One of the things I said I’d do when discussing setting up the Judge My Apocalypse package was review books with an eye to disasters. As it happens, this isn’t a review of the books themselves so much as how they interact with a particular disaster myth: the man on the horse.

The man on the horse is the tendency to point to one person as solving a problem or heading a response, someone who stands out (as if on a horse). The reality of most disasters – of most problems – is that there are a ton of people working hard and in concert in order to fix things. There’s a lot of literature about it, and about the ways communities come together, and how the act of communities coming together is in itself powerful.

But right here and now I’m less interested in the academic literature than the fantasy novels. So, the books: Captive to the Shadow Prince by Mallory Dunlin, Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher, and The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard. What they have most in common is that I was re-reading all of them recently, and re-reading offers a chance for thinking about books differently.

I was specifically re-reading Captive to look at how the magic apocalypse is handled, because I enjoy Dunlin’s books and wanted to revisit the exact parameters of why my brain doesn’t screech about sociological factors in disasters. It turns out it’s because the focus is almost entirely on the perspective characters and very high-level plans, and people at large are shown acting sensibly (getting treated by healers, evacuating from blast areas to nearby houses, not approaching seven foot monsters) but very briefly before we narrow back in on our main characters.

But because I was re-reading Captive at the same time as listening to the audiobook of Paladin’s Grace as this weekend’s accompaniment to crafting, I found myself thinking about scope and scale of action. The main characters of Captive are both cause and cure for their magic apocalypse: their abilities and positions make them pivotal to the whole shape of their world. As the seven foot monster on scene, the main male character of Captive doesn’t even need a horse to stand out. Of course main characters are main because they do make a difference in their world, and all three books I’m discussing here the main characters make positive changes in the world through expertise, ability, and love, but the way they interact with the world is different.

One of the things that drove this post is that the main male character of Paladin’s Grace is very clear on the fact that he used to be infantry before becoming a paladin: no horse for him. And, indeed, as part of the narrative he does help solve problems but as part of a superstructure wherein he answers to a bishop and frequently dismisses his own contributions to the world as being good at hitting things, carrying heavy things, and knitting socks. Even then: his world may still be full of terrors, but the people he loves will have warm feet.

The Hands of the Emperor I am re-reading because I recently recommended it to a friend and wanted to both be able to discuss it better and be inspired again in my search for work. In some ways the main character does end up as a man on a horse, because he ends up head of a world government. But it’s a story about – well, friendship and homecoming and culture, but most importantly public administration. The small incremental and deliberate policy changes that can contribute to a sweepingly better world. The fact that the first time I read it (while at the Biden School for Public Policy and Administration) I read through the night and was crying about public administration at 6am probably says a great deal about me as a person.

To the books as a collective, though. One of the things I most love about speculative fiction in general is that it lets us set a baseline for a world as it could be. One of the things I love about this particular trio of books is that it sets such different baselines for how we can make a difference in the world. The clean dramatic sweep of magically reshaping the world and the quiet stand for decency; the divinely-inspired monarchs and the public servant who dismantled the trappings of empire one piece of legislation at a time; the shining palaces and the pink socks. In their contexts, they’re all valued.

That variety is what I think I appreciate most. Real life doesn’t offer heroes very often, much less the opportunity to be the man on a horse. So I like books that offer the heroes – and also the quieter and more familiar heroes, who do their best to improve the world with the tools at their disposal. And I appreciate the authors who show that the world can be improved.