Protagonists with multiple personalities in the same body

[Sara]

No clue why, but I love reading books with protagonists who have multiple personalities in the same body. I can't really explain well what I'm looking for, so here are a few examples:

Matthew Swift in A Madness of Angels. He is about to die and seeks refuge in the phone lines with an entity known as the blue electric angels. When he is accidentally resurrected later on, he and the angels are so intertwined that they all end up in the same body.

Miles Vorkosigan/Admiral Naismith.

Dr. Jay Allison from The Planet Savers: Including The Waterfall. Man, that was an awful book. Despite the dated pseudo-psychology (neurology?) underlying his multiple personalities, it was the only thing that kept me reading.

Also, I do sometimes read manga and graphic novels. It's been five or so years, but I'm pretty sure this is why I liked Parasyte, Volume 1 so much.

I guess I'm looking for books where the personalities are cooperating instead of fighting each other (as people possessed by demons usually are). Any ideas?

(Belatedly, I realized this description might apply to The Host. Please don't recommend it! I did read all the Twilight books, but I am allergic to love triangles and Stephanie Meyer seems to love them.)

[Kate]

Identical

[oliviasbooks]

Intertwined and the rest of that series.
Fathomless
What's Left of Me

[Sara]

Thank you both!

[Aileen]

You might enjoy Magic Casement by Dave Duncan. It is a series with four books and one (?) of the characters fits this description. I like Dave Duncan and these books were my introduction to him. I thought he dealt with this theme in a really interesting way.

[Sara]

Aileen wrote: "You might enjoy Magic Casement by Dave Duncan. It is a series with four books and one (?) of the characters fits this description. I like Dave Duncan and these books were my introduction to him. I ..."

It sounds really interesting. Thanks!

[Ficie]

Maybe Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls could interest you. I haven't read it though, I just came across it a while ago and your thread brought it back to mind.

[Brian]

I Will Fear No Evil

[Random]

This Alien Shore

[Sara]

Ficie wrote: "Maybe Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls could interest you. I haven't read it though, I just came across it a while ago and your thread brought it back to mind."

That sounds good!

Brian wrote: "I Will Fear No Evil"

Oh, Heinlein. I think I'll have to read that one out of morbid curiosity.

Random wrote: "This Alien Shore"

Thanks!

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Me, Myself, and Why? by MaryJanice Davidson is the first book in a 3 part series (all books are out now, btw) about a main character who has 3 different personalities. They use different names, have totally different ideas on what each one looks like, and refer to each other as "sisters". They know about each other and cooperate, leaving the "sister" who is best qualified to handle a problem to deal with it. Oh, and in keeping with most of her other works--this is very light hearted.

[Charlotte]

I'm not sure if this entirely applies since the two personalities are active at different times, but maybe

[Sam~~ we cannot see the moon, and yet the waves still rise~~]

i second What's Left of Me!

[Lara]

There are a lot of non-fiction books written by or about people with (the controversial diagnosis of) Dissociative Identity Disorder (aka Multiple Personality Disorder). They can be very disturbing. When Rabbit Howls is an autobiography of this nature and it is horrific, so proceed with caution! There are very graphic descriptions of child abuse so this book is not for everyone. The protagonist/author considers themself to be around 100 different people I think. Some other titles are Sybil, The Three Faces of Eve, The Minds of Billy Milligan & & more. See also: Creating Hysteria.

[Gerd]

Fifth Quarter by Tanya Huff

[Sara]

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Pamela]

The Bird's Nest, a novel by Shirley Jackson has this, although it's not one of her best works.

[Sara]

Pamela wrote: "The Bird's Nest, a novel by Shirley Jackson has this, although it's not one of her best works."

Thanks! I loved We Have Always Lived in the Castle but bounced off of The Haunting of Hill House. I'll have to see which pile The Bird's Nest falls into.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Mayer Alan Brenner's Dance of Gods has a character with multiple personalities (I believe there were 3) in one body. Catastrophe's Spell is book 1. And you have to love a book where the main character is named "Maximillian the Vaguely Disreputable" don't you?

[laurenpie]

@Ann: Yes! I for one will be trying that book. :)

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

The Switch
"When wealthy, spoiled, thirteen-year-old Tad Spencer wishes he were someone else, he awakens as Bob Snarby, the uncouth, impoverished son of carnival workers, and as he is drawn into a life of crime he begins to discover truths about himself and his family."

George
"George is the funny little man who lives inside Ben, helping him (mostly) navigate life as a sixth grader who happens to be a scientific genius and who happens to be studying organic chemistry with students much older than he."

[Andria]

Every Day by David Levithan has a unique take on this concept.

[Liav]

Legion by Brandon Sanderson.
(Not sure how to link to the book on the mobile app)

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Legion for the click on Liav's suggestion.

[Rainbowheart]

Thin Places
The Museum of Us
Cameron and the Girls

[Aerulan]

If gay protagonists are ok both of these are excellent, in each the main character becomes inhabited by a nonhuman intelligence so it's a learning experience for both sides.

SPECTR: The Complete First Series by Jordan L. Hawk, it's a sort of vampire creature in this one, by accident a paranormal creature that animates corpses to hunt and eat other supernatural creatures gets stuck in a live body with the current inhabitant.

Bone Rider in this one the other personality is an alien symbiote.

---------
For a regular scifi take Game of Universe by Eric Nylund. The main character (an assassin) is able to steal pieces of the souls of his victims and they live on in his mind.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

(view spoiler)[ The Drowning (hide spoiler)]

[Robert]

I'm sure there's a Frank Herbert book which is a science fiction detective novel where one of the characters is a member of an alien species which standardly has five personalities.

(view spoiler)[One of the personalities has managed to murder the other four (hide spoiler)]

[Judy]

I second This Alien Shore! I also recently read Dragon and Thief