Reviews with content warning for Rape - China Mountain Zhang

Rereading this book I'm so aware of all the trigger warnings it needs. And also, this was a novel with an opening gay main character written in the 90's. It has a lot of flaws but it is interesting to see that character portayed compassionately as a whole person. Definitely has some flaws

and a rape. Yikes!

I'm excited to hear what my book club thinks of it.

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oldwindways's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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ldasoqi's review

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adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

This was the book club pick for September, and this is yet another off-my-radar pick. I found some moments in this book extremely engaging but I did not like the overall structure or the mosiac/pastiche style of storytelling. This is a book that is not constrained in any way by its choice of genre and is absolutely one of the most unique SF books I've read so far. This is also a book that lacks a plot and is more of a coming-of-age type of story.

China Mountain Zhang, Zhang or Rafael for short, is the name of the main character, and as explained in the book it's like being named "George Washington Jefferson" or "Joseph Stalin Lenin" just in a Chinese context. Zhang is a gay man working as a construction tech in New York City, he lives with an ex-boyfriend who is his only real friend. The twist is that the US has had a socialist revolution and China is the dominant world power, which means being Chinese is an advantage, and being gay will get you sent to the labor camp. We follow Zhang as he leaves his job as a construction tech to work in the Arctic Circle in hopes of earning a position in a China-based engineering college. This story takes us all over this world, from the frozen north to mainland China to Mars to Coney Island.

Can you believe this got a Hugo nod? I do, this is the book equivalent of Oscar bait. Let's run the checklist while keeping in mind this was published in 1992: This book features a non-standard narrative structure, this book features a gay main character, this book embraces multiculturalism despite the Chinese-dominated world it's set in, and the book has some keen/plausible technological extrapolation. It was so far ahead of its time, and hindsight really helps to highlight this as a predictor of the trends to come in SF.

All that said, it doesn't mean that this is a good read. Whatever virtues made it unique and fresh in 1992 have basically all been adopted in some way by modern storytellers. In 2023 it reads dated, it's like the author focused so much on making their book different from standard SF fare that they forgot to include a plot. Reading this reminded me of eating cookie dough, it's sweet and digestible but I would have preferred it fully baked. The book is extremely dreamlike, with hints and nudges concerning the larger world but never outright explaining it in full detail. This is definitely a personal journey for Zhang but it felt like he didn't really get a complete character arc. This feeling I have is probably being amplified by the change in perspective every other chapter.

I usually like it when the point of a story is a little understated, but there is a difference between burying the lede and never getting to the point. CMZ is guilty of the latter, there is never a moment in the book where Zhang confronts the world around him. The fate of his boyfriend in China and his first lecture are the closest this book ever gets to commenting on the world it has imagined for us. The problem is that those moments are also pulling double duty; They are supposed to be cathartic moments but they are also ironically the moments where the book introduces the concept it is commenting on. This book DOES make social commentary, it's just in the details and not loud enough.

TL;DR: This is Oscar bait in book form. There's a point to this book but good luck finding it.

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barry_x's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

*MINOR CHARACTER AND PLOT POINTS POSTED IN REVIEW*

You know those feelings you get when you finish a book and you know you loved it but you can't really describe why? That's how I feel about China Mountain Zhang. It's been a novel I have thoroughly enjoyed, and looked forward to picking up when I have made time to read but I honestly would struggle to tell you what it is about.

This novel is set a couple of centuries in the future, where China is the global superpower and a form of statist communism is in place in much of the world (it's never quite clear, but the assumption is that the United States is a communist vassal type state with a mixed state controlled and free market economy). It's a believable world with enough cyberpunk elements to keep one interested, (in particular people 'jack in' physically to a 'system' which is a form of networked internet / workspaces which seems quite quaint that it isn't wireless but isn't to far off how we live and work now - and in saying that, this book was published in 1993 so whilst the internet wasn't here then, it wasn't to far off). There are colonies on Mars, and also a sense that there has been a climate emergency, reducing much of America to a dry wasteland.

The novel has an interesting structure in that one could argue there really isn't to much of a plot, more each chapter tells a short story of a character at a point in their life, before moving on to a chapter about another character in a roughly chronological order. Each chapter could probably be read independently as a short story and work well. The main character of the story is Rafael Zhang Zhong Shan, a dual heritage gay man living in New York working in construction. The book broadly covers his life as a young man ending somewhat positively in his thirties although the scope of the book seems like more than a decade or so has passed. As he is the focus of the book, his chapters are interspersed with other characters and their stories, few of which are relevant to Zhang's story, but nevertheless provide a richness to the setting and in their own right are interesting.

Zhang is the child of a Chinese immigrant and a Hispanic mother, his mother was a committed communist so gave him the names Zhong Shan which roughly translates to China Mountain and is named after two 'communist' heroes in the book. He's described in the setting as ABC - 'American Born Chinese' which carries a certain preferential treatment in America, but looked down on in China. The book could easily be described as 'the education and career journey of Zhang and his ongoing love life' but I feel that would give it a disservice (even though it is accurate).

I love the way Zhang is written, he is used to explore issues of race - his father spent money to 'fix his face' so he looked Chinese. Passing as Chinese gives people great advantages. He continually has an identity crisis, thinking people will find out he is not Chinese and not feeling part or belonging to China when he goes there. His sexuality is important to the story - in this future homosexuality is still dangerous with a threat of 'Reform through Labour', and he is continually navigating his relationships and expectations of him to marry. There is a part of the book where I wished he would go to Mars and live a 'marriage of convenience' to a character so we could have a happy ending, but in writing that I realised that it wouldn't be a happy ending for Zhang. Indeed, much of his happiness comes from being around his friends back home in the poverty of America and using his given name of Rafael.

The book is never sentimental, but it is touching. The book isn't quite a dystopia, but like our world today it can be unforgiving and despondent. In a character driven book like this, it does touch my heart in the best way when I read about people caring for another, helping one another, and that desire for us to be human with each other in our most authentic way. I think McHugh does this masterfully. This isn't a novel about a rotten future, it's not a novel about the end of the world or the evils of communism or the such like, it's a story about people and what matters to them.

Even the setting of a future communist world is handled well. I knew I would bristle at anything right wing along the lines of 'communism is evil' like a lot of dystopian sci-fi emerging from America does. At the same time, personally, I think state controlled, centralised economies are just as likely to be oppressive as free market ones (and I swear I am struggling as an anarchist to avoid going on a screed about state capitalism and how it is not socialism). What I love about the book though is how McHugh presents this future and asks the reader to look and think. She doesn't praise, she doesn't condemn, rather she just shows and I think it is brilliant. It's like there are phrases in the book, or practices, or examples from a lecture that many people would describe as indoctrination if happened today, but they are merely a mirror of alleged 'Western' values that people do not blink an eye at.

China and Chinese culture is never portrayed as wholly dogmatic and authoritarian. Despite it's sometimes horrible attitudes (especially towards sexuality) it is also a nation and people of great beauty, of intelligence, of art and culture. People whose values differ are not depicted as people railing against a system, but part of one. It's a novel that embraces complexity.

A couple of final observations - I absolutely adored the section in a book about a self regulating building, whose design is attuned not only to the general inhabitants, but also each individual inhabitant. The concept, known as organic engineering is wonderful in it's depiction of a complex adaptive system in a building. It's beautiful, and I wonder if McHugh has an interest in systems thinking or if she beautifully hit all the right notes.

Shortly following this section is a chapter that is quite harrowing, and one where as a reader I wanted to reach into the pages and beg a character to do something different. What happens is telegraphed quite strongly but it isn't a nice read and they were definitely my favourite character aside from Zhang in the book.

Highly recommended if you enjoy character driven studies in a well crafted future, just be mindful that the book is a meander through life with limited overarching plot which doesn't really come together.

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journey_sloane's review

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.75

There was no real reason for me to like this book. I like fast-paced and action-packed. This is slow, soft, and character-focused. ...and yet I couldn't stop reading. And when I was done, I couldn't make myself put it in the donation pile, either.

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