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Acacia Onna Stik ([info]acaciaonnastik) wrote,
@ 2007-11-16 23:32:00


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Current mood:miserable

Rec Request: urgent!
(Because I'm sort of struggling with the depths of despair here, a little.)

Does anyone know of a decent (or even half-decent. Or crappy, for that matter. I'm desperate here.) piece of genre fiction, fan- or original, where a main character was autistic or otherwise neurodivergent?

I really, really need a Hero Like Me right now.



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[info]tehrin
2007-11-17 05:53 am UTC (link)
I did a wiki search but the only thing that I recognize on their list of characters with autism is "The Rain Man."

I'm sorry I couldn't help.

(Reply to this)


[info]melannen
2007-11-17 06:08 am UTC (link)
Of the top of my head, I have Every Day This Week, a really well-written imagining of young!Snape as autistic at Hogwarts; and del.icio.uc reminds me of A Sunday Morning Concerto for the City By The Sea, a lovely SGA story from the POV of an adopted kid who is decidedly non-neurotypical.

My brain is telling me I've seen others (and is also swearing to me that I've read at least one genre novel with autistic-spectrum MC, but all I can come up with is sappy YA novels), but I got nothing, except a couple of those notoriously bad stories where a MC is given aspergers so the writer doesn't have to do any characterization.

Unless you want to go watch Boston Legal, which has a high-functioning autistic main character this season who is kickass.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]melannen
2007-11-17 06:29 am UTC (link)
Oh, I knew I was brainfarting! The sixth book in the Young Wizards series is all about an autistic boy who saves the world, *not* because of his autism, but because he has the courage and strength of will to use his neurodivergence as one of his weapons against evil. Unfortunately, there's very little fanfic and even less of it is good.

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(Anonymous)
2007-11-17 08:02 am UTC (link)
http://tvmakesyoustupid.com/2007/04/06/ten-best-characters-with-varying-learning-exceptionalities-on-television/

(Reply to this)


[info]limyaael
2007-11-17 01:47 pm UTC (link)
I've heard that Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark, which is an SF novel with an autistic main character, is excellent. Haven't read it, though.

(Reply to this)


[info]kaesa
2007-11-18 08:51 am UTC (link)
The TV show "Eureka" (on the SciFi network, two seasons, really terrible science) has an autistic kid who saves the day occasionally (with, of course, supergenius physics skills) and tends to be a part of the plot anyway, but for most of Season 2 I was throwing things at the TV because they were treating him more like a test subject than a real live kid. (It turns out they're trying to save his life, but they didn't really explain that until waay late in the season.)

And I just finished reading Soon I Will Be Invincible, which is a superhero novel where the Batman analogue, Blackwolf, is autistic. The book itself is really good, but I don't think the autism was presented wonderfully, and if you're not totally obsessed with mad scientist villains, you might not enjoy it as much as I did. (One of the main characters also has a fictional Mad-Science-causing neurological condition, but that's pretty common in fiction, and, I gather, not what you want.)

Neither is the main character, but both are Important Characters. And one is a superhero.

(I think the issue with autism + fiction is that it's like they wanted some neat ability but didn't have enough build points left over for it, so they took it as a flaw. "Oh, well, I have an autistic kid at home. Now do I have enough points?")

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