something where one of the characters may "make a move" and you'd think, wow thats smart.
A couple examples of what i mean:
– Death Note (anime/manga) where Light and L are almost playing a game trying to find some information about eachother to win. They're both clearly very intelligent.
- The first fifteen lives of harry august by Claire North, which i loved, definitely fit this theme in the latter half. Again its about 2 people finding information about each other to win with intelligent characters due to their several lives of experience.
Some serious stakes, like life or death as shown in the examples, would be nice but not necessary.
I havent read many books (around 10) so if theres a seemingly obvious choice I probably wouldn't even know it. So feel free to suggest those if there are some really popular books that fit the theme.
by Beasthemu8
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* The seemingly obvious choice: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. First in a long and branching sci fi series.
* Red Rising by Pierce Brown
* The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, my personal favourite out of this list.
* Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder. Not framed as two different geniuses competing, but all the characters are the scheming sort who have plans within plants and try to outwit one another.
* Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang is an anthology that includes a good story about this.
War of the Rats by David L. Robbins. It’s a fictionalized account, based on real characters and events, of Russian and German master snipers stalking each other during the Battle of Stalingrad in WW II.