Hey bookit! I was getting a little tired of the norm, so I was curious. Can anyone think of any fiction novels in which the bad guys win? I mean for example, a bad guy trys to take over the world and they actually take over the world. Anything written from the bad guys perspective would be cool as well.
Posted Oct 14, 2010, 1:03 PM UTC
[deleted]
How about Crime and Punishment? The narrator is the bad guy, though you end up rooting for him through parts of the book and pitying him in others.
How about books where no one wins and everyone dies?
Titan by Stephen Baxter. Well, pretty much.
I was thinking about some of the books my roommate read for Apocalypse class in college... I can't remember the specific book but it was a collection of stories and each one is about a group of people slowly breaking down and dying. Or killing each other and then dying. So yea. He thought I would love it which raises really weird questions about his perception of me...
Define win.
I mean, some books the bad guys kill almost every person but one and he wanders through the apocalyptic ruins. Would you consider that the bad guys have won or their isn't a active bad guy?
Honestly, that would work, ad I'd consider that as bad guys have won. I'm just really looking for something different than Good Guy always wins in the end in sci-fi or fantasy type enviroment.
Not sci-fi or fantasy, but "The Lion's Game" by DeMille has a 'bad guy' getting away with plenty.
Song of Ice and Fire is a good series for this. Just be aware that it's not finished yet. le sigh
I also liked Richard Morgans The Steel Remains. It is very cold, very nihilistic, very brutal, and slightly homosexual.
I've heard so much about the Song of Ice and Fire series so I guess I'll check it out finally. Appreciate it!
I really liked Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. It's a very tongue in cheek story of a supervillan who wishes to take over the world. It reads like a comic book.
Wow, this one looks exactly like the type I'm looking for, thanks!
Great! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It's way too short, though!
Try reading The Stone Dogs by SM Stirling. The bad guys win, ambiguously, and they're bad guys you really don't want to see win.
Also, it is a brilliant alternate world/history. The 'tech tree' is completely different, robust, well imagined, and plausible, and there are little touches that make the alternate universe believable.
There are actually three books in the series, and the Stone Dogs is the third. I always recommend people either read the second (Under the Yoke) or third book first, and the first book (Marching Through Georgia) last.
Try Zoé Oldenbourg's novels about the Crusades.
See, this is why I love reddit. Thanks you guys.
Grendel is a story written from the bad guy's perspective. Read the second(?) story in Beowulf for the other perspective. Not a long read in either case.
The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie.
It's hard to explain without giving it all away. It's just that even when the 'good guys' win they don't really win... none of them.
Grunts by Mary Geentle. Quite possibly the funniest bad guys win novel of all time
Try 1984.
Or Animal Farm.