- The Buried Life, Carrie Patel: Jane is an orphan.
- God’s War, Kameron Hurley: Nyx “has never known a father”, Rhys’s father disowned him and is dead.
- Child of a Hidden Sea, A.M. Dellamonica: can’t be specific without giving away plot details, but he’s no Doctor Huxtable.
- Ghost Train to New Orleans, Mur Lafferty: adoptive parents elsewhere, mentioned, but unaffectionate; birth parents missing or dead.
- City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett: Shara is an orphan.
- Lagoon, Nnedi Okorafor: the father of Adaora’s children quickly turns nasty.
- The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison: Maia was exiled to the middle of nowhere by his father, the Emperor Varenechibel the Fourth, who dies at the beginning of the book, leaving Maia an orphan.
- Costume Not Included, Matthew Hughes: the previous novel in the series explains that Chesney’s dad, Wagner Arnstruther, “departed for parts unknown with a waitress he met at a truck stop”.
- New Amsterdam, Elizabeth Bear: Jack says “my parents couldn’t afford to feed me; they indentured me at five”.
- Template, Matthew Hughes: Conn says, “As an infant, I was sold anonymously to my indentor, Ovam Horder.”
So sod it, I’ve gone for a fictional dad who wasn’t in a book. Ben Healy in Problem Child, as played by the wonderful John Ritter. He adopts the child from hell, a little boy whose penpal is Martin “The Bow Tie Killer” Beck. Junior destroys Ben’s life, takes away everything: possessions, reputation, wife, job, sanity. By film two they’ve been forced to leave town. And yet he keeps trying to do his best for the kid. An example to us all!
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