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A review by the_graylien
Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin
4.0
Continuing my intermittent reading of the Hugo and Nebula Award winning novels, I come to this one, probably the best in my back and forth chronological reading of these award winners since Flowers for Algernon.
Set in the late 2100s (at the very end of the novel, it's 2200), this novel is narrated by the fourteen-year-old protagonist Mia Havaro. She begins the book by explaining how Earth became overpopulated and humankind had to leave it, voyaging across the universe to colonize other planets, but mainly living in huge ships. She is an inhabitant of one of these ships, along with some 20,000 other people.
To pass into adulthood, at around the age of 14, children must be dropped on to one of the colonized planets and survive of a month. If they do, they return to their homes on the ships, having become adults.
This may sound like it might fit in right alongside the current young adult dystopian fiction plot, but it's anything but.
The book is about a physical and philosophical ascent into adulthood, it's beautifully written, and it's a piece of fiction, written nearly 50 years ago now, that I really enjoyed.
I was pleasantly surprised and I highly recommend it.
*- This book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, awarded for the year 1968.
Set in the late 2100s (at the very end of the novel, it's 2200), this novel is narrated by the fourteen-year-old protagonist Mia Havaro. She begins the book by explaining how Earth became overpopulated and humankind had to leave it, voyaging across the universe to colonize other planets, but mainly living in huge ships. She is an inhabitant of one of these ships, along with some 20,000 other people.
To pass into adulthood, at around the age of 14, children must be dropped on to one of the colonized planets and survive of a month. If they do, they return to their homes on the ships, having become adults.
This may sound like it might fit in right alongside the current young adult dystopian fiction plot, but it's anything but.
The book is about a physical and philosophical ascent into adulthood, it's beautifully written, and it's a piece of fiction, written nearly 50 years ago now, that I really enjoyed.
I was pleasantly surprised and I highly recommend it.
*- This book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, awarded for the year 1968.