Anti-Hero Books? More evil then good?

[Sharmai]

I am so tired of these pussified heroes that fall into moral traps when they need to make a important decision. "I can't kill him thats not right!!!", "I must save her at any cost!", and all that crap. Anyone know any books with Anti-Heroes that are really able to make those hard decision quickly and confidently without a ton of inner turmoil? I am so tired of heroes with never ending inner turmoil. Are there any who have come to a calmness within themselves from the beginning and go from there?

For those of you who have seen Firefly I like him as an Anti-Hero he never had much trouble making his decisions.

Examples of the kind of Anti-Hero I am talking about.

A child is holding the password to a bomb which will destroy the world in 5 minutes unless you get it and type it in. You do not run after the child for 4 minutes and 30 seconds, instead you shoot the child then take the password and type it in. In the aftermath you do not spend 2 1/2 chapters bitching because of your decision because it had to be done.

A super villain has just been caught. Hes known to cause massive amounts of world horrors and will do so in the future. You do not take him to jail. You shoot him. 10 times. Then again just to be sure.

You are not tied to any single life long love of a friend. If they are in danger and your on an important mission you do not drop everything to save them. Instead you trust they will do what they need to do and get your own shit done.

An innocent man knows the location of the bad guy by pure concidnce. You do not ask and beg this man or offer to go on some quest for him. You bitch slap him till he tells you.

[Vatoreus]

I'll get flamed to death probably, but the Sellswords trilogy by Salvatore is based around 2 anti-hero characters.

[Sharmai]

Originally Posted by Vatoreus

I'll get flamed to death probably, but the Sellswords trilogy by Salvatore is based around 2 anti-hero characters.

I read those and in the beginning they weren't so bad but Artemis goes the way of Drizzt soon enough an begins to become super pussified. His hardass ability to kill without emotion starts to slack off and of ALL people he has a MASSIVE FUCKTON OF INNER TURMOIL (im not bitching at you).

Now Jaraxle and me could get along fine if they had series just about him....

[Kreugen]

Jack Bauer!

Elric of Melibone saga by Michael Moorcock. Blood and souls for my Lord Arioch! (does tend to be a bit emo when his evil sentinent sword kills his buddies and sucks out their souls, however)

Karsa from the Malazan series. A 9' tall magic resistant regenerating death machine who doesn't give a flying fuck about anything. He'd be your dream hero for sure.

[DoctorSpooge]

Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels. Just forum search the name -- the series (I guess you could call it a trilogy) is mentioned frequently here.

Dan Simmons has a lesser-known hard-boiled noir series, the first of which being Hardcase. Joe Kurtz, the protag, is one bad motherfucker. And Simmons is a hell of a writer. IIRC it's out of print, so hit up a used bookstore.

Matthew W. Stover's Heroes Die + sequel for a brutal, pulpy (albeit well-done) science fantasy. Has some of the more brutal fighting you'll encounter, and Caine is certainly not a friendly guy.

Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination -- well, I haven't read this in a long time, but it's 1) an absolute classic in the SF genre, and 2) the protagonist is a rapist. So again, not a friendly guy.

Because no one knows who the fuck he is, I'll pimp Peter Watts. His first trilogy (beginning w/ Starfish) doesn't really have any renegade male protagonist -- it's a female, and she's completely fucked up. As is everyone else in his novels. The first book, imo, isn't incredible, paranoia factor and sheer grittiness notwithstanding. The second, Maelstrom, is jam-packed with completely badass ideas in the hard science fiction vein.

edit: yeah, Karsa certainly qualifies as well. And everyone loves that series except for me. So you should give it a shot.

[Stroker Ace]

Repairman Jack and Dexter Morgan.

[Szlia]

Maldoror: always and for ever.

[Rezz]

Elric is -the- antihero, period. And good never really enters his mind, it's beautiful.

[Mudcrush Durtfeet]

The Gap series by Donaldson has a couple of main characters that I think would fit 'anti-hero' quite well.

[Kobalt]

The black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop is a good one for anti heroes.

Oddly character with the most good in him in the series is a guy named saetan, who rules hell and drinks blood. And in one case he asks a council something, they vote and reject him. So he kills everyone who he doesn't like and tells them to vote again.

In a similar case one of the good guys doesn't get what she wants, so she blocks out the sun for a week. And spreads a disease that slowly kills people. This just the top of my head

Generally, the "good guys" have no problem murdering/torturing people to get what they want.

I guess when you compare them to the villian who likes cutting of guys dicks and committing acts of genocide they aren't so bad I guess.

[Tullaeniel]

Not exactly a book but Lobo is the best of the best for Anti-Hero's

[Chaotic]

Anything by Chuck Palhniuk (sp) almost all his characters are anti-heros.


I second Kansa in the malazan series, i just started house of chains and that guy is awesome.

[Suineg]

The Black Company series is a great supply of anti-heroes.

[manslayer]

Can't recommend the Elric stuff enough if this is the type of thing you're looking for. Although, Moorcock himself stated that he views Elric as a hero, not an antihero.

[larseny316]

2nd for the Black Company - the entire main cast are basically mercenaries who enjoy their share of looting, raping, and pillaging.