History Literature / OddJohn

* MayDecemberRomance: John briefly has an affair with a woman much older then him during his teenage years.

* {{Flopsy}}: Odd John used this repeatedly, though not for monetary gain (at least, not directly). Instead, he'd fake an accident so that he could be carried into the homes of prominent men while a doctor was sent for (this being before the days of paramedics) which would give him an opportunity to study the ruling class at close range.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: The book has a dramatization example.

* DifferentlyPoweredIndividual: Possibly the ur-example of the name ''Homo Superior'', which has since been used everywhere from pulp sci-fi to Creator/MarvelComics to ''Series/TheTomorrowPeople'' to refer to superhumans as the "[[EvolutionaryLevels next stage of evolution]]".

''Odd John'' is a 1935 ScienceFiction novel by British writer Creator/OlafStapledon which explores the theme of the {{ubermensch}}. The book follows John Wainwright through the entire period of his life. John is not like most people; ever since he was born he displays tremendous intelligence, for example at age four he has already mastered the English language, mathematics and becomes able to see into n-dimensional space.

As John slowly matures into adulthood, he has committed several murders, sold various inventions worth millions of dollars, becomes a communist, is slowly losing his grip on humanity, and starts to display PsychicPowers.

Eventually John becomes convinced that there is no place for him in the world with regular people and starts seeking various others like him from all over the globe to live in peace on a remote island. Then things start to go horribly wrong for John as the world starts to find out the truth about him.

* MightyWhitey: The book both subverts and plays this straight. Roughly half of the super-intelligent mutants are of East Asian descent and there seems to be no racial discrimination between them. However, the protagonist and de facto leader is still a white man of mixed European ancestry. Though it's made clear that there are several members of the mutant species/ race with powers and intelligence far in advance of Odd John, including a Tibetan and an Arab, and most of them think of John's venture as another [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade Children's Crusade.]]

* PsychicPowers
* {{Ubermensch}}

* {{Flopsy}} Odd John used this repeatedly, though not for monetary gain (at least, not directly). Instead, he'd fake an accident so that he could be carried into the homes of prominent men while a doctor was sent for (this being before the days of paramedics) which would give him an opportunity to study the ruling class at close range.

''Odd John'' is a 1935 ScienceFiction novel by British writer Creator/OlafStapledon which explores the theme of the {{ubermensch}}. The book follows John through the entire period of his life. John is not like most people; ever since he was born he displays tremendous intelligence, for example at age four he has already mastered the English language, mathematics and becomes able to see into n-dimensional space.

* PsychicPowers

Odd John is a 1935 ScienceFiction novel by British writer OlafStapledon which explores the theme of the {{ubermensch}}. The book follows the tiular John through the entire period of his life. The difference is that John is not like most people, ever since he was born he displays tremendous intelligence, for example at age four he has already mastered the English language, mathematics and becomes able to see into n-dimensional space.
As John slowly matures into adulthood, he has committed several murders, sold various inventions worth millions of dollars, becomes a communist, is slowly losing his grip on humanity, and starts to display PsychicPowers.

A Description of Tropes Appearing in Odd John

* BrainyBaby: John in his infancy

* EnfantTerrible: While this never appears in the book, one of the chapters is titled this.

* MightyWhitey: The book both subverts and plays this straight. Roughly half of the super-intelligent mutants are of East Asian descent and there seems to be no racial discrimination between them. However, the protagonist and de facto leader is still a white man of mixed European ancestry. Though it's made clear that there are several members of the mutant species/ race with powers and intelligence far in advance of Odd John, including a Tibetan and an Arab, and most of them think of John's venture as another [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade Children's Crusade.]]

** MightyWhitey: The book both subverts and plays this straight. Roughly half of the super-intelligent mutants are of East Asian descent and there seems to be no racial discrimination between them. However, the protagonist and de facto leader is still a white man of mixed European ancestry. Though it's made clear that there are several members of the mutant species/ race with powers and intelligence far in advance of Odd John, including a Tibetan and an Arab, and most of them think of John's venture as another [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade Children's Crusade.]]

** The Baby that Ng-Gunko was taking care of is apparently smarter than all of the children and despite being only being a year old, can already talk and hold a conversation.

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** The Baby that Ng-Gunko was taking care of is apparently smarter than all of the children and despite being only being a year old, can already talk and hold a conversation.
* [[spoiler:BittersweetEnding]]

Odd John is a 1935 ScienceFiction novel by British writer OlafStapledon which explores the theme of the {{ubermensch}}. The book follows the tiular John through the entire period of his life. The difference is that John is not like most people, ever since he was born he displays tremendous intelligence, for example at age four he has already mastered the English language, mathematics and becomes able to see into n-dimensional space.
Eventually as John starts to mature he becomes convinced that there is no place for him in the world with regular people and starts seeking various others like him from all over the world to live in piece on a remote island.