Non-Human Protagonists

[lea_hazel]

What books or book series do you know that have non-human protagonists? I know POV characters are almost always human (or very like human), for maximum reader identification, but what about major supporting characters? I remember reading Moorcock's Swords trilogy, where the hero was a member of the long-lived elf-like species. I know there are quite a few books with elf protagonists but they're often not that different from humans.

Urban fantasy of course has a lot of werewolves, vampires and the like, but seems to have less of the people who were born not human, as opposed to humans who were turned into something else. I have a few books on my reading list that have non-human protagonists, but the majority still seem to cast non-humans in minor or antagonist roles. There are a few series I've heard of that flip the perspective and use traditional antagonist species like goblins or orks as protagonists, although I haven't read any of them (yet).

What books have you read with major inhuman characters? Which did you like best, and least? Which species of inhuman would you most want people to write more of? I gotta vote for dwarves.

Comments

[machiavelli_imp]

Although they're not technically non-human, Ian Irvine's fantasy decuplet has a world with four distinct quasi-human species: one (old human) was the "normal" human and the other three were long-lived species from the same primate evolutionary branch. His second series (Well of Echoes) had an entire species of non-humans and the main/supporting characters were evenly divided between humans and the "aliens": it turns out that this isn't quite the full story, but I wouldn't like to ruin the ending for anyone intending to read the books.

As long as the characterisation is strong, I don't think it matters to the reader whether the protagonists are human or not (aside from obvious physical abilities changing the plot). What irritates me is the style of writing that propagates the "humans good, non-humans bad" ethic, or that a character is inherently good or bad depending on their race (*cough* Tolkein *cough*), because it smacks of laziness and becomes very dull.

The subversion series sound interesting: I've never come across them before, aside from a short story from a werewolf's viewpoint.

[lea_hazel]

There's a series about goblins by Jim Hines that I never read, and there's also a webcomic about goblins (called Goblins I'm pretty sure) that I've been saving for when I can't afford books anymore and desperately need something new and free to read.

I am with you on the whole good/bad races thing. I can reluctantly accept villains who are "evil to the core" some of the time, but when a whole race is evil I get downright cranky. In my personal LotR fanon, after the Fourth Age of Men comes the Fifth Age of Orcs.