Memorable characters in memorable books

underthecity · Mar 15, 2006

I've read a lot of different books in my lifetime by a variety of authors and characters in certain books still stick with me years after I read the book.

Great books have that influence on me, even better if I like the author. Hopefully someday I will produce books with characters readers will like and remember the rest of their lives.

What are some books and/or characters you remember long after you read the books? Here are a few that are stuck permanently in my memory:

Stuart Redmon and Harold from The Stand.
Dennis Guilder, Arnie, and Christine from Christine.
Jack Torrance from The Shining. "Come out here and take your medicine!"
Skeeve and Aahz from Myth Adventures series.
John Hammond from Jurassic Park
Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park (although I see him as Jeff Goldblum in my mind)

There are lots more, but those are the ones off the top of my head.

allen

BuffStuff · Mar 15, 2006

Rick Deckard from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". Simply an amazing book. I don't see his character arc as being particularly positive though. Better from where he started, of course, but at the end, he took the easy way out. 0_0

BS

maya · Mar 15, 2006

That's so strange...two characters that I loved within paragraphs of reading about them are on your list (Stu Redmon and Ian Malcom).

Must add the following:
Jack Maggs from same book by Peter Carey
Smilla from Smilla's Feeling for Snow (I think that's what it was called in English) by Peter Hoeg
and
Sugar from The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber.

Jack because although I was not justified, I fancied him by chapter 3.
Smilla because she's the kind of woman I'd love to have the bal#s to be.
Sugar because...well I don't know, just because. It's been three years since I read the book and I still remember her as if it were yesterday, though I don't completely like her.

On an aside, all three books are fabulous and I recommend wholeheartedly.

Pike · Mar 15, 2006

If you mean great books as in classics, then this doesn't qualify but...

Edward from Laural K. Hamilton's Anita Blake books. He's so cold, calculating, and you never know when he's going to pop. There's something about a man that brings a flamethrower to kill vampires.

aghast · Mar 15, 2006

hanibal lector

ChaosTitan · Mar 15, 2006

Edmund Exley, from LA Confidential by James Ellroy

Bigwig, from Watership Down by Richard Adams

Sarah Stanley, from The Story Girl by LM Montgomery

Ponyboy Curtis, from The Outsiders by SE Hinton

triceretops · Mar 15, 2006

Philo Skinner from The Black Marble.

Tri

Nicholson James · Mar 15, 2006

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro from Dennis Lehane's detective series.

T. S. Garp from John Irving's The World According to Garp.

Randall Flagg and all his forms from many Stephen King works. Roland, also.

wildflower · Mar 15, 2006

Anne (Anne of Green Gables series)
Clarissa Dalloway (Mrs. Dalloway)

Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)
Lucy (Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid)

And many more...

blacbird · Mar 15, 2006

"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither."

I dare ya not to read on about this character, Alex, of A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess.

caw.

Shadow_Ferret · Mar 15, 2006

Tarzan
Conan
The Shadow
Anita Blake
Wart (Young King Arthur from The Sword in the Stone)
John Corey (Plum Island, Lion's Game, Night Fall by Nelson DeMille)
Sherlock Holmes
Elric of Melnibone
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

Ferret, realizing he has just reached the 1000 post plateau decides to take the rest of the night off and quietly celebrate with a glass of scotch

triceretops · Mar 15, 2006

Travis McGee on the Busted Flush.
tri

Strongbadia · Mar 15, 2006

HMMM

Dagny Taggert - Atlas Shrugged
William - The Name of the Rose
Ford Prefect - The Hitchhiker's Guide

Just to name a few

Jamesaritchie · Mar 15, 2006

Characters

Too many to name. But I think the best and most memorable character Stephen King ever put down on paper was Randall Flagg.

Anya Smith · Mar 15, 2006

If I can only choose one it would be Paul Atreides from "Dune".

katiemac · Mar 15, 2006

John Coffey. (Like the drink, only it's not spelled the same.)

Duncan J Macdonald · Mar 15, 2006

blacbird said:
<snip insensate quote from the book mentioned below> I dare ya not to read on about this character, Alex, of A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess.

Alright, I won't.

alaskamatt17 · Mar 15, 2006

Ender Wiggin from Ender's Game
Alan Grant in Jurassic Park
Tyrion Lannister from George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series
Sam Gamgee
Gandalf
Strider (he was way cooler before he was Aragorn)
Jack Sawyer from The Talisman
Annie Wilkes from Misery
Simon from Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy
Orlando Gardner from his series Otherland

kristie911 · Mar 16, 2006

Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye
So many of Stephen King's characters that I hate to try listing them but definitely Stuart Redman from The Stand and Roland from the Dark Tower Series

Alex Cross from the James Patterson novels (and I will never be able to picture him as Morgan Freeman...I love Morgan but he was poorly cast as Alex)

banjo · Mar 16, 2006

Mouse from Walter Moseley's Devil in a Blue Dress

(grasshopper) · Mar 16, 2006

When I was young I sure did envy the life of Jubal Harshaw. Anybody remember him?

Front!

waylander · Mar 16, 2006

Sir Harry Flashman VC

Spirit_Fire · Mar 16, 2006

Thomas Covenant (from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson)

And the Count of Monte Cristo (From the book by Alexandre Dumas)!

aruna · Mar 16, 2006

Ken from the Flicka books
Winnie the Pooh and friends
Jane Eyre and Rochester
Lucy Snow from Vilette
Scout, to Kill a Mockingbird
Robert Jordan and Maria, For Whom the Bell Tolls

And many, many more!

A.REX · Mar 16, 2006

aghast said:
hanibal lector

We definitely hava winner! Where would the world of fiction be if Thomas Harris had kept writing for the newspaper...?

Nikolai Hel, from Shibumi, keeps coming back to me...
Ender, from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.
Jean Val Jean, & Javert, Les Miserables. (long book tho-!)

Memorable characters in memorable books

underthecity

Finestkind

BuffStuff

No more being nice to Pee D

maya

Pike

Chivalry ain't dead

aghast

ChaosTitan

Around

triceretops

Nicholson James

wildflower

blacbird

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

triceretops

Strongbadia

Jamesaritchie

Anya Smith

House Dragon

katiemac

Five by Five

Duncan J Macdonald

Plotting! Not Plodding!

alaskamatt17

kristie911

Happy to be here

banjo

(grasshopper)

waylander

Who's going for a beer?

Spirit_Fire

Slow-burning Muse

aruna

On a wing and a prayer

A.REX