Killer SF protagonists? No, literally.

[paradoxical]

Right, help me out. I'm looking for science fiction, preferably modern (1995-2011), which features the most insane, homicidal nut-jobs you can think of. What I'm really after is something like Hannibal Lector meets Takeshi Kovacs. Anyone got any ideas?

 

[gully_foyle]

Mainly because I am reading it at the moment, but Cheradenine Zakalwe from Iain Banks' Use of Weapons fits the bill. I would elaborate, but that would spoil it.

 

[paradoxical]

No, seriously, it wouldn't. I average around 200 books a year - not including academic works - so trust me when I say I have read some shockers. Nevertheless, Use of Weapons is the most ill-conceived piece of trash I have ever read. I mean, knife missiles - what the hell was the guy thinking?

 

[D_Davis]

No, seriously, it wouldn't. I average around 200 books a year - not including academic works - so trust me when I say I have read some shockers. Nevertheless, Use of Weapons is the most ill-conceived piece of trash I have ever read. I mean, knife missiles - what the hell was the guy thinking?

Welcome to the forum!

 

[soulsinging]

Mainly because I am reading it at the moment, but Cheradenine Zakalwe from Iain Banks' Use of Weapons fits the bill. I would elaborate, but that would spoil it.

Actually the book that created your namesake was the first one that jumped to my mind... kind of falls outside the modern requirement though.

No, seriously, it wouldn't. I average around 200 books a year - not including academic works - so trust me when I say I have read some shockers. Nevertheless, Use of Weapons is the most ill-conceived piece of trash I have ever read. I mean, knife missiles - what the hell was the guy thinking?

Don't think anyone was implying it was too shocking for you, just that the poster didn't want to spoil any plot points if you hadn't read it.

 

[paradoxical]

Soulsinging - I know, but it's just one of those works that really gets my heckles up. I mean, I really can't understand how he even got published. Further, you're spot on the money with good old Gully. Unfortunately though, I've already used that in an earlier chapter along with Sturgeon's More Than Human and Stapledon's Odd John. I don't know, I'm really at a loss. I'm doing a thesis (Ph.D) on antiheroes in SF but with the exception of Richard Morgan's work can find little to nothing that fits the bill.

 

[gully_foyle]

Begs the question, why are you doing it then? And should a PhD not be based on subjective literary criticism?

 

[soulsinging]

Soulsinging - I know, but it's just one of those works that really gets my heckles up. I mean, I really can't understand how he even got published. Further, you're spot on the money with good old Gully. Unfortunately though, I've already used that in an earlier chapter along with Sturgeon's More Than Human and Stapledon's Odd John. I don't know, I'm really at a loss. I'm doing a thesis (Ph.D) on antiheroes in SF but with the exception of Richard Morgan's work can find little to nothing that fits the bill.

Thanks for reminding me why I decided not to pursue a grad degree in lit myself, hehe. Of course, I went to law school instead which was probably a worse idea.

In any event, I can't much help you there. I'm not a big SF reader on the whole. But I have to agree with the poster above, just because you found the Banks novel unimpressive is no reason to exclude it from your paper. It may be dreck in your eyes but it doesn't mean the character doesn't fit what you're looking for... I recall reading and citing to tons of works I didn't enjoy as a lit major.

 

[Metryq]

The pulp and radio hero the Shadow is not sci-fi, nor is it "modern" by the dates given, but bears mentioning. The character evolved over time and with the different media. The 1994 movie with Alec Baldwin is a nice composite of all the material that preceded it.

Lamont Cranston is given mystical powers by a far eastern holy man. When Cranston becomes the Shadow, he is not a "good" superhero, but a predator dropped into a situation where his actions benefit society. While lost in Tibet, Cranston became a feared warlord savaging the countryside. In New York City, he will never run out of criminals to prey on, and so satisfies his "weakness" for bloodlust and domination by doing something "good." He does not prey on the common citizens because it is the other criminals that are a "threat," encroaching on territory that the Shadow sees as his.

While the movie gave Cranston the ability to literally turn invisible, it is also a clever allegory. The invisibility is Cranston's psychic power to "cloud men's minds," but the criminals are the ones who cloud their own minds with their animal passions. Cranston has been taught how to see the passions in himself, and so sees clearly when facing it in others. The tagline about "the only thing he cannot hide is his shadow" refers to the evil within Cranston.

The Dexter books and TV series are a modern day Shadow—Dexter Morgan has an animal lust that he is driven to satisfy, yet he controls it through his father's "code" to do good. (Well, some would see it as good. I'm sure the stories are meant to ask more questions than they answer.)

 

[Foxbat]

Stephen Donaldson's Gap Series might interest you (Angus Thermopyle being an anti-hero of sorts).

 

[Ray Pullar]

How about one of the protagonists (Kearney) of Mike Harrison's recent novel Light? He's a serial killer and physicist.

I can come up with a few others:

Corwin of Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber (& sequels)
Slippery Jim DiGriz of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat novels
Jerry Cornelius of Michael Moorcock's various novels & short stories
Ben Reich of Bester's The Demolished Man

but all were written and published before 1995, only the last is an actual murderer, although Cornelius assassinates a lot of people (including children) and mass murders the whole population of Europe at the end of the first novel featuring him, The Final Programme. DiGriz normally goes out of his way to avoid murder (he's a thief and swindler) but does run into and marry a psychopathic killer in the first novel (whom he manages to lead away from her murderous path at least partially).

An additional couple: the young Vic of Harlan Ellison's novella A boy and his dog. And Henry Dorsett Case, the protagonist of William Gibson's Neuromancer who, although not much of a killer compared to some of those with whom he works, has already at the start of the story done away with two men and a woman over trivial sums of money.

 

[hitmouse]

Peter F Hamilton is great for awful homicidal nutters.

If you are willing to step pre-1995 then then try Dune & Dune Messiah. Loads of obvious killer psychopaths and all sides treat human life as cheap, but even the good guys are a bit ambiguous: In Dune Messiah, Stilgar reports that he has sterilised 6 planets if I recall correctly.

 

[Connavar]

Thanks for reminding me why I decided not to pursue a grad degree in lit myself, hehe. Of course, I went to law school instead which was probably a worse idea.

.

I just wrote literary essay paper about Red Harvest with the narratology teories by Genette. Im taking literary classes for credit points only.

But it really takes the fun out of any quality literature to do it for work like writing technical literary terms essay paper. It reminded me i should read enjoy literature for my own sake and not write more big papers about it.

Talking about all kinds of literature in classes is fun but writing a big paper alone is not fun at all. There is so much snobby subjective writing,teories to read.....

So im more like you work in different field and stay far away from the literary grades.

 

[paradoxical]

Connavar - I agree to an extent, but I'm also of the mind that if you're truly passionate about something, then you want to contribute to it.

Gully - Soulsing - the character is exclude because he lacks depth. There is nothing there worth writing about. Also, my objections regarding the novel as a whole are not essentially subjective seeing as the most common facet of SF in terms of criticism is that of extrapolation. The extrapolation of something like a "knife missile" is just stupid.

Ray - you're on the money with Light. I've got than one under my hat and just got the sequel, Nova Swing.

Hitmouse - already thought of Dune and was considering using it as an example in earlier chapters, but unfortunately, my problem at the moment is finding characters, of depth, in contemporary science fiction. For some reason, they seem to have become somewhat flat of late.

 

[Count Zero]

Gully - Soulsing - the character is exclude because he lacks depth. There is nothing there worth writing about. Also, my objections regarding the novel as a whole are not essentially subjective seeing as the most common facet of SF in terms of criticism is that of extrapolation. The extrapolation of something like a "knife missile" is just stupid.

Stating that Charadenine Zakalwe is entirely unworthy of discussion is either a very bold or very shortsighted remark. And you seem to have no trouble suspending disbelief to accept a gestalt human entity composed of several different people linked telepathically in More Than Human, but you balk at a semi-intelligent powered knife?

Are you sure you've picked the right genre for your thesis?

As to your original question there can't be any protagonist more amoral than Dr Adder, from the novel of the same name by K W Jeter. That's from the early 80s though.

 

[alchemist]

Only because you're desperate for subject matter, I'll throw in Rorshach from Watchmen. He may not tick all your boxes, though.

 

[Vertigo]

How about:

Richard Matheson's I am Legend - at the beginning hs is the hero and by the end he is the anti-hero (sort of).
Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy features Quinn Dexter (though he's not the main hero) who is pretty much as bad as they come.

 

[paradoxical]

Alchemist - I have a whole chapter dedicated to Moore's Watchmen and V for Vendetta and trust me, Rorshach gets a fair amount of attention, if only for the fact that the author can't understand why. Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias, as the more complex transhuman antiheroes, basically fill the rest.

And yes, I bulk at the idea of semi-intelligent knives. 1) science fiction is about extrapolation. More than Human focused on issues differently to those addressed in other works. The extrapolation is more to do with the human condition, its potential for change etc. 2) Iain Banks' work is far more recent... just a glimpse and current military technology and development is enough to tell you that a self-guided edge weapon is just about the most improbable, idiotic, thing one could come up with.

Don't get me wrong, there is a great deal of stupid technology in contemporary science fiction. The knife-missile was just one example of the constant stupidity put forward in Banks' work - I mean don't even get me started on his artificial intelligence. Back to my original point though, the knife-missile, is just one of those things that really pisses me off. It's not only reflects a remarkable lack of imagination regarding extrapolation, but becomes redundant. It's almost as bad as Span and his and I quote "GlobalNet Network" in Street Empathy. I mean, I think most school kids learn that net is an abbreviation for network. For your everyday author, hey, not that much of a problem - for something writing cyberpunk, however, its massive. Anyway, I'm done arguing about this. My statement is neither bold nor short sighted. As with the character's I'm looking for, it's simply a matter of pragmatism.

I will, however, tip my hat to the Dr. Adder suggestion - I hadn't considered it seeing as it's been many, many years since I read the book. Also, it is a little old. I have just about everything I need pre-1990s. It's modern text I'm struggling to find.

 

[Talhe]

I'll volunteer Plutonian from the comic series Irredeemable. He was the greatest hero on Earth who goes bat-s*** insane and evil; his body count is in the tens of millions, and it's still rising. However, the comic only takes place post-alignment change, so it may not be suitable.

 

[paradoxical]

That's the Mark Waid one, right? I think I outline similarities between the transcendent themes in that and Watchmen in one of my earlier chapters. Good job: that is the sort of thing I am looking for - the only problem I'm having is finding it in novels. Thank you though and please, keep suggestions coming.