what? no! Dark materials is specifically anti-christian, but the characters are not AT ALL rationalists. They often do stupid things and everything gets saved by random deus ex machina rather than cunning plots. It’s an inverse Narnia, which is not rationality.
Re “smart characters that win,” I recommend these from my random reading history:
The Pillars of the Earth and A World without Endby Ken Follett
River God by Wilbur Smith
Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
And as for specifically rationalist stories, you might want to check the Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.
what? no! Dark materials is specifically anti-christian, but the characters are not AT ALL rationalists. They often do stupid things and everything gets saved by random deus ex machina rather than cunning plots. It’s an inverse Narnia, which is not rationality.