For me I would say “The Expanse” is a huge one. If there was ever a self made family, the crew of the Rocinante is one of the best. The amount of time they spend together and how they congeal into life long partners and friends in the face of some truly awful events is really inspiring to me.
All of Octavia Butler’s books. Not that all the stories are uplifting tales, not by a long shot. But the perspectives of the characters are rooted in family, she explores the ideas of family a lot.
‘The Lurking Fear’ by HP Lovecraft is about family. Actually a lot of his stories are. Just never in a good way.
For a less snarky answer I’d go with the original Star Wars trilogy as a good answer. Yes, I know the meme phrase regarding this, but it’s true that what elevated the trilogy above mere space adventure was the reveal (retcon, but who is counting) of Darth Vader and Luke’s connection. It gave the entire conflict a real sense of weight. The showdown in Return Of The Jedi where Luke cracks and goes beserk, followed by Vader sacrificing himself and unmasking is really great emotional closure for that story.
I recall Becky Chambers’ “A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet” emphasizing the found family theme pretty heavily over the course of the story, especially non-traditional relationships. In fact, the ship crew’s relationships with one another forms the crux of the drama. Even though there are big “Important” events happening in the background, the narrative is focused on what those events mean for the characters on the ship, rather than what they mean for the galaxy as a whole.
“The Varkosigan Saga” follows generations of family Varkosigan, and their friends-become-family.
Unforgettably eventually arriving at “Miles, where have you left your brother?”
Spoiler for late in the series:
TitleA main character has to deal with an illegally created clone meant to assassinate and replace him…and realizes that his mother will expect him to bring his “new brother” home safely at Christmas, once she learns that the clone exists.
Self-made vs inherited/familial greatness is a pretty major theme in The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson. First thing that comes to mind.
I love and hate the Expanse because it’s entirely believable that we’d finally clear out the bullshit infighting/politics on earth today just to trade for bullshit infighting/politics in space. It’s realistic if a bit depressing in such. :-) The actual acting is also pretty great in the show, and the relationship between the crew kinda reminds me of Firefly.
As far as sci-fi shows go, The Orville was also cool this way, if a bit goofy at times. The crew acts like a large family in many ways but with a diversity of cultures/personalities that are used to reflect real societal issues kinda like the old Star Trek series did.
In terms of books… the Spellmonger series has a bunch of characters that aren’t all related but have a fairly familial relationship with each other.
If you haven’t read the books, I can not recommend them enough. The show is great! But the books are so much deeper and continue the story much further.
They are really solid audiobooks. Jefferson Mayes (I think that’s who narrates) really kills it. Except for his pronunciation of Gimbal, that one drives me crazy!
At one point I had a throat infection and it really messed up my voice, so I kinda sounded like Avisarula from that series. You could tell which of my co-workers were fans when I’d slip “and James Holden will probably fuck the whole thing up” into a conversation
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Final Architecture -trilogy’s one main theme is this meeting of people due to circumstances and growing into a made-family, with the good and the bad that such units entail. All in all its a fun space opera trilogy.
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