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Only one of the ten stories in my collection, The Smoking Gun Sisterhood, has a main character who's an assassin; but I added it just now on the strength of that one story!

Amen

GOD!!! i get it some people really loves a certain books but that doesnt mean you have to add them to every single list you come across, randomly, just cuz u like them even if they dont actually belong in there thats just plain stupid. just becuz a psycho killer is going around and killing people doesnt make him a freaking assassin. GO GET A DICTIONARY AND LOOK UP AT THE WORD!!!

Love_books wrote: "GOD!!! i get it some people really loves a certain books but that doesnt mean you have to add them to every single list you come across, randomly, just cuz u like them even if they dont actually be..."

AMEN!

Hunger Games: I was wondering the same thing myself, but then remembered. Yes, there is an assassin character, or more like the character turned into an assassin in the third book. So yeah, I voted for Mockingjay, although I liked the first two books better. *shrugs*

The main character is not an assasin in mockingjay, granted people in the book have to kill, but that's only for their own survival. They're not paid to kill

Noticed a fee books on the list that I have read but I do not remember any assassins in any of them! Yes people kill and people die but there are no assasins in them! Only one book that I have read in the list has a hit-woman/assassin. Peopledon't vote on a list unless you know what an assassin or contract killer, hit-men, they are hired to kill someone for money and they can refuse a hit (unlike katniss from the hunger games who is not and never becomes an assassin)

not being sexiest or anything, but i find it funny that most of the assassins/main characters of this books are female goes to show how the tide has changed and what was once new has now become mainstream

Mistwood by Leah Cypress should be on this list!!! And why the hell was Bloodlines by Richelle Mead on this list?!

Marshanah, Caitlin, and Love_books, if you're a Goodreads librarian, you can remove inappropriately listed books from this or other Goodreads lists, by clicking the faint gray "edit" link in the list description to activate that function. (I have librarian status myself, but I'm reluctant to remove books I haven't personally read.) You can also add any book you think should be on the list (there's an "add books" link near the top of the list page, as well).

Kate Daniels - Not an assassin. Sorry, folks.

And neither is Kvothe.. (The Kingkiller Chronicle) They are great books, but don't put them on the list just because you like them. You'll ruin the list.

12> Well, Kate was trained to assassinate her father. Not that we've even seen her father yet...

Coolcurry, my impression is that the list was created for books where the main character is currently an assassin, and actually practicing that trade in the particular book that's listed. That would seem to be the kind of book that fans looking for reads with an assassin motif would actually be the most interested in, if they're using this list to get reading suggestions.

As I noted in message one, only one story (out of ten) in my collection The Smoking Gun Sisterhood, "'Tis the Season," actually fits the criteria for this list; but that one does have a heroine who's a professional hit woman. If anyone's interested (and I only mention it because it's been out of print for some time) that book has finally been reprinted, and here's the link for more information: www.amazon.com/The-Smoking-Gun-Sister... .

What is the obsession with main character assassins? I find it very creepy. We don't admire murderers, in general, yet all sorts of people say, "I love [fill in the blank assassin character] because she's such a strong female!" So..."strong" equals "kills for money?" And then, the ubercreepy: "We need more strong female characters like [fill in the blank assassin] to empower young women." So..."empower" equals "tell people it's great to kill other people?" I find this very, very disturbing. Does anyone else?

Melinda, you raise a fair question, with some valid reasoning behind it. The creator of this list, Danielle, is the co-mod of a group I'm in, and I know she'll have an articulate and well-thought-out answer; but I want to share my own response, too.

First, not everyone who creates a list or votes on it necessarily has a "obsession" with whatever type of book is featured on it. Usually, people create Goodreads lists simply because they think a certain type of book is distinctive enough, and has enough people who sometimes seek out reads of that type, to warrant a list for reading guidance. And people may add books to it, or vote for books they've happened to read, because they fit the list criteria; it doesn't mean those books are the main type of thing the person reads. (In my own case, I've only ever written one story about an assassin, and have read very few books or stories with such characters.)

You're right that admiring the act of killing others for money as a sign of strength and power is deeply unhealthy, whether the killer is male or female (this list actually features both genders). But I don't think everyone who might decide that he/she wants to read about an assassin character is drawn by sick admiration. I know a psychologist who's quite fascinated by books featuring serial killers (although I'm not attracted to those reads at all). She doesn't admire the latter, but she finds it interesting and instructive to explore their psychology, what made them what they are and how they live with it on a daily basis. Some of us find that assassins can make interesting protagonists in the same way. I say "can," because they don't always; it depends on the moral vision and literary skill of the writer. Personally, I think assassins who have no consciences and just kill mechanically for the cash, or who take a warped pleasure in killing for its own sake because they're psychopaths, actually aren't very interesting; they're simply shallow cartoons of evil. The interest comes when you encounter assassin characters who have some psychological complexity, who have consciences and principles that they have to somehow reconcile with what they do.

Related to that is the fact that contract killing is an extreme premise that, like all extreme premises, can set up very stark and intense explorations of ethical choices, and the human emotions surrounding them. (Good and evil, guilt and redemption, are the themes of the greatest literature; and the careers of assassins can be the stuff of those themes.) And the choices can involve shades of gray, because not all assassins are moral clones of each other and not all assassinations are morally equivalent. (Greg Rucka's Tara Chace, for instance, is an assassin for British Intelligence, who takes out terrorists and other evildoers; like all assassins, she kills in cold blood on a pretty regular basis, but she's not necessarily a morally evil woman as such.)

I don't know whether any of this is a valid answer to your question; but it's how I look at the issues involved.

I mostly agree with or understand what you said, Thad, and I didn't mean to say that the list creator was obsessed. It's just the fact that so many of these books exist and have fans that makes me think we as a public are obsessed.

If these books really explored the moral gray areas and themes of redemption and ends justifying means and all those interesting topics, I wouldn't be so disturbed.

I suppose my view has been colored by one particular assassin book I just read where the heroine has no remorse, no guilt, no self-doubt about the ethics of her career, no trauma. She's not hardened and disassociated from the acts either. There's very little in the way of psychological study. And the reviews are ALL like "I love [character]! She rocks! She's so kickbutt!" I can't find a single one--not a single one--that's disturbed about the casual, callous nature of her killing.

Now, Graceling, for example, is well done. Katsa doesn't like the killing and tries to subvert the king who's forced her into the life. Then she figures out how to escape and stop killing for him.

In Poison Study, Valek is an assassin, but we get the impression he doesn't like that aspect of his job. He's doing it for the greater good of the kingdom, against political targets. His government isn't all good or bad, but they took over from a worse government. His work as an assassin has been vital to their success. It's that interesting moral gray area.

But this book I just read...it was like a high school love story where the main character just happened to be an assassin.

Games of Thrones--I haven't read far enough in the series to really explore Arya's situation, but I'd bet George R.R. Martin sheds a lot of gray on her life too.

I don't think I could answer it any better than Thad did.

I think it's like any subject, you either find it compelling and want to read about it or don't. It's fiction, so I don't think there is room to make moral judgments on people's reading tastes. Just because someone wants to read a book about assassins doesn't mean that the reader approves of killing people. You're reading a book about someone else's reality to see things through their eyes, and exploring what causes a person to kill as a vocation (either out of necessity or for financial reasons) raises questions the reader can ponder in a safe way.

I don't think all of the people who vote on this list would even have the same tastes in books, even though we all like to read books about assassins.