So, now that my brain has been released from its stint in editing prison, I’ve been thinking about stuff again.  Ah, sweet thoughts….  One thought that just keeps badgering at me is this:  where the heck are all the families in fantasy and sci fi?  Generally speaking, parents, siblings, and grandparents seem to serve pretty much one purpose in spec. fiction:  tragic backstory.   So often, if families appear in the genre at all, it’s mostly offstage.  They are either dead, evil, imprisoned by the antagonist, estranged and/or separated from the protagonist, or never mentioned at all.

The orphaning of the hero(ine) in sci fi/fantasy is so commonplace its like we don’t even notice or comment on it anymore.  What’s this about?  In real life, families provide a ton of drama.  They’re there for love and support, to build us up or break us down.  Or we’re in conflict with them, which provides lots of juicy plot too.  Literary fiction mines this wellspring till the geyser practically runs dry.  Why don’t we see it in genre fiction?

Consider the last couple of books I read as a (somewhat) representative sample:

1. In Vernor Vinge’s “A Deepness in the Sky” families are definitely part of the narrative, but all close family members are killed off very early in the story (at least for the human characters).  Their deaths serve as a motivation for the protagonists’ fears and their desires for revenge (e.g. tragic backstory).

2. In Marie Brennan’s “Midnight Never Come” families are really not mentioned at all.  The hero and heroine certainly must have come from somewhere, but families aren’t discussed meaningfully.

3. In Daniel Fox’s “Dragon in Chains” we do see some family dynamics at work, but they still fit into the tropes I mentioned above.  The heroine’s grandfather survives throughout the story, but he is separated from her for most of the book.  The hero’s family is never mentioned, except to note that they sold him into slavery.  Another main character’s mother serves as a minor player who spends most of her time plotting against him (e.g. families as evil, tragic backstory, or separated from the protagonist).

4. The protagonist in Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” appears parentless.  No mention is made of any family outside his insular world of wife and work.  Did he spring fully formed from a hole in the ground?

These four books are just random examples, but they range across many sub-genres, settings, and even publication dates.  I don’t mention them to be critical – I really enjoyed each of them – but to point out a common practice in our genre.

So what’s behind this?  Why are there so few families and parents playing a meaningful role in speculative fiction plots?  Do we tend to orphan our protagonists in sci fi/fantasy because we need them isolated for their quests?  Is it a cheap way to add pathos and drama to their pasts?  Is this a sign of our times and culture?  Or do we find it too difficult and/or inconvenient to deal with real family relationships in our fiction?

I’m inclined to think the tendency relates mostly to the first and last points.  Much of sci fi/fantasy revolves in some way or another around the protagonist’s journey (towards adulthood, towards becoming a hero/heroine, towards the completion of an epic goal, etc.).  We seem to have decided, as a genre, that relying on family to complete those goals or quests is to invalidate their results.  The protagonist must be cut adrift and make his/her own way.

Family dynamics make great drama, but do the complications they introduce (the obligations, especially) make the right kind of drama for sci fi/fantasy?  Imagine Rand al’Thor stuck at home taking care of aging parents.  Or what if Bilbo had a younger brother, one who depended on him for food and shelter.  Would he have been so quick to run off with Sam and the Ring?

Yeah, this kind of stuff can be damned inconvenient for a writer who wants to get their characters off on an adventure.  But family interaction can be a rich source of plot-y inspiration, too.  Just look at the best exception of all:  George R.R. Martin’s epic series, Songs of Ice and Fire.  Hell, these books are ALL ABOUT family drama–families torn apart, families struggling to remain loyal to each other, families scheming, family betrayal–and they still manage to be epic and enthralling.  In fact, I’d argue that family dynamics is one of things that makes them so gripping.

After all, whether the relationships are good or bad, family members are often the people we have the most complex and interesting relationships with.  Why would we intentionally leave such meaty stuff out of our writing?  Why don’t we find family-derived interaction deeply and meaningfully woven into the plots of sci fi/fantasy novels?

What do you think?  Am I right?  Am I wrong? Should families play a bigger role in the stories we tell?  Are there other great exceptions to the general rule?