Guest Post: 10 SF/F Characters John Scalzi Wanted to Be

1. Charles Wallace (A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle)
   I first read A Wrinkle in Time in elementary school, as I imagine so many people did, and in Charles Wallace I saw someone like me: small, precocious, and observant of things so many other people missed…and vulnerable because of the things that made him special. I was slightly older than Charles Wallace was in the book when I met him; nevertheless, he was the first character I knew I saw a little of myself in.

2. Will Stanton (The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper)
   Will Stanton, just an ordinary boy until his eleventh birthday, when he’s revealed to be the last of the Old Ones, an order devoted to fighting the magical forces of evil! I was ten when I read The Dark is Rising, and on my eleventh birthday I waited for the burst of static from the radio that would tell me I too was an Old One. Another generation of readers would similarly wait for an owl to tell them they were going to Hogwart’s; I knew how they felt.

3. Max Jones (Starman Jones], by Robert Heinlein
   There are any number of teenage heroes from Robert Heinlein’ “juvies” that I could pick here, but I identified with Max more than the rest. Like Max I grew up poor and felt in many ways door of opportunities might be closed to me because of it…and like him, when I saw opportunity, I yearned to take it. Becoming a starship captain as a teenager might be a little much, mind you. But I also took notes on how Max handled his promotion, with humility and an awareness of its responsibilities. Not a bad model for an ambitious kid.

4. Ford Prefect (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams)
   Because he was a hoopy frood who always knew where his towel was. Or, translated: cool dude who had it together no matter the situation. Who wouldn’t want to be that guy? I think people often see Ford Prefect as Arthur Dent’s sidekick in the book, but I really think it’s the other way around. Just because Arthur is the protagonist, doesn’t mean he’s not the sidekick.

5. Pete Garey (Ariel, by Steven R. Boyett)
   Pete was fourteen when normal physics failed, magical creatures started roaming the land, and he met the unicorn Ariel. I was about that age when I read the book. Enough said—and yet I will say that what sold me on Pete was the sarcastic bantering between him and Ariel the unicorn, a snarky back and forth that not only felt real and possible, but was how I as a teenager spoke to my friends. Pete was one of us; I could be him.

7. Vlad Taltos (The Vlad Taltos series, by Steven Brust)
   A human in a fantasy(-ish) world of giant pretty near-immortal elf-like creatures with a taste for swords, Vlad has to live by his wits, his own frequently challenged sense of morals, and the loyalty of friends. This leads to many adventures. I liked a fantasy hero who was recognizably human, recognizably not the most gifted person in the room, and yet still made a name for himself. Vlad was crafty, and crafty is admirable.

8. Andrew Wiggin (Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card)
   Note that I say I admire and identify with Andrew Wiggin, not Ender, the hero of Ender’s Game. Ender is a bright but unwitting pawn; he is not the captain of his fate. Andrew, in Speaker, is; he accepts what he’s done and spends his life acting to correct it, and along the way, acts to heal those who are, in their way, as injured by their pasts as he is. The difference between Ender and Andrew is the difference between precociousness and wisdom.

9. Death (The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman)
   The protagonist of The Sandman is Dream, the personification of the world of sleep, but he’s a bit dour and humorless for me—a great, complex hero, but not a ton of fun. Death, his sister, on the other hand, is simply a blast: funny, kind, wise but not a jerk about it, and aware her role isn’t to end lives but to move them on. On to what? Well, you know. Where would you like to go? I like to read about Dream; I want to be Death.

10. Brawne Lamia (Hyperion, by Dan Simmons)
    Brawne Lamia is a detective with a colorful history, an attractive client, and an intriguing murder mystery, all of which are pretty nifty. But what I liked about her, and why she spoke to me, was that in a novel (two, actually) of overthinkers, she was direct, to the point, and above all, a straight-line thinker who cut through the crap. As a stereotypical overthinker myself, I longed for that clarity of thought and action. As it happened, a couple of years after reading Hyperion, I met a woman who was direct, to the point, and an amazing straight-line thinker. Reader, I married her.

John Scalzi’s next novel, The End of All Things, is available August 11.