I'm so tired of teenagers being "the chosen ones" in fiction. please, let a middle-aged woman save the universe! she's seen some shit and dealt with it. she's tired of it all. she doesn't give a fuck. she's angry. she will get this shit done.
@reginasbread And for bonus points, a middle-aged woman who is NOT a mother trying to directly protect her kids.
As much as I loved Everything Everywhere All at Once and the Terminator films (and also Alien), the "mother saving her child" thing all the freaking time makes it like that's the only possible motivation a middle-aged woman could have. Miss Marple and Captain Janeway... and some other Star Trek characters are about it.
Also, there's a heavy emphasis on films & TV above, not books.
Harry Connolly's A Key, An Egg, An Unforturnate Remark stars -- no, I'll quote the promo blurb:
After years of waging a secret war against the supernatural, Marley Jacobs put away her wooden stakes and silver bullets, then turned her back on violence. She declared Seattle, her city, a safe zone for everyone, living and undead. There would be no more preternatural murder under her watch. But waging peace can make as many enemies as waging war, and when Marley's nephew turns up dead in circumstances suspiciously like a vampire feeding, she must look into it. Is there a new arrival in town? Is someone trying to destroy her fragile truce? Or was her nephew murdered because he was, quite frankly, a complete tool?
@reginasbread My wife won't let me not post this. She recently read Paladin's Grace by T King Fisher. Main characters aren't necessarily all chosen ones, but they are between 30-40 and have seen some stuff. She REALLY REALLY enjoyed this book.
@reginasbread I read a great short story along these lines a few years ago, wish I could remember the title/author. The woman - a retired and forgotten hero - reluctantly leaves her garden, puts on the ill-fitting old uniform with an eye-roll that's practically audible, trudges out and basically flicks the villain-of-the-week off the stage. As she's leaving and the survivors are crawling out of the wreckage, asking their new hero's name, she tosses over her shoulder, "Just call me undefeated."
@acm_redfox
Exactly! With enough experience to spot the red flags of when we're being conned with a bullshit side quest, & to prioritize the legit ones so we use our energy efficiently
"Okay, if I start with the Star of the Jacobites, that'll take me half way to the Mouse-mat of Rassilon, & pick up the Emerald Eye of Ekron on the way back to the main quest" @CatDragon
@CatDragon@reginasbread they don't save the world but they do solve crimes: The Thursday Murder Club (book series) is led by a retired spy who is an awesome woman. And the book Killers of a Certain Age is an all-woman gang of retired assassins on a revenge mission. 10/10 would recommend both.
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