I'm reading the Vlad Taltos books by Steven Brust. Here's a fansite with many many spoilers.
These are fantasy, so the stories take place in an alternate universe with no relation to ours. They have swords and sorcery, but those aspects are nearly incidental to the interior dialogues our hero is having with himself. He starts out as an assassin working for his universe's equivalent of the mob, but by book four he's not very happy with himself, even though he's doing quite well financially, expanding his territory and collecting his rents. That's as far as I've gotten, but I'm savoring each one. They have marvelous bits of comic dialogue, snarky little asides, and a wonderul cast of characters.
It got me to thinking how much easier it is to like a character whose occupation would otherwise offend the reader if he's set down in a fantasy world. Vlad's a guy who kills others for money, routinely busts up guys who don't pay their debts, and is generally a murderous thug, albeit with a growing sense of ethics. If the book were set in our universe in the modern era, he'd hardly be sympathetic (who liked Michael Corleone once he started taking over the family in Puzo's The Godfather?). But in fantasy, his deeds can be observed at a remove. Even when one reads modern crime fiction featuring a lovable rogue, he's usually a con man rather than a killer. In fantasy the author doesn't have to worry about the readers' sensibilities in quite the same way.
That doesn't explain why the American public was so enamoured of Jesse James, John Dillinger, or Bonnie and Clyde.
Posted by Linkmeister at August 28, 2007 02:47 PM | TrackBack