David Gemmell: Difference between revisions
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[[File:legendu.jpg|frame|Artist's Interpretation]]
{{quote|''Some of the other children had no father, but their lack was honourable. Their Dad died in the war, you know. He was a hero. This boy's lack was the subject of sly whispers from the adults, and open jeering from his peers. This boy's mother was, the boy heard so many times, a whore. The word was less hurtful than the blows that would follow it. Most of the blows came from other children, but sometimes adults too would weigh in.''
|'''David Gemmell'''}}
▲{{quote|''Some of the other children had no father, but their lack was honourable. Their Dad died in the war, you know. He was a hero. This boy's lack was the subject of sly whispers from the adults, and open jeering from his peers. This boy's mother was, the boy heard so many times, a whore. The word was less hurtful than the blows that would follow it. Most of the blows came from other children, but sometimes adults too would weigh in.''|'''David Gemmell'''}}
Possibly the most prolific (he was known to write an entire 500 page novel in ''one weekend'') [[Heroic Fantasy]] writer of all time, David Gemmell was born in West London in 1948. He had a harsh and violent upbringing in a tough urban area, and was raised alone by his mother until the age of six. His stepfather, Bill, compelled him to take up boxing to learn how to stand up for himself, rather than run away or hide behind a wall. This philosophy would later colour a great deal of his writing. He was expelled from school at the age of 16 for organising a gambling syndicate and was arrested several times throughout his youth, [[Curb Stomp Battle|mostly for ending fights.]] He was once described by a psychologist's report as a psychopath.
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*** Druss phrases this quite bluntly in Legend, referring to his wife: "I had a real woman once, and since then I've never needed another."
* [[Good Thing You Can Heal]]: Inverted. One of Waylander's enemies has magically-endowed [[Healing Factor|regenerative capabilities]] that make him effectively unkillable. All well and good against Waylander's knives and crossbow bolts, but when [[Unwitting Pawn|his plan to use Waylander as a human sacrifice backfires and a demon arrives to claim HIM]]..."Ah. I see you have learned the secrets of regeneration. You will wish that you had not. For now [[And I Must Scream|it may take you twenty centuries to die]]."
* [[Green Lantern Ring]]: The Stones of Power. In the Jon Shannow series alone they are used for healing, immortality, mind control, invisibility, transmutation, travel between dimensions and through time, force fields, telekinesis, genetic modification, seeing down to microscopic scales, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|recreating]] [[
* [[Groin Attack]]: Given how many [[Action Girl|extremely capable female warriors]] and [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl|chivalrous heroes]] his stories feature, anyone perpetrating or attempting rape ([[I Have You Now, My Pretty|and there are a lot]]) might as well [[Karmic Death|paint a target on his crotch]]. Sometimes it's knees or fists, [[It Got Worse|sometimes it's not]].
* [[The Gunslinger]]: Jon Shannow, again.
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* [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil]]: There's a ''reason'' the first part of Druss's Iron Code is "Never violate a woman."
* [[Rated "M" for Manly]]
* [[Reed Richards Is Useless]]: Strongly averted in Waylander's case. With the money he has made from professional assassination (before his story starts proper) he invests wisely and carefully, bankrolling struggling governments and founding hospitals and libraries with the proceeds while living relatively frugally himself.
* [[Religion of Evil]]: The Dark Brotherhood from the Drenai series, the Hellborn, and Winterbourne's cult in the last Rigante book.
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* [[The Siege]]: A staple of the Drenai series especially.
* [[Sinister Scythe]]: Huntsekker in the Rigante series has one as his signature weapon. It's a European-style scytheblade, but with a shortened hilt so it's wielded like a kama and worn like a sword.
* [[Sobriquet]]{{context}} <!-- tell us what his sobriquet is, please -->
* [[Stable Time Loop]]: In one of the Jon Shannow novels. Also in ''Morningstar'', in which the legends of Morningstar inspire a thief to become a hero, before he goes back in time to ''become'' the hero who inspired him.
** The ones that it inspired were his companions, who in turn taught him the value of restraint and good PR. HE was still a sociopath.
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* [[Super-Powered Evil Side]]: Dace to Tarantio in ''Dark Moon'', although he's more like a superpowered [[Power Trio|Id]] - the two are the extremes of the split personality of their traumatised childhood progenitor.
* [[The Team Normal]]: In ''The King Beyond The Gate'' Decado, despite having no psychic abilites whatsoever, becomes (against his will) the Voice of The Thirty [[The Chosen One|because all the usual signs indicate that he should]]. He does an excellent job despite this setback, in one scene winning a duel with a psychic opponent (capable of reading his mind to predict attacks) [[Badass|because he was simply so quick that it didn't matter]].
** And then [[Took a Level
* [[Technicolor Eyes]]: See [[Purple Eyes]] above. Also in ''Legend'', Serbitar the albino has un-albino-like bright green eyes, a legacy of his mystical training; at one point in the novel, when he's at his lowest physical and spiritual ebb, they temporarily revert to their natural color.
* [[This Is My Boomstick]]: Happens a few times in the Jon Shannow novels, sort of. In the [[After the End|post-apocalyptic]] setting, people still know what guns are—but current levels of technology can get no further than primitive revolvers. So in the first book, the few people who preserve or reverse-engineer guns from before the Fall (ranging from semi-automatic pistols and rifles to machine guns) are at a decided advantage in combat.
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** Not really for Shannow, he only really meets two tribes in the first novel and both play large roles
* [[Warrior Monk]]: The Thirty.
* [[Weaksauce Weakness]]: Villainous example. In ''Winter Warriors'', the [[Big Bad]] sends [[The Lord of the Rings|nine]] [[Shout-Out|nearly invincible demonic warriors]] after the heroes. They have super-strength, inhuman stamina and fighting skill, can track humans by scent, and are immune to edged weapons. In fact, they're only vulnerable to two things—namely, wood and water. [[Hilarity Ensues|Cue lots of impalement on sprung branches and getting pushed off bridges to a humiliating and watery grave]].
** A slightly less glaring weakness in the case of the [[Exclusively Evil|Daroth]] from the one-shot novel ''Dark Moon''. They're huge, fearsomely strong and [[Made of Iron|almost unkillably tough by conventional means]], but [[Kill It with Fire|'burn like wax']].
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]? Helikaon, on more than on occasion.
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Creator Index]]
[[Category:Authors]]
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