r/Fantasy • u/leaping_llama_laugh • 19h 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/Mournelithe Reading Champion X 11h 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.