fantasy books with adult main characters

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Re: "new" urban fantasy, Dante Valentine series examplifies most of what people find wrong with new urban fantasy for me,

Kim Harrison is OK, though, as is Briggs "Mercy Thompson" series. Not far behind Butcher's Harry Dresden in any case, IMHO.

Seconding all of the above.

[Cuchulain]

Several of David Gemmell's Drenai novels have no kids in them.

[Slick Mongoose]

China Miéville not got a mention yet? No kids that I recall.

[Werthead]

R Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing and the accompanying The Judging Eye are probably the best fantasy novels I can think of that have no adolescent major characters.

I agree, apart from the fact that The Judging Eye has adolescent major characters ;)

China Miéville not got a mention yet? No kids that I recall.

Apart from Un Lun Dun, obviously :)

[MattD]

There are a ton; just to give a broad outline of some that haven't yet been mentioned, there are...

1) Fantasies set in contemporary times:

- Almost anything by Jonathan Carroll will solidly fit the bill.

- John Crowley's "Aegypt" quartet.

- Sean Stewart's Mockingbird and Perfect Circle.

- China Mieville's The City and The City (and to a lesser degree, King Rat).

- Peter Beagle's A Fine and Private Place (maybe Folk of the Air as well).

- M John Harrison's The Course of the Heart.

- Elizabeth Hand's Mortal Love.

- Ekaterina Sedia's Secret History of Moscow.

- Geoff Ryman's Was

- Graham Joyce's Requiem and several others.

2) Historical fantasy:

- Le Guin's Lavinia

- Elizabeth Bear's "Promethean Age" series.

- Tim Powers's Declare, in addition to what has already been mentioned.

- Jeff Ford's Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque.

- Susanna Clarke's Johnathan Strange & Mr Norell

- Emma Bull's Territory

3) Many of the New Weird subgenre of books feature adult protagonists and perspectives:

- Mieville's "Bas Lag" trio.

- Jeff VanderMeer's City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek.

- KJ Bishop's The Etched City.

- Steph Swainston's "Fourlands" series

- Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone

4) Secondary world fantasy:

- Le Guin's Tehanu.

- Peter Beagle's The Innkeeper's Song (and maybe The Last Unicorn).

- Martha Wells's Wheel of the Infinite.

- Hope Mirrlees's Lud-in-the-Mist.

5) Non-genre fantasy in traditions like magical realism, absurdism, surrealism, postmodern metafiction, etc.

- Garcia Marquez, Allende, Borges, Calvino, Zivkovic, Etc.

[Myshkin]

Guy Gavriel Kay "Song for Arbonne", "Tigana", "Lions of Ar-Rassan", Sarantine duology. While some of those contain POVs that could be categorized as teenagers, they are all multi-POV books where mature protagonists dominate.

Don't know about the others, but Tigana has a definite "coming of age" vibe to it.

Robin Hobb? Yes, Farseer has a child protagonist. Liveships has a mix of ages - Wintrow is a boy, Malta a girl, Althea late teens or early twenties, but Kennit, Kyle, Etta, Ronica and Keffria are major adult protagonists. And then in Tawny Man we see our child hero from Farseer coping with life as a middle-aged parent.

I think Hobb is the exact opposite of what the OP is looking for. Farseer is almost completely centered around the coming of age story. Most of the main characters in Liveship Traders are either teenagers or young adults, all forced to grow up in a hurry. Tawny Man deals heavily in the coming of age story of the young prince. I DO NOT recommend any of these for someone looking for adult protagonists.

I second the recommendations of Scott Bakker and Stephen Donaldson, and I'll add Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains.

[Larry.]

If you have the money to spare to buy these used...

Edward Whittemore's Jerusalem Quartet novels and almost anything by Angela Carter, especially The Bloody Chamber and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman.

Oh, and pretty much everything that MattD already covered.

[Zach H]

Stover's Caine books are a great example of heroic/gritty-style fantasy as observed through the eyes of an adult character. His family, his career, and his societal "rank" are constant factors to the stories.

Strongly second Mieville's Bas-Lag books and Donaldson's Covenant work. Also Wolfe's complete Sun cycle, as it retains a sense of maturity throughout even during the parts of the stories where younger characters figure in.

[Wastrel]

I think Hobb is the exact opposite of what the OP is looking for. Farseer is almost completely centered around the coming of age story. Most of the main characters in Liveship Traders are either teenagers or young adults, all forced to grow up in a hurry. Tawny Man deals heavily in the coming of age story of the young prince. I DO NOT recommend any of these for someone looking for adult protagonists.

Farseer, of course. But Tawny Man? Yes, the prince is young and important, but he's not a central protagonist. Fitz is the protagonist, and its all about a) having to deal with the consequences of his past actions, and b) (and relatedly) having to learn to be a father figure (for a number of real and surrogate children).

Iirc, the prince appears near the end of book one, and is barely mentioned in book two. He's only really a major part of the first half of book three - and although he's clearly changed by his experiences, the development happens almost entirelly off-screen.

Liveship has both adult and non-adult characters.

In both cases, I suppose it depends what the original poster meant - no sub-adult characters at all, or just 'can I have some adult characters please'? If the former, no, not Hobb. If the latter, both Tawny Man and Liveships have them.

[Teng Ai Hui]

One of the members of our board, Peadar O Guilin, has a book called The Inferior. No kids (at least none that I remember when I read the sample chapters linked in his sig). I have see nothing but good things about his book on this board.

[murphy]

One of the members of our board, Peadar O Guilin, has a book called The Inferior. No kids (at least none that I remember when I read the sample chapters linked in his sig). I have see nothing but good things about his book on this board.

I have the book. It is worth reading. It somewhat reminded me of Donald Kingsbury's Courtship Rites.

[Jon AS]

Err, The Inferior is a good book, but definitely a coming of age story. While I'm not sure the protagonist's age is ever stated, he is clearly in his teens. As are several other of the major characters. Of course, the primitive and brutal society they live in means that they are not your typical 21st century teenagers.

[murphy]

C. S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy. One of the main protagonists kills his children at the start of the book. Also, her new trilogy (only 2 books out so far) starting with Feast of Souls.

[Gorn]

Guy Gavriel Kay's The Sarantine Mosaic. The main character is a widower in late twenties/early thirties, and all the major characters are fairly mature too. In fact, most of Kay's books have older, mature people as main characters. If you never read any of his books, you should definitely give him a try; start with The Lions of Al-Rassan.

[boiled leather]

In the Urban Fantasy genre, I'd say:

- Kim Harrison is pretty good and doesn't include much romance, no kids in sight. The main character is a little risk taking and slightly immature, but that changes a lot over the series.

I like the Kim Harrison series, but I believe you are wrong, it is indeed chick lit, light, but still chick lit -- and my guilty pleasure.

[ants]

I like the Kim Harrison series, but I believe you are wrong, it is indeed chick lit, light, but still chick lit -- and my guilty pleasure.

Hmm, although it certainly has some romantic overtones, given how most of those relationships work out I'd hardly call it romantic. And although its a bit more chaty than say Jim Butcher, I wouldn't have considered it sufficiently so to be chick lit.

Why do you say it is?

[Elrostar]

You could try reading other Zelazny. Basically every other book of his features Corwin as the protagonist :) I'm thinking specifically of Lord of Light and Jack of Shadows here... But I believe it's a universal feature.

[BookWyrm]

I suppose it's a bit obvious, but no one's mentioned it yet so...... Tolkien's The Hobbit. Bilbo is a middle-aged character with the partnering sensibilities.

John Crowley's Little, Big has some very mature characters and moments. Well, some of the characters are kids... but sometimes only for a chapter. Keep in mind I'm still reading it so it COULD change, but I trust Crowley. Family life is an important aspect of Little, Big.

[ogbebaba]

You could try reading other Zelazny. Basically every other book of his features Corwin as the protagonist :) I'm thinking specifically of Lord of Light and Jack of Shadows here... But I believe it's a universal feature.

ok try this immortal -call me Conrad-. and some of the Amber novels

zlazney went from writhing a child to and adult in all his "Croyd "Wild Card" not so short stories. you can't help but love the chield in and adult world feal that the croyd stories have pluse the other Wild card storeis are verry entertaining and ender's game by orsin scot card is a verry adult novel about a chiled and just goes to show you how a chiled can face the same obsticalse as an adult

[Marcin]

„The Black Company†by Glen Cook

There are no kids among the main protagonists. The only child (girl) in the first trilogy is a side character, who is more often just mentioned than described doing anything.

All the books (10 overall) in this series are definitely NOT for children. The first trilogy can be read on its own, but after just one book You will know if You love or hate Glen Cook’s style of writing. It’s gritty and down to earth. There are strong and realistic military elements in his books. I enjoy his style so much that I’ve bought and read all the books from this series one after the other.

I am aware that some people can’t stand Glen Cook’s style of writing. If You are interested You can check out my blog:

glen-cook-fan-site.blogspot.com.