ADHD characters in books

[Gary]

My lovely wife introduced me to a military-SF series by John Ringo and Travis Taylor (Looking Glass, The Vorpal Blade, Maxome Foe and Claws that Catch) in which the ship's linguist has ADHD. It mentions that she completed several degrees after getting onto the right medication. She's weird, she's flightly, she hyperfocusses and she's brilliant.

After the new engineering chief throws her out of his shop the XO describes her like this to his new engineering chief:

"Miriam Moon is the ship's linguist, yes," Weaver said. "But on the last cruise... Look, she's ADHD. You know what this is, right?"

"So are both my kids, sir," the chief siad, his brow furrowing.

"Incredibly smart little monsters that go ballistic if they get bored?" Weaver asked.

"Gestner chuckled. "More or less describes them, sir."

"When Miriam gets bored, she starts wandering around the ship, being... annoying as hell," Captain Weaver said. "Since she's a civilian, there's only so much the CO can do about that. What we found out, more or less by accident, on the last cruise is that if you give her something to do, she does a spectacular job. Especially something mechanical. She completely rebuilt one system and painted every steam-pipe in the ship along with doing all sorts of minor jobs. Not to mention fixing the neutrino injector in the middle of a battle. The reason she breezed into your shop, Chief, is that it's more Miriam's shop than yours. She was a major part of the design team when the Hexosehr built this ship... Now, you're going to apologize to Miss Moon, give her full access to your shop and utilize her. In fact, first thing you do is put her in charge of [fixing the alien CO2 scrubber] and see if she can figure it out. But apologize first, sincerely."

Does anyone else know of works in which ADHD characters are portrayed realistically and sympathetically?

[DANA]

Gary, that book sounds a bit humorous in the description of the ADHD character stating that she is "an incredibly smart little monster that goes ballistic if she gets bored!" The other part that sounds so funny to me is the part about Miriam wandering around the ship very bored and annoying everyone.

I imagine if it were me on the large ship, I would instantly go in search of some exciting entertainment, live music, delicious gourmet food and having fun meeting everyone, but I suppose this ship is NOT a fabulous cruise line offering this type of environment?

What surprised me about the character, Miriam, is that she is so mechanically talented. I love that she is so brilliant! It is impressive that she has these talents and she is a female! Very cool!

My mom has mentioned to me that she just read a book about a character who has ADHD. I am not positive, but I think that the author is Susan Wiggs. She writes female fiction, usually drama and romance. My mom told me that I can borrow her book so I will definitely read it. Once I read the book, I will share on here what the ADHD character was like in the book and whether I thought it was an accurate description.

[Bryan Hutchinson]

That's a great story, I will have to pick up that book!

[Gary]

It's not the description of Miriam per se but the description of the Chief's kids. But you're right Dana, it's not that kind of ship :)

It's a brilliant solution to a difficult military problem: We have a drive system and we desperately need a real spaceship -- not just one of those little shuttle things. It takes several years to design a new hull from scratch and longer to build it but we need it NOW. Hmm, what might we already have that's air tight and has the required recycling systems that we can modify? Hint: The new starship's base is at Newport News and she launches underwater.

Bryan: If you like the ravening blasters and superdreadnoughts of the void in Doc Smith's SF, or the rather more realistic space navy of David Weber's Honor Harrington series you'll LOVE these. John Ringo is ex-military so his characters and military situations are very realistic. Travis Taylor is a working physicist so the science at the very least can't be proven wrong at present. As an added bonus, their use of movie and book references is hilarious.

And then there's Tuffy...

[Bryan Hutchinson]

Okay, you sold me... off to Amazon I go! When it comes to fiction I enjoy David Eddings, John Marcos and George R.R. Martin - Martin has the tendency to kill off characters you come to love and adore without any kind of forewarning, but he's such a grand writer that he can do that and keep you enthralled with the story as a whole!

What about Tuffy...???

[DANA]

Happy reading, Bryan! Let us know how you like the story!

[Jacquelyn Hedden]

Loved your post!

When setting up my dissertation chapters, I wanted to include characters from literature who had AD/HD but couldn't find any. Anywhere. I will get the books!

The topic of AD/HD characters as depicted in books or even in other media (film, for example) is very interesting. It is also important, I think, as it provides visibility of ADDers to a society who may not know about the phenomenon.

I look forward to seeing more replies to your post!