Tough Traveling – Save the World!

Nathan over at Fantasy Review Barn is the mastermind of Tough Traveling. What’s Tough Traveling? Pretty much, it’s a weekly feature on Thursdays where we dig around to come up with examples of common tropes in fantasy, using Diana Wynne Jones’ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland as our inspiration and guide. Nathan has invited one and all to join in the fun, so feel free to come up with your own lists and add the link on Nathan’s weekly post, which will also contain (unleash) the next weeks theme. So let the fun begin …

This weeks theme?

 SAVING THE WORLD

SAVING THE WORLD is something many Tours require you to do. You have to defeat the DARK LORD or WIZARDS who are trying to enslave everyone.

OK, I have to do it. The first item on my list is going to be my Honorable Mention, just because SAVE THE CHEERLEADER, SAVE THE WORLD is all I can think of with this weeks’s theme. I also seem to be rather heavy on the Science Fiction versus Fantasy, but …. oh well. They still need to save the world,  so I’m just going with it.

Honorable Mention: Heroes T.V. Show – I recently watched this on Netflix, and “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!” is the constant mantra through out the entire first season. A group of random strangers start developing super natural powers, one of which has the ability to see the future. Hence, a mission is started. Save the Cheerleader, Save the World.

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman – Between the Black Plague and Demons and Gods coming to play in this world, the fate of people seems a bit questionable. But, one little girl is being led on a crusade that may save them all. Or not. It’s hard to tell who’s pulling the strings in this one.

Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks – There’s a threat to the world called The Encroachment, a cloud of interstellar dust that promises to cause the ultimate destruction of the planet. But have no fear! There is a mysterious tool that may save us all! A Feersum Endjinn! Now, the right set of people (good guys) need to get to it first and save the world. Luckily, along the way, they get to enlist some help from a talking sloth.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – Ah, yes! All must fear the Buggers. While their name is rather lack-luster, their threat to attack and destroy our world is not. So the government carefully select children showing genius level IQs as well as a proven temperament for battle and trains them for the defense of our world.

Black Feathers by Joseph D’Lacey – I wasn’t sure I wanted to include this one after it made my list last week. But it’s actually the perfect example of this. Two young people are each set on a journey to find the Crowman. And each shoulders the weight of saving the world! Even without a good idea of how, they just know to do so, they must find the elusive Crowman.

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway –  Full Disclosure: I can understand that some people love this book (the prose was very well written), however, I’m not one of them. And my memory is a bit fuzzy on it. I do remember a rather ordinary clock repair man being tasked with saving the world in some way from a dooms day machine that cranks out mechanical bees. And there was an older women that was some sort of spy. She was probably involved as well. Ummm… yeah. I’m doing very well with this entry.

Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu – I love these books! And in the second one, the two warring alien factions (who are essentially living inside of humans, controlling and using them) are putting the planets fate on the line. Our protagonist Roen, with the help of his inner alien, Tao, must come to save the day!