McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

A Question for Fantasy Readers and Writers…

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Snowleopard:
Another 'alien' point of view is Keith Laumer's BOLOS.
The giant AI tanks.  If you go through the stories you see how they start off as super smart computer operated tanks and gradually become Artificial intelligent war machines.

trboturtle:
David Weber's War God Series has a non human as the main character.

Bazhell Bahnakson is a hradani, one of the four races of man. They are larger and tougher than humans (Bazhell is like eight feet tall). Male hradani are subject to bouts of Bezerker anger, known as the Rage.

I can't remeber the author or series, but I do remember seeing a series of novels that had a goblin as the main character.

Craig

Snowleopard:
I think Patricia Briggs did the ones with the Goblin as the main character.
I read the first one and liked it.

Haru:
A great read on a non-human(oid) character would be Tad Williams Tailchaser's Song. When you read it, you are not reading about a furry man, you are reading about a cat, and you never forget it, because of the way it is written. And that is what using a non-human as the main character should be all about, in my opinion.

When you are reading about an elven main character, but the story is written like he is a tall skinny man with pointy ears, what's the point? The alien thoughts and view on the world have to be conveyed, to make the reader feel and understand the difference. If you can't or won't do this, there really is no point to having a non-human viewpoint character. Of course, the more you stray from a human viewpoint, the harder it is going to be to deliver this understanding to the reader. Writing from the point of view of a two headed lizard connected to a hive mind... to say it is going to be tough might be an understatement.

OTOH, if you overdo it, it is going to read like "I'm an elf, oh you can't believe how elvish I am, check out my elvishness, you will never be as elvish as I am." Or dwarf, which was what threw me off the dwarves book by Markus Heitz.

I guess the non-humaness should come naturally, if that makes any sense. If you try to pound it into the character, it will fail as much as the human with pointy ears.

Snowleopard:
^
Yeah, it's like when someone tries to do a female warrior and she just comes across as a guy
in a woman's skin.  It doesn't work and doesn't read right.

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