Answer to Riddle
Jul. 26th, 2014 08:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdYesterday I posted
Riddle me this, my SF/F readers:
A young man with a history of criminality, is given a choice at the beginning of adulthood. He chooses one path, finds himself taken out of his old life and into a life he never dreamed of. He acquires a powerful patron and learns to use his various skills, and acquires new ones. When the world shatters around him, he is there to pick up the pieces and form some sort of society. Beset by powerful enemies, he holds his people together, and manages to set the enemies against each other, until he comes out on top. Only to have to start a new life, from scratch, a third time.
Do you recognize this series?
And I got a lot of answers, here and on Facebook.
Star Wars (aside from the criminal part)
Thomas Pynchon
Mad Max
Dune
The Belegriad
Name of the Rose
Bean from Ender's game
Aladdin (making this trope older than print)
And two right ones, some from unexpected sources:
Nikolai
Pliocene Exile
I was wondering if we had any other Pliocene exile fans around. It struck me this week how much Julian May influenced the Eight Thrones books. Plotwise, the Aikin Drum arc is almost the same as Nick Boyd's will be over the books. Just without extraterrestrial elves and goblins, mental powers, Pliocene beasties, and geriatric supermen.
The characters map relatively well:
Nick is a less egotistical (and less fun) Aiken Drum.
Marc Remillard's saturnine looks and intense charisma are part of the pattern for James Ligatos, but he also serves as Mayvar Kingmaker, taking the young man (in every sense), training him (ditto) and raising him to a position of power.
and Tanis is ALMOST crazy enough to be Felice, and nearly obsessed enough with Nick, whose sadism and taste for death puts him into the part of Cullket there
I am amused that this puts (blond) David in the role of Nodonn, the rightful heir whose place Aikin usurps. (which dumps James into a third part: Mercy, Nodonn's wife/widow, whom Aikin marries)
The others are such hodgepodges of parts that they don't map as easily.
Riddle me this, my SF/F readers:
A young man with a history of criminality, is given a choice at the beginning of adulthood. He chooses one path, finds himself taken out of his old life and into a life he never dreamed of. He acquires a powerful patron and learns to use his various skills, and acquires new ones. When the world shatters around him, he is there to pick up the pieces and form some sort of society. Beset by powerful enemies, he holds his people together, and manages to set the enemies against each other, until he comes out on top. Only to have to start a new life, from scratch, a third time.
Do you recognize this series?
And I got a lot of answers, here and on Facebook.
Star Wars (aside from the criminal part)
Thomas Pynchon
Mad Max
Dune
The Belegriad
Name of the Rose
Bean from Ender's game
Aladdin (making this trope older than print)
And two right ones, some from unexpected sources:
Nikolai
Pliocene Exile
I was wondering if we had any other Pliocene exile fans around. It struck me this week how much Julian May influenced the Eight Thrones books. Plotwise, the Aikin Drum arc is almost the same as Nick Boyd's will be over the books. Just without extraterrestrial elves and goblins, mental powers, Pliocene beasties, and geriatric supermen.
The characters map relatively well:
Nick is a less egotistical (and less fun) Aiken Drum.
Marc Remillard's saturnine looks and intense charisma are part of the pattern for James Ligatos, but he also serves as Mayvar Kingmaker, taking the young man (in every sense), training him (ditto) and raising him to a position of power.
I am amused that this puts (blond) David in the role of Nodonn, the rightful heir whose place Aikin usurps. (which dumps James into a third part: Mercy, Nodonn's wife/widow, whom Aikin marries)
The others are such hodgepodges of parts that they don't map as easily.
