People sometimes ask why fantasy is about kings and queens and princes and princesses — is it some strange authoritarian desire? Why aren’t there many stories about fantasy republics? One of the reasons is I think fantasy’s roots in fairy tale. Fairy tale kingdoms are families drawn large; when fairy tales talk about kings and princes they’re talking about fathers and sons. Sean Stewart’s Nobody’s Son (1993) is a very unusual fantasy novel. It’s rooted in fairy tale, but it’s not a retelling of one specific fairy tale the way these things normally are. It’s rooted in the concept of fairy tale, the world of fairy tale and what that means when it’s real. And it’s about growing up, which is one of the most common themes of fiction, but Nobody’s Son is not an instructive tale about coming of age for those who have not yet come of age. This is a story about growing up for people on the other side of that, people who know that it isn’t a thing people do once and for good and then it’s over.
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