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October 31, 2005
Books : "Nobody's Son" by Sean Stewart
One of the panels I attended at the 2004 WorldCon was on the subject of "things we hope never to see again in any fantasy or science fiction story" – essentially what characters, plot elements, settings, etc. have been overdone. In the course of the conversation, the panelists not only talked about the tired motifs of fiction; but also mentioned a few books which they felt "got it right" – books which managed to breathe new life into old ideas. One of those that were mentioned more than once was "Nobody's Son" by Sean Stewart. It took me a while to find a copy (it had been out of print, and being labeled a "young adult" title, I didn't want to buy it without a chance to look inside first); and then it languished in my reading queue for a few months; but I finally got around to reading it this past week.
A classic form of fairy tale is: Some evil (dragon, giant, ghost, etc.) threatens a kingdom. The king puts out a decree that the individual who can defeat this threat will win some prize (the princess, half the kingdom, etc.). Many brave knights try and fail; but them some plucky commoner prevails using wit and common sense. The commoner wins the prize and, as the saying goes "lives happily ever after". This is essentially the story told in chapter one of "Nobody's Son", with the exception that the rest of the book is about how he did not in fact live "happily ever after". His princess/bride was not what he expected (among other thing, denying him access to her bed), the nobles scheme against him out of envy and pride, and as it turns out side effects of his victory may prove to be worse than the original problem.
What however surprised me was not how this book turned a classic pattern around, or that it was an entertaining book; but that it actually had something to say in the midst of the story. There's a definite theme there about the relationships between fathers and their children, particularly their sons. The title is not just a reference to how the king's court views the hero (son of a commoner, a "nobody"); but also to the fact that the hero's father had abandoned his family when the hero was a child, and so he had "nobody" as a father. While I wouldn't consider the insights in the book to be "deep"; that they were there at all was a pleasant surprise.
"Nobody's Son" isn't a "must read", but I can recommend it as "good read".
Posted by Steven at October 31, 2005 05:20 PM
