There are a myriad of novels about young adventurers. No surprise, given their boundless energy, flexible lower backs, functional knees, and frequent orphan status. However, human beings are fully capable of living beyond the age of twenty-nine—sometimes they manage to cling to life even after reaching their thirties! More astonishingly, many ancients refuse to allow their manifest decrepitude stop them from pursuing activities providence clearly intended to be the exclusive province of the young. Consider, for example the libidinous display with which Tunnel in the Sky’s teen protagonist Rod found himself confronted:
Rod did so, remembered to shake hands with the Deacon. It was all right, he guessed, but—well, how old were they? Sis must be thirtyish and the Deacon… why the Deacon was old—probably past forty. It did not seem quite decent.
But he did his best to make them feel that he approved. After he thought it over he decided that if two people, with their lives behind them, wanted company in their old age, why, it was probably a good thing.
Many—well, maybe not many, but at least five—authors have embraced Rod’s open-minded reaction to his aged sister and somehow even more aged mentor’s voluptuary grappling. Don’t believe me? Here are five elderly protagonists who believed, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that active life continues past twenty-nine.
As astonishing as that may seem to some.
T. Wallace Wooly, Jr.
The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith and Norman Matson (1941)
Boundless dynamism made widower T. Wallace Wooly, Jr. a millionaire. Alas, it was Wooly’s late father’s boundless dynamism, not Wooly’s. Middle-aged Wooly is no person’s idea of an adventurer1. Nevertheless, Wooly takes his honorary position of fire department vice-chief quite seriously. When the opportunity to rescue a naked Jennifer Broome from a burning hotel presents itself, Wooly embraces it and Jennifer as well.
The conflagratory meet-cute leads to romance, then marriage. A complication presents itself. Wooly is a steadfast, quite conventional, Episcopalian. Jennifer is a full-powered, infernal-goat-riding witch. Were this clash of cultures not awkward enough, Jennifer suspects with good reason that Wooly is all too fond of his secretary, Betty2. Fear the wrath of a jealous witch.
Thorne Smith died in 1934, which is why Matson had to finish the novel for him. For this reason, this may be the least of Smith’s comic fantasies. Nevertheless, the novel occupies an interesting role in American culture. The Passionate Witch is the basis for the 1941 film I Married a Witch, which along with 1958’s Bell, Book and Candle inspired the television show Bewitched.
Jack Holloway
Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper (1962)
Old Jack Holloway is considerably older than twenty-nine. How much older is hard to say, thanks to the peculiarities of superluminal travel, but nobody could deny he is the very opposite of young. Despite his advanced years, Jack works alone, prospecting for sunstones on the planet Zarathustra.
Charmed by the small, furry humanoid he encounters, Jack offers “Little Fuzzy” food and shelter. The repercussions are planetary in scale: Jack realizes Little Fuzzy isn’t a bright animal, but a person. That means that the charter for the Chartered Zarathustra Company is invalid… unless the Fuzzies are eradicated before the Federation3 learns about them.
It’s perhaps not so surprising that Company boss Victor Grego seriously considers eradicating the Fuzzies with extreme prejudice, that Jack must defend himself against a Company hired gun, or that the plot quickly transitions into a thrilling legal drama over the definition of intelligent being. What is astounding is that Grego manages to rehabilitate himself into the role of protagonist in the sequel.
Valérie Beaulieu and Hector Auvray
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2017)
As a young woman, Valérie fulfilled her familial duty by rejecting her true love, charming but penniless Hector Auvray, in favor of the less charming but wealthy Gaetan. This romantic sacrifice accorded financial security to Valérie’s family.
Years later, Hector Auvray returns to the city of Loisail. Hector has parlayed his telekinetic powers into wealth and fame. Valérie is still very much out of Hector’s reach. Valérie’s naïve niece Antonina is different matter…unless Antonia’s furious aunt can somehow steer Antonia away from the dashing but socially unsuitable Hector and towards a judicious, unsatisfying marriage like Valérie’s.
You may not find yourself cheering for Valérie or Hector in this dangerous liaison. Why? Neither one is especially pleasant. The subject of this piece is older people who do interesting things, not old people who are nice.
Miles Vorkosigan
Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold (1996)
Thirty-year-old Miles has rarely met a challenge he could not circumvent through the application of sufficient determination, cunning, and fast talk. Brain damage from a recent death proves beyond even his willpower to overcome. Proud Miles tries to conceal his condition. His boss Simon rebukes and fires Miles.
Miles is at a loss how to proceed. Depressed, he considers ending it all. Then fortune smiles on Miles. Something is seriously amiss with Simon. Someone needs to determine what is wrong and what must be done. Many former activities may now be beyond Miles, but solving this mystery is not.
Nameless protagonist
A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon (2022)
Twenty-nine-years-old, an orphan, and faced with overwhelming debts, the protagonist quietly decided it would be better to die. Having selected a method of suicide that will not inconvenience people, she is saved at the last moment by Clairvoyant Magical Girl Ah Roa. The twenty-nine-year-old4 isn’t a helpless nonentity: Ah Roa asserts that the protagonist is the Magical Girl of Time, the most important Magical Girl of all, the savior of all humanity.
The twenty-nine-year-old accepts Ah Roa’s claim at face value. Alas, Ah Roa is only half correct. The twenty-nine-year-old is a magical girl. She is not the Magical Girl of Time. The actual Magical Girl of Time has no intention of saving humanity. Rather she will destroy it…unless somehow the protagonist, who knows neither what her own powers are or how to use them, can save the world.
Blame the patriarchy for superhumans being Magical Girls and not Magical People. Whatever grants powers selects powerless people in moments of dire need. In this world at this time, those are almost always women.
There must be many more middle-aged protagonists in SFF, powering through the infirmities that beset all people aged twenty-nine and above. Perhaps you know of some I didn’t mention? Feel free to tell us about them in comments below.
- T. Wallace Wooly, Jr.’s secretary Betty adores him. Why this should be is both inexplicable and unexplained. ↩︎
- Wooly is smitten with Betty. Why this should be is both inexplicable and unexplained. I think the real moral of The Passionate Witch is “Jennifer could do better.”. ↩︎
- The Federation in Little Fuzzy is not that Federation. ↩︎
- The novel is told from the twenty-nine-year-old’s point of view. It’s only because I’m not writing from her POV that I keep having to describe her as “the twenty-nine-year-old.” I often start reviews with the protagonist’s name. Not this section, for the obvious reason. Were I to review A. Lee Martinez’s The Nameless Witch (which is not Natalie C. Parker’s The Nameless Witch), I would also have to circumlocute. ↩︎
