Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Best damn example of the genre. Starts with the character at seventeen (okay, in what's technically the second book, he's a major player, but he's also a fetus so uh)
I recommend starting with The Warrior's Apprentice, but there's two prequel-ish novels starring the main protagonist's parents.
Basically it is about a young SPACE NOBLEMAN in a very conservativeish society in which he is kind of not perfect for because they hate mutants. He's not a sexy awesome sort of mutant, either - basically, the two important things are that he is incredibly short and his bones are hella brittle which is a pretty sucky thing in a militaristic society! Fortunately, he is legitimately clever - like, not in the sense that the author says he's clever when all she's doing is making the other characters idiots in comparison, he's just crazy brilliant and it comes off that way.
His thing is basically coming up with a simple plan, and then things go horribly wrong, and then there's lots of scrambling around and making up plans on the fly and it is glorious. It shifts around a bit - last few books, he's been in his thirties and he's been settling down a bit and not breaking into and/or out of heavily guarded prison camps but there's still plenty of space adventure.
The world-building is awesome - there's somewhere between a dozen and half a dozen planets/societies (it's a long series) that get a major focus, and the history and general attitudes (and occasionally regional attitudes if it's a particularly cosmopolitan place or if there's on-planet traveling) and it's just pretty well thought out.
I could gush for hours on his delicious flaws and awesome love interests and awesome family and how he has some pretty realistic deep angst moments which the supporting cast generally doesn't let him drag on with and the comedy oh man the comedy he's got the best internal narration ever and then there's the philosophy angle...
no subject
Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Best damn example of the genre. Starts with the character at seventeen (okay, in what's technically the second book, he's a major player, but he's also a fetus so uh)
I recommend starting with The Warrior's Apprentice, but there's two prequel-ish novels starring the main protagonist's parents.
Basically it is about a young SPACE NOBLEMAN in a very conservativeish society in which he is kind of not perfect for because they hate mutants. He's not a sexy awesome sort of mutant, either - basically, the two important things are that he is incredibly short and his bones are hella brittle which is a pretty sucky thing in a militaristic society! Fortunately, he is legitimately clever - like, not in the sense that the author says he's clever when all she's doing is making the other characters idiots in comparison, he's just crazy brilliant and it comes off that way.
His thing is basically coming up with a simple plan, and then things go horribly wrong, and then there's lots of scrambling around and making up plans on the fly and it is glorious. It shifts around a bit - last few books, he's been in his thirties and he's been settling down a bit and not breaking into and/or out of heavily guarded prison camps but there's still plenty of space adventure.
The world-building is awesome - there's somewhere between a dozen and half a dozen planets/societies (it's a long series) that get a major focus, and the history and general attitudes (and occasionally regional attitudes if it's a particularly cosmopolitan place or if there's on-planet traveling) and it's just pretty well thought out.
I could gush for hours on his delicious flaws and awesome love interests and awesome family and how he has some pretty realistic deep angst moments which the supporting cast generally doesn't let him drag on with and the comedy oh man the comedy he's got the best internal narration ever and then there's the philosophy angle...
tl;dr You should read it.