This brings me up to 89% done with Reading The Nebula Award Winners.
I'm really sorry I somehow missed reading this book when I was a kid. I would have loved it when I was a pre-teen. As it was, I liked it, but it's very definitely a coming of age story with an Introduction to Ethics woven in.
I'm really sorry I somehow missed reading this book when I was a kid. I would have loved it when I was a pre-teen. As it was, I liked it, but it's very definitely a coming of age story with an Introduction to Ethics woven in.
Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager, so it seems like a total shame that kids now don't seem to be reading it much. The story is set about 150 years after the Earth became uninhabitable do to overpopulation, famine and war. Mia Havero, who is eleven years old when the book starts, lives aboard one of several large, city sized ships that escaped Earth before its final destruction. Numerous colonies have also been set up on various planets. One thing that surprised me upon rereading was how unlikable Mia sometimes is. She's prickly, impatient and intolerant. She throws around the word "mudeaters", the slur the ship dwellers use to denigrate the people who live on the planets. She is smart and arrogant. But she's also brave and intellectually curious. In a closed society like the Ship's, there is little disease, few accidents and people live a very, very long time, so population control is of prime importance to the ship's counsel. One of the ways this is effected is through "The Trial". When kids turn fourteen, they are put down on a planet and have to survive for a month. They are given extensive survivalist training in order to ensure that a good number make it through.
By the end of the book, we view the Ship as being a kind of lazy Death Star without the histrionics, Nazi iconography and ultra-militarism. Ship society has become decadent, complacent and arrogant (much as Mia was at the beginning of the book). No one creates any new art, they take resources from and exert ultimate control (via the threat of nuclear annihilation) over the planet colonies, withholding technology from the hard-scrabble, mostly rural planet dwellers. What's so interesting, and feels so real about the book is that Mia's father who is a firm supporter of all the policies outlined above, is also in the ordinary, day to day sense, a very nice man. Everyone thinks they are right and working for the ultimate good in their own quiet way. There is no mustache twirling, no clear villains and no easy solutions. There's no rebellion of the planet dwellers creating a new egalitarian society. There's just one girl's awakening to the fact that the way her Ship operates isn't right and that she will do what she can to change things. If I've made this sound overly dry, I apologize. Though Panshin is a slightly chilly writer emotionally, Mia's month long Trial is super exciting (and - bonus! consequence-free teen sex!) and her adventures aboard ship are loads of fun, and there's lots of regular coming of age stuff with friends and school. The title "Rite of Passage" may be heavy handed, but the book isn't.
By the end of the book, we view the Ship as being a kind of lazy Death Star without the histrionics, Nazi iconography and ultra-militarism. Ship society has become decadent, complacent and arrogant (much as Mia was at the beginning of the book). No one creates any new art, they take resources from and exert ultimate control (via the threat of nuclear annihilation) over the planet colonies, withholding technology from the hard-scrabble, mostly rural planet dwellers. What's so interesting, and feels so real about the book is that Mia's father who is a firm supporter of all the policies outlined above, is also in the ordinary, day to day sense, a very nice man. Everyone thinks they are right and working for the ultimate good in their own quiet way. There is no mustache twirling, no clear villains and no easy solutions. There's no rebellion of the planet dwellers creating a new egalitarian society. There's just one girl's awakening to the fact that the way her Ship operates isn't right and that she will do what she can to change things. If I've made this sound overly dry, I apologize. Though Panshin is a slightly chilly writer emotionally, Mia's month long Trial is super exciting (and - bonus! consequence-free teen sex!) and her adventures aboard ship are loads of fun, and there's lots of regular coming of age stuff with friends and school. The title "Rite of Passage" may be heavy handed, but the book isn't.
The description suggests that this is some sort of hokey "aliens come down and warn us to be nice to each other" type of story. Don't be fooled; it isn't that at all. It's a coming of age story of both the protagonist and the race, full of errors and mistakes and growth.
It's also a very entertaining book and well worth the reading.
It's also a very entertaining book and well worth the reading.
This is a coming-of-age story set in the far future. The main characters are a boy and girl who live on a space ship that had started life as a colony transport taking people from Earth to their new homes. Earth has been pretty much destroyed by over-population in this future, so the one rule that the people on the space ship live by is "population control." They trade their knowledge and the history from Earth to the various colony worlds for things that they need (foodstuffs, fabrics, etc.)
In order to be considered an adult and allowed to remain on the Ship, you must pass the titular "Rite of Passage." The story deals with our mc's training and preparation for (and then survival of) that Rite.
Excellent story with many thought provoking ideas.
In order to be considered an adult and allowed to remain on the Ship, you must pass the titular "Rite of Passage." The story deals with our mc's training and preparation for (and then survival of) that Rite.
Excellent story with many thought provoking ideas.
HARD CORE SCIENCE FICTION FROM THE "OLD SCHOOL" I GREW UP ON..HAD A GREAT DEAL WITH HOW I THOUGHT ABOUT MYSELF AND THAT I COULD DO ANYTHING IF I WOULD ONLY PRESERVE..THIS WAS ONE OF THE FIRST BOOKS WITH THE "DIVERGENT" THEME..
