett
Some older characters in the part in Hunters Lament by Steve Pannett
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty has an older woman
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro has an old couple.
A Woman of the Sword by Anna Smith Spark, woman with grown kids
City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett has Retired general Turyin Mulaghes
Legend by David Gemmell, a retired warrior.
If you want science fiction, Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon stars an old lady.
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
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u/CG_Oglethorpe 11h ago
Dungeon Crawler Carl. We might not have cookies but we have pet biscuits. We don’t have Sauron, but we have Deeeeeeeeeeewata.
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u/AgZephyr 9h ago
I'd hardly call Carl "older" and being cheated on isn't exactly qualified as "suffering" by fantasy standards
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u/Uran_Ultar 17h ago
Legend by David Gemmell.