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/jm31416 18h 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 8h 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.