Rite of Passage

Some years ago, someone wrote a vignette about travelling by air in the present day in the style of a science fiction novel. Everything - airports, passports, aeroplanes, baggage claim - was explained in info-dumps. Rite of Passage, which was nominated for the Hugo Award and won the Nebula Award, is like that. In the first chapter, Mia plays football - and then explains the game to the reader. She goes on to explain pretty much everything she encounters, little of which would be unfamiliar to an American reader in 1968.

Mia is a twelve-year-old girl on the Ship, a FTL-capable asteroid spaceship, which had been used centuries earlier to transport colonists to habitable worlds. It is one of several, but the only one mentioned. The show more colonies have been kept at low tech levels - think Revolutionary USA - and resent the high-handedness of the Ships and their inhabitants. Who, in turn, regard the colonists as intellectually and morally inferior “Mudeaters”. At the age of fourteen, Mia, like all Ship teenagers, will be dropped in the wilderness on a planet to survive for a month on her own. It’s called the Trial. Survivors are welcomed back to the Ship as adults.

Rite of Passage is Mia’s life up until her Trial, the friends she makes, her explorations of areas of the Ship, her education in Ship politics, culture and ethics… She’s chatty, opinionated, and clearly intended to be sympathetic. It’s all very… Heinleinesque (his juveniles, at least). Mia’s Trial, unfortunately, does not go as planned - the world is inhabited by colonists, Mia infiltrates the local capital when she learns her boyfriend has been captured, but she manages to break him out. They’re only fourteen, remember. Because of their treatment by the colonists, the Ship decides to “destroy” the world. Mia thinks this is wrong, thanks to her study of ethics. But, seriously, if you need to study ethics to decide genocide is wrong, then there’s something clearly fucked up with you.

In fact, there’s a lot that feels wrong about Rite of Passage - the elitism, the eugenics, the sexualisation of underage teens (what is with white male US science fiction authors of 40+ years ago and underage sex?), the dodgy philosophy, the lack of any real invention... I’m not even convinced the book is actually science fiction. It’s not like there aren’t US cities with affluent gated communities (predominantly white) and poor decaying neighbourhoods (predominantly black). Rite of Passage could be cast as a coming-of-age novel in Detroit or Chicago, and very little needs to change in the story.

Rite of Passage lost the Hugo to Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar, a novel which is still highly-regarded (although I thought it had aged very badly), but beat it to the Nebula. Delany’s Nova would have been a better Hugo winner, and Russ’s Picnic on Paradise a better Nebula winner. Frankly, I’m baffled Rite of Passage made either award shortlist. show less

The version I read had an introduction written by the author about how the story came to be. I think that that short chapter helped my liking of this book along. Not that I wouldn't have liked it anyway, but that I liked it more knowing how much the author cared about certain parts of the story.

Mia was believable to me as an early teen. She does impulsive things side-by-side with utterly reasonable decisions. If I didn't remember what it was like to be like that it might be maddening. I'm sure some people might not be able to take Mia as realistic, either because she isn't very feminine, or because she does do some unreasonably reasonable things in the story, but those folks should have met a teenaged me.
I like the intrusions of show more philosophy into the story, where Mia is mulling about various social theories, and how she feels about them. I must admit that I don't know as much as Mia about philosophy, but I married a philosophy student, so I understand enough. The fact that Mia thought deeply about her schoolwork and really tried to apply it to what she was experiencing really endeared her to the part of me that is still that nerd.
All in all, I think that this would be a good story for those going through a transitional phase in their life. It would also be good for people who need a little encouragement to be a little braver socially. show less

Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin (My latest book review)

Mia Havero was born on one of the seven great starships constructed from hollowed-out asteroids, originally intended to transport colonists from Earth to more than one hundred colony worlds. But then the people of Earth destroyed their own planet, and the survivors among mankind are now scattered among these colonies, with the Ships continuously traveling between them, trading technical knowledge for raw materials. When teenage inhabitants of these vessels reach the age of fourteen, they undergo Trial, which involves being abandoned on one of the colony worlds to fend for themselves for a month without any contact with their respective Ships. They are given comprehensive training show more in the months before they leave and are provided with a small amount of survival gear. But since the colony worlds can be dangerous, a small percentage of these young people do not survive. This loss helps to keep the strictly-controlled population within safe limits while weeding out those who may be less fit for survival. Those who do return are granted full rights as adults, hence the title Rite of Passage.

The first half of the book does not contain much in the way of adventure. It is a description of the everyday life of Mia, a young girl living on one of the Ships, told from her perspective and replete with her opinions and musings. Mia tells us about the culture and prejudices of those who live alongside her, and she shares the views of her influential father on most issues. Many of Mia’s experiences are common to all young people everywhere. The only hints of adventure in this part of the book are a dangerous exploration of the ventilation system in an unfamiliar part of the Ship, and the ‘borrowing’ of spacesuits to conduct a potentially fatal spacewalk on the exterior of the asteroid which encases the Ship.

Although Mia seems to make up her mind very easily about the relative values of philosophical systems, she really only has a very superficial grasp of the complexities of these ideas, and many obvious questions do not even occur to her until during and after her period of Trial. In this way, the book realistically portrays the confidence and the folly of youth. The second half of the book is much more action-packed, and describes Mia’s period of Trial on a particularly unfriendly colony planet.

Moral and ethical questions which seemed clear-cut to Mia before Trial, now appear much more complicated, and when some of these issues are discussed openly by a Ship’s Assembly in the final part of the story, Mia is forced by her newly-acquired convictions to take a stand diametrically opposite to that of her father.

Some of most thought-provoking content consists of Mia’s musings on the nature of things. Here are some direct quotes from the book:

"I don't like the idea of people who don't sing to themselves when they're all alone. They're too sober for me. At least hum-- anybody can do that."

"The truth is, I guess, I just find it easier to cope with things than with people."

"It doesn’t hurt to like the inevitable."

"I had never realized before that adventures took so much doing, so much preparation and so much cleaning up afterward. That’s something you don’t see in stories. Who buys the food and cooks it, washes the dishes, minds the baby, to swing from, blows fanfares, polishes medals, and dies beautifully, all so that the hero can be a hero? Who finances him? I’m not saying I don’t believe in heroes — I’m just saying that they are either parasites or they spend the bulk of their time in making their little adventures possible, not in enjoying them."

"The trouble with stoicism, it seems to me, is that it is a soporific. It affirms the status quo and thereby puts an end to all ambition, all change. It says, as Christianity did a thousand years ago, that kings should be kings and slaves should be slaves, and it seems to me that that is a philosophy infinitely more attractive to the king than the slave."

"Whether or not your actions are determined, you have to act on the assumption that you have free will. If you are determined, your attempt at free will loses you nothing. However, if you are not determined and you act on the assumption that you are, you will never attempt anything. You will simply be a passive blob that things happen to."

"I believe in judging people by their faces, myself. A man can’t help the face he owns, but he can help the expression he wears on it. If a man looks mean, I generally believe he is unless I have reason to change my mind."

"Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with. "

"I've always wondered what it would be like to be a spear carrier in somebody else's story. A spear carrier is somebody who stands in the hall when Caesar passes, comes to attention and thumps his spear. A spear carrier is the anonymous character cut down by the hero as he advances to save the menaced heroine. A spear carrier is a character put in a story to be used like a piece of disposable tissue. . . . The trouble is that each of us is his own hero, existing in a world of spear carriers. We take no joy in being used and discarded. "

"If I had the opportunity, I would make the proposal that no man should be killed except by somebody who knows him well enough for the act to have impact. No death should be like nose blowing. Death is important enough that it should affect the person who causes it."

"If you meet life squarely, you are likely to make mistakes, do things you wish you hadn't, say things you wish you could retract or phrase more felicitously, and, in short, fumble your way along. Those "mature" people whose lives are even without a single sour note or a single mistake, who never fumble, manage only at the cost of original thought and original action. They do without the successes as well as the failures."

I think this book would have been viewed as considerably unconventional when it was first published in 1968, and that is partly why it won a Nebula Award for Best Novel and was nominated for a Hugo. It is a very well-written and structured piece of work which still contains much of relevance for readers today, and it clearly has a unique place among science fiction coming-of-age stories. show less

Discovered this book since it won the Nebula award for best science fiction novel back in the 1960s. In 255 pages, the author achieves a great deal. The generation ships trope is explored well - how does long term life on spaceships change social attitudes vs living on planets. The bildungsroman aspect (coming of age) theme was also developed well through the eyes of a young girl. I can see why this novel won an award. It deserves wider readership today!

I was very pleased with this book. I was looking for something like the Heinlein juveniles, and Alexei Panshin really channels his inner Heinlein here.

Rite of Passage reads like one of the best Heinlein juveniles. It's told in first person by Mia Havero, a girl growing up in a huge spaceship, one of the few one remaining after the destruction of Earth. Humanity survives in a few spaceships like Mia's, which hold a lot of the scientific heritage of Earth, and in several planetary colonies which have returned to a low-tech way of life.

When she becomes 14 Mia, like all other children in her society, will have to undergo a rite of passage to become adult. She will be left with limited resources on a planet and will have to survive there show more for a month.

The book, like Heinlein's, is very readable, and concerned with how the main matures and becomes a young adult person. It has the relatable main character and the adventures we have come to expect from these juveniles, but it has something more: a more adult perspective on what growing up means. Rite of Passage is more hard-hitting than any Heinlein juvenile, with shocking evens in the last part of the novel that I'm not going to discuss to avoid spoilers.

I feel that Panshin also does a better job of not guiding the reader towards what the author believes... at least until we reach the final part.

The ending was perfect. We don't get to see whether Mia achieves her purpose. That's not the point of the story. The story ends when she grows up and becomes and adult. show less

This is an impressive science fiction novel from 1968. I had read praise about this novel many years ago, but only happened upon a paperback of the original "Ace Special" fairly recently. This is a different sort of coming of age story, especially considering when it was written. I found the narrative remarkably undated - rather simple prose without a plethora of jargon and expressions and attitudes that clearly date so many novels. This does read much like a young adult novel, but it approaches and addresses ethics issues that cross ages. To simplify, seemingly good people can do great evil in the name of good. As relevant today as it was in 1968.

The story begins with a young girl, Mia, living in a colony spaceship, a generation ship, show more one of a number that fled the destruction of earth in about our time and we find them something like 200 years after the event. The girl is about 12 when we begin, and the story is seen, told and unfolds from her perspective until about age 14. This is why the story appears to be written in a relatively simple way, because we experience life, adventures and events from her view. There is a sort of sweetness to much of this story. The story "grows up" as does our young girl, but the events in the story appear to be told from a time a few years after it all.

All children when they reach the age of 14 must go through the "Trial". It is a rite of passage for the people of the ship. They must survive on a relatively primitive planet for a month in order to earn the right to be an adult on the colony ship. It is a means of population control and natural selection, among other things - in a way part of this is also akin to a "Hunger Games".

I am really glad I read this. Comparisons to some of Robert Heinlein's better "juvenile" novels would be appropriate. The book is a little slow moving until the last third or so. However I was unhappy with the end. If there was a lesson to be learned at the end it was not clear to me, although it does reinforce the good society doing evil things message. For me, the endgame should have been better here. Not quite a four star book. show less

This is a deep story with much more to it than appears at first. It is not just a startling twist on the idea of a spaceship-based society, but also on the coming-of-age story, but with a real twist: as the rebellious young heroine learns more about what her own culture really does, the reader realizes that there are real moral issues here, not just conflicts of style. Real evil often is done by "nice" people, and it's good to see an example of this worked out in fiction (where it's safer to let ourselves consider the presence of real moral choices). It's a rather timely topic for the present decade, which may be why this Nebula-winning book is now out of print! Do find this one if you're at all tempted.