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A review by chrisshorb
Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin
2.0
I don’t know why I keep reading these pre-1970 Hugo and Nebula nominees. This one was a Nebula winner!
So the first half was sort of a proto Harry Potter or Red Mars type of story. Young teen who is sort of annoying has experiences that seem to be molding them into a great hero. The world ship was really well done, in fact my favorite part.
But then Mia Havero is thrust into the crucible of the Trial. At this point the book falls apart, at least for me. Feels like the conflict between the Colons (Mudsiders is a worse epithet than Colon?) and the Ship folk could have been foreshadowed a bit more.
And then the epilog describes the Ship population voting to commit genocide? All agency taken from our heroine, and remanding it back to her father? It was pretty terrible. One of the reasons for exterminating the planetary population is that they may be slavers of a possibly sentient species. But then they decide to just kill everyone down side, including the slaves.
Some really good stuff here, but I can’t help but read this from my 2019 sensibility, and to my mind now, this book was lacking.
So the first half was sort of a proto Harry Potter or Red Mars type of story. Young teen who is sort of annoying has experiences that seem to be molding them into a great hero. The world ship was really well done, in fact my favorite part.
But then Mia Havero is thrust into the crucible of the Trial. At this point the book falls apart, at least for me. Feels like the conflict between the Colons (Mudsiders is a worse epithet than Colon?) and the Ship folk could have been foreshadowed a bit more.
And then the epilog describes the Ship population voting to commit genocide? All agency taken from our heroine, and remanding it back to her father? It was pretty terrible. One of the reasons for exterminating the planetary population is that they may be slavers of a possibly sentient species. But then they decide to just kill everyone down side, including the slaves.
Some really good stuff here, but I can’t help but read this from my 2019 sensibility, and to my mind now, this book was lacking.