Bad Guys

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I think some of the best law/chaos stories out there are Modesitt's Recluce novels. The first handful of stories (most stand alone or are two parts although they all take place in the same world) seem to paint law as good and chaos as evil. He then tells several stories from characters that are involved with chaos that are certainly not evil. He even overlaps a few stories where you see how the protagonist of an earlier story looks from the other side. I don't like everything that Modesitt does but I really liked the contrasting viewpoints in different stories.

I have not read those; thanks for the recommendation.

In Jonathan L Howard's Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, one of the minor villains is Arthur Trubshaw. He was a clerk at a bank whose life of "licentious proceduralism" was ended when he was shot while demanding that robbers give him a receipt for the money they were stealing. He now resides in Hell and is in charge of admissions. He requires people to fill out reams of paperwork and if they make even the slightest error, he rejects their paperwork and makes them fill it out again. A bureaucratic villain indeed.

That one was already on my radar and is on the long list; sounds an interesting way to go, though it also sounds like a riff on various Scribe of Hell notions at least as old as the fallen angel Balberith. (Counting the Egyptian afterlife as bureaucratic in grim and scary ways but not actively villainous ones.)

[IronFae]

The Johannes Cabal books are all fun reads, very enjoyable

[Paynesgrey]

Something that's always fun is to take a character like Aral Vorkosigan or Simon Illyan... and put them on the other side.

[The Deposed King]

Something that's always fun is to take a character like Aral Vorkosigan or Simon Illyan... and put them on the other side.

Yeah they'd be real bastards you could easily get your hate on for.



The Deposed King

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Something that's always fun is to take a character like Aral Vorkosigan or Simon Illyan... and put them on the other side.

Up as far as Mirror Dance, I was solidly convinced that where Bujold was long-term going with that series was for Miles to end up in a situation where he absolutely had to go against a direct Imperial order and ended up becoming the cliche Barrayaran villain.  (Avoiding that, like not having Miles discover his disability has a genetic compnent after all, indicates that Lois Bujold is another person who is nicer than I am.)