Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Meeghan Reads — check out the next batch of upcoming topics here.
This week’s topic is Top 5 non-human characters, and the prompt is: So many books have non-human characters — animals or supernatural creatures… maybe even a park bench. Who are your favourite non-human characters?
It’s hard to narrow these down to just five, since there are so many to choose from! Here are five I love:
- Mosscap (robot) — A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers: I love everything about Mosscap (full name: Splendid Speckled Mosscap), and this book and its sequel are just so wonderful.
- S.T. (crow) — Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton: A crow narrating a post-apocalyptic story with plenty of attitude. Awesome.
- Viv (orc) — Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree: An orc, retired from her fighting days, who dreams about a peaceful life with good coffee.
- Matthew de Clermont (vampire) — All Souls series by Deborah Harkness: There are any number of great vampires in fiction, but Matthew is so suave and smart that he consistently makes my list of favorites.
- Alien (unnamed) — The Humans by Matt Haig: This non-human visitor to our world takes the form of an earthling and learns important truths about being human. Such a great book.
I feel like this list just scratches the surface — I haven’t even included my favorite dogs of fiction! Dogs, cats, horses, and more… they’ll have to wait for another list!
What (or who) are your favorite non-human characters in fiction?
Bookshelf Fantasies 
Hmm… what a good question. There *are* so many! I’d have to say, off the top of my head, the ones that have stuck in my head the longest, as important to my life in some way, are Ria from Anne Logston’s Wild Blood, Ukiah Oregon from Wen Spencer’s series by the same name (starting with Alien Taste), Moql/Saaski from Eloise McGraw’s The Moorchild, and perhaps stretching things a little, (given that she’s biologically human, but having been raised by wolves, has more of a wolf’s perception of live than a human’s), Jane Lindskold’s Firekeeper. I know those are all older books, but as I said for me “favourite” I decided meant those that have stuck in my mind the most.
… For more recent books, I’d have to say Nalini Singh’s Snowdancer wolves, and the Dark River leopards (both shifters) from her Psy-Changeling/Psy-Changeling Trinity series. Although I also love many of her Psy characters also! (Especially the Arrows and the Empaths!) I love that we keep learning more and more about the different types of Psy in each new book in season two (Psy-Changeling Trinity). There are so many awesome characters in that series that I can’t choose just one or two!
And of course, I can’t leave out Patricia Briggs’ Mercedes Thompson universe (Mercedes Thompson, and Alpha and Omega series). Much as I like Mercy, I have to say Anna’s my favourite (from the Alpha and Omega series) there.
What a great response! I’m not familiar with most of these — but I love the Mercy universe so much!! Anna is very high on my list too (and I actually read the first Anna and Charles story before going back and starting the Mercy books at the beginning).
One of my favs is Rocky from Project Hail Mary!
Such a good one! I loved Rocky!
I haven’t heard of any of these except Viv, but haven’t read the book yet.
My post: https://laurieisreading.com/2024/10/15/top-5-tuesday-non-human-characters/
Viv is awesome! And so is her coffee 🙂
Aww I love seeing posts about S.T.! I may need to reread Hollow Kingdom some day😁
Me too! S.T. is definitely not like any other narrator I’ve ever read!
I think I’d really struggle to pick just five too. The All Souls books are one of my unowned must reads for next year and I’m pretty intrigued by Hollow Kingdom now as I’ve never heard of a story narrated by a crow before. I think I have a weakness for snarky animal companions but when supernaturals are an option too my list truly would be endless 😂
It was so hard to choose between animals and other non-humans! I feel like this is a topic that I’ll want to come back to. 🙂
Haven’t read the books, but I’m liking Matthew Goode’s portrayal of de Clermont in the show.
Umm, Momo, from Avatar the Last Airbender, and Nighteyes, from Robin Hobb’s Farseer books, are two of my fav nonhuman characters.
I like Matthew Goode in that role too! He doesn’t match how I pictured the character when I read the books, but now he’s completely taken over the role in my head!
Momo is awesome! And I always loved Appa too. 🙂
I love a good bird character. Chainsaw was a fave in The Raven Cycle series. And Viv is so great (although I think Thimble is my fave of that whole book). Thanks for such a great list!! 💕
Thimble is awesome ❤