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Rite of Passage
In 2198, one hundred and fifty years after the desperate wars that destroyed an overpopulated Earth, Man lives precariously on a hundred hastily-established colony worlds and in the seven giant Ships that once ferried men to the stars. Mia Havero's Ship is a small closed society. It tests its children by casting them out to live or die in a month of Trial in the hostile wilds of a colony world. Mia Havero's Trial is fast approaching and in the meantime she must learn not only the skills that will keep her alive but the deeper courage to face herself and her world. Published originally in 1968, Alexei Panshin's Nebula Award-winning classic has lost none of its relevance, with its keen exploration of societal stagnation and the resilience of youth.
260 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
About the author
Alexei Panshin
57 books53 followersAlexis Adams Panshin is an American author and science fiction critic.
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January 27, 2012
The plot of this rather fine coming-of-age SF novel is described well in several of the other reviews. Oddly enough, no one seems to mention that it is constructed around Shakespeare's Sonnet 94, which appears on the last page.
Since the poem isn't nearly as well-known as it deserves to be, and it's one of my favorites, let me reproduce it here:
Since the poem isn't nearly as well-known as it deserves to be, and it's one of my favorites, let me reproduce it here:
They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
July 27, 2014
[7/10]
Somebody quiped this is the best juvenile that Heinlein never wrote. In her excellent review of the Panshin novel [jo Walton]
, Jo Walton argues that the author's goal was more subversive than paying homage to the grandmaster of science-fiction, a point sustained by the known critical disagreement between the two. I have read literally hundreds of coming of age stories, most of them fantasy or SF, which might explain my lower rating for what is arguably one of the least conventional and better written of the lot.
The setting: Earth has been completely destroyed in a global conflagration in the 21st century. The survivors scattered through the galaxy in hastily built multigenerational spaceships. Some of them settled on planets, where they struggled hard to make them habitable and to produce enough food to survive, leaving too little time for education and leisure. A minority remained in the spaceships, avoiding overpopulation through strict birth control, preserving the advanced technology of Earth and trading this knowledge with the colonists in exchange for essential raw materials. In the absence of real life challenges inside the carefully controled and regulated environment of the Ships, all young people reaching the age of 14 are sent on a 30 day Trial down to one of the planets, there to survive only by their wits and skills. Not everybody survives the initiation ritual, but the ones who return safely are considered adults with full rights in the society.
The hero(ine): Mia Havero is the narrator of the novel, in an extended flashback, starting with her tomboy phase at age 12, following through her two years advanced education and survival training, her Trial and its aftermath. She is a wonderful guide through the Ship's world, spunky and witty, "a reluctant daredevil" with a passion for old-fashioned sF stories and a carefully masked streak of loneliness and insecurity. In her own words she is "a little black-haired, black-eyed girl, short, small, and without even the promise of a figure". Much as I liked Mia and her tribulations adapting to a new school, new friends, new ideas and new responsibilities, I sometimes felt her character is a bit too good to be true. Like the kids from a TV series I used to watch (Dawson Creek) she seems written by a parent who puts down how he would like his offspring to talk and to learn from mistakes. Real teenagers, from my experience, are a lot more anarchic and authority flouting, less focused on growing up and more self-centered than Mia. This is not to say she is tame, or well mannered, just a tad too didactic and well organized for a 12-14 y.o.
Things I liked best about the story:
* fables and parables used in the text as a learning tool, storytelling in its more pure and effective guise, including the riddle games so beloved by Tolkien and a tongue-in-cheek approach to classic quests to slay the ogre and win the hand of the princess in marriage.
* a project Mia has to write about ethics, where she studies "Epicureans and Utilitarians; Stoics; Power Philosophers, both sophisticated and unsophisticated; and humanists of several stripes. All these not to mention various religious ethical systems." She balances the strengths and shortcomings of each system, and later sees how they apply to real life conflicts during her Trial. Again, it is done by Panshin in an over-simplified and didactic manner, but it is still very effective. Example:
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 it is a philosophy infinitely more attractive to he king than to the slave.
* Mia's "reluctant daredevil" atitude, her "Hell on Wheels", "The Compleat Young Girl" sarcastic persona, always ready to mock her own fears and honestly admit her faux pas. Favorite episode is her participation in an illegal sortie outside the Ship, in the company of her friends from the Survival Class.
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, rubs down the horses, swabs out the guns, buries the bodies, mends the clothes, ties the rope in place so the hero can conveniently find it there 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.
Other pearls of wisdom from Miss Havero:
There is nothing like hunting a tiger almost barehanded to give you a feeling of real confidence in yourself. If you manage to survive the experience.
* the general pacing and the length of the novel : a fast and entertaining read that kept me glued to the pages from start to finish.
* finally, I really appreciated how the comic elements and the light headed spirit of a fun adventure a replaced later in the novel by the real issues Mia will have to deal with as an adult: intolerance, xenophobia, death, free will versus predetermination, the individuall versus the political, and more. This is where Jo Walton draws our attention that becoming an adult is not equal to saving the planet from an alien invasion in a blaze of spectacular explosions and other special effects, but looking inside yourself and finding the strength to change what is wrong with your society instead of accepting the status quo. Here are my favorite quotes from this later phase in the novel:
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. In a story, spear carriers never suddenly assert themselves by throwing their spears aside and saying, "I resign. I don't want to be used." They are here to be used, either for atmosphere or as minor obstacles in the path of the hero. 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. I was finding then, that wet, chilly, unhappy night, that I took no joy in seeing other people 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.
---
I can think of nothing sadder than to know that you might be more than you are, but be unwilling to make the effort.
---
Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with.
Recommended for readers who are not yet fed up with coming of age stories and who appreciate classic SF.
Somebody quiped this is the best juvenile that Heinlein never wrote. In her excellent review of the Panshin novel [jo Walton]
, Jo Walton argues that the author's goal was more subversive than paying homage to the grandmaster of science-fiction, a point sustained by the known critical disagreement between the two. I have read literally hundreds of coming of age stories, most of them fantasy or SF, which might explain my lower rating for what is arguably one of the least conventional and better written of the lot.
The setting: Earth has been completely destroyed in a global conflagration in the 21st century. The survivors scattered through the galaxy in hastily built multigenerational spaceships. Some of them settled on planets, where they struggled hard to make them habitable and to produce enough food to survive, leaving too little time for education and leisure. A minority remained in the spaceships, avoiding overpopulation through strict birth control, preserving the advanced technology of Earth and trading this knowledge with the colonists in exchange for essential raw materials. In the absence of real life challenges inside the carefully controled and regulated environment of the Ships, all young people reaching the age of 14 are sent on a 30 day Trial down to one of the planets, there to survive only by their wits and skills. Not everybody survives the initiation ritual, but the ones who return safely are considered adults with full rights in the society.
The hero(ine): Mia Havero is the narrator of the novel, in an extended flashback, starting with her tomboy phase at age 12, following through her two years advanced education and survival training, her Trial and its aftermath. She is a wonderful guide through the Ship's world, spunky and witty, "a reluctant daredevil" with a passion for old-fashioned sF stories and a carefully masked streak of loneliness and insecurity. In her own words she is "a little black-haired, black-eyed girl, short, small, and without even the promise of a figure". Much as I liked Mia and her tribulations adapting to a new school, new friends, new ideas and new responsibilities, I sometimes felt her character is a bit too good to be true. Like the kids from a TV series I used to watch (Dawson Creek) she seems written by a parent who puts down how he would like his offspring to talk and to learn from mistakes. Real teenagers, from my experience, are a lot more anarchic and authority flouting, less focused on growing up and more self-centered than Mia. This is not to say she is tame, or well mannered, just a tad too didactic and well organized for a 12-14 y.o.
Things I liked best about the story:
* fables and parables used in the text as a learning tool, storytelling in its more pure and effective guise, including the riddle games so beloved by Tolkien and a tongue-in-cheek approach to classic quests to slay the ogre and win the hand of the princess in marriage.
* a project Mia has to write about ethics, where she studies "Epicureans and Utilitarians; Stoics; Power Philosophers, both sophisticated and unsophisticated; and humanists of several stripes. All these not to mention various religious ethical systems." She balances the strengths and shortcomings of each system, and later sees how they apply to real life conflicts during her Trial. Again, it is done by Panshin in an over-simplified and didactic manner, but it is still very effective. Example:
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 it is a philosophy infinitely more attractive to he king than to the slave.
* Mia's "reluctant daredevil" atitude, her "Hell on Wheels", "The Compleat Young Girl" sarcastic persona, always ready to mock her own fears and honestly admit her faux pas. Favorite episode is her participation in an illegal sortie outside the Ship, in the company of her friends from the Survival Class.
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, rubs down the horses, swabs out the guns, buries the bodies, mends the clothes, ties the rope in place so the hero can conveniently find it there 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.
Other pearls of wisdom from Miss Havero:
There is nothing like hunting a tiger almost barehanded to give you a feeling of real confidence in yourself. If you manage to survive the experience.
* the general pacing and the length of the novel : a fast and entertaining read that kept me glued to the pages from start to finish.
* finally, I really appreciated how the comic elements and the light headed spirit of a fun adventure a replaced later in the novel by the real issues Mia will have to deal with as an adult: intolerance, xenophobia, death, free will versus predetermination, the individuall versus the political, and more. This is where Jo Walton draws our attention that becoming an adult is not equal to saving the planet from an alien invasion in a blaze of spectacular explosions and other special effects, but looking inside yourself and finding the strength to change what is wrong with your society instead of accepting the status quo. Here are my favorite quotes from this later phase in the novel:
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. In a story, spear carriers never suddenly assert themselves by throwing their spears aside and saying, "I resign. I don't want to be used." They are here to be used, either for atmosphere or as minor obstacles in the path of the hero. 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. I was finding then, that wet, chilly, unhappy night, that I took no joy in seeing other people 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.
---
I can think of nothing sadder than to know that you might be more than you are, but be unwilling to make the effort.
---
Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with.
Recommended for readers who are not yet fed up with coming of age stories and who appreciate classic SF.
November 30, 2023
Thought provoking and deeply moving
One hundred and fifty years after the wars that destroyed an over-populated earth, mankind is now living on over one hundred colony worlds and a handful of giant roaming ships that once ferried men to the stars. Mia Havero is a young girl living on one of those ships whose residents are abundantly aware of the perils of the "lack of moral discipline" of "Free-Birthers" who embrace complete freedom of reproduction, an uncontrolled birth rate and the resulting exponential growth in population. They've adopted the harsh but entirely effective social policy of subjecting their young people to the "Trial". Every young person is dropped and summarily abandoned into a thirty day survive-or-die test in the harsh and cruel environment of a frequently hostile colony planet. Those who survive return to the fold of the ship and are called "adults". Those who don't - well, they just don't!
RITE OF PASSAGE is written from Mia's first person perspective as she grows through childhood, enters training for her time of Trial and is dropped onto the planet Tintera with her childhood friend, Jimmy Dentremont. At only 225 pages, RITE OF PASSAGE is a very short novel and for over 200 of those pages seems to be a rather typical coming of age story. It's reasonably well written with any number of heart-warming passages and some seriously thought-provoking essays and interludes on philosophy, education and ethics. In fact, the story concentrates so exclusively on Mia's education, evolution and the development of her character as she comes of age from self-centred girl child to mature young adult that any reader would be forgiven for forgetting that RITE OF PASSAGE won a Nebula Award as a science fiction novel!!
It's Panshin's epilogue that pulls RITE OF PASSAGE from mere novel into the realm of "classic", an eye-opening, jaw-dropping dissertation on the results of the irresponsible or reckless exercise of power. In a manner that will remind you of the subtle, quiet, yet compelling style of Simak's best novels, Panshin touches on issues of killing, prejudice, hatred, power and responsibility. When Panshin seamlessly returns our thoughts to the context of a science fiction novel by discussing the destruction of an entire planet, he brutally reminds us that these issues are timeless and are likely to remain with humanity forever unless we make a conscious decision to grow beyond cruelty.
RITE OF PASSAGE is a deeply moving novel likely to remain in your thoughts long after the final page is turned!
Paul Weiss
One hundred and fifty years after the wars that destroyed an over-populated earth, mankind is now living on over one hundred colony worlds and a handful of giant roaming ships that once ferried men to the stars. Mia Havero is a young girl living on one of those ships whose residents are abundantly aware of the perils of the "lack of moral discipline" of "Free-Birthers" who embrace complete freedom of reproduction, an uncontrolled birth rate and the resulting exponential growth in population. They've adopted the harsh but entirely effective social policy of subjecting their young people to the "Trial". Every young person is dropped and summarily abandoned into a thirty day survive-or-die test in the harsh and cruel environment of a frequently hostile colony planet. Those who survive return to the fold of the ship and are called "adults". Those who don't - well, they just don't!
RITE OF PASSAGE is written from Mia's first person perspective as she grows through childhood, enters training for her time of Trial and is dropped onto the planet Tintera with her childhood friend, Jimmy Dentremont. At only 225 pages, RITE OF PASSAGE is a very short novel and for over 200 of those pages seems to be a rather typical coming of age story. It's reasonably well written with any number of heart-warming passages and some seriously thought-provoking essays and interludes on philosophy, education and ethics. In fact, the story concentrates so exclusively on Mia's education, evolution and the development of her character as she comes of age from self-centred girl child to mature young adult that any reader would be forgiven for forgetting that RITE OF PASSAGE won a Nebula Award as a science fiction novel!!
It's Panshin's epilogue that pulls RITE OF PASSAGE from mere novel into the realm of "classic", an eye-opening, jaw-dropping dissertation on the results of the irresponsible or reckless exercise of power. In a manner that will remind you of the subtle, quiet, yet compelling style of Simak's best novels, Panshin touches on issues of killing, prejudice, hatred, power and responsibility. When Panshin seamlessly returns our thoughts to the context of a science fiction novel by discussing the destruction of an entire planet, he brutally reminds us that these issues are timeless and are likely to remain with humanity forever unless we make a conscious decision to grow beyond cruelty.
RITE OF PASSAGE is a deeply moving novel likely to remain in your thoughts long after the final page is turned!
Paul Weiss
November 6, 2023
Quite an interesting voyage. For the late 60s, this was a surprisingly feminist portrayal of our protagonist Mia and her Rites of Passage. I liked the pace, the idea of the colonization of various planets following the fall of Earth. The ideas were good as was the character development. I really wanted Mia to succeed in her Trial and loved how the whole story fit together. Definitely understandable that this one grabbed the Nebula back in 1969, the year of my birth.
A few notable quotes:
"Jimmy had been following the argument. He said,
"How about this? It's all right to dislike people for poor reasons, but not to call them names. You don't have to justify your dislikes, but you have to justify your contentions."
100
"That's a little oversimplified," Mr. Mbele said.
For the moment I was off the hook, and since I was struck by a thought, I brought it forward. "What about the people whom you ought to like-only you don't? And the people you ought not to like that you do?"
"And what does all that mean?" Jimmy asked.
"Well, say you and I agree on everything, and I respect you, and you never do me any harm-like backbiting all the time for no good reason-and yet I can't stand you. Or say there were somebody I ought to dislike-a total rat, somebody who'll do anything if he sees advantage in it-and I like him. Can you separate liking from what a person does?"
Mr. Mbele smiled, as though the course of the conversation amused him. "Well, do you separate them?"
"No, I don't suppose I do," I said." (p. 100)
"I don't like utilitarianism as a prescription, either.
Treating pleasure and pain as quantities by which good can be measured seems very mechanical, and people become just another factor to adjust in the equation.
Pragmatically, it seems to make sense to say One hundred lives saved at the cost of one?-go ahead! The utilitarian would say it every time-he would have to say it. But who gave him the right to say it? What if the one doesn't have any choice in the matter, but is blindly sacrificed for, say, one hundred Mudeaters whose very existence he is unaware of? Say the choice was between Daddy or Jimmy and a hundred Mudeaters. I wouldn't make a utilitarian choice and I don't think I could be easily convinced that the answer should be made by use of the number of pounds of human flesh involved. People are not objects." (p. 148)
A few notable quotes:
"Jimmy had been following the argument. He said,
"How about this? It's all right to dislike people for poor reasons, but not to call them names. You don't have to justify your dislikes, but you have to justify your contentions."
100
"That's a little oversimplified," Mr. Mbele said.
For the moment I was off the hook, and since I was struck by a thought, I brought it forward. "What about the people whom you ought to like-only you don't? And the people you ought not to like that you do?"
"And what does all that mean?" Jimmy asked.
"Well, say you and I agree on everything, and I respect you, and you never do me any harm-like backbiting all the time for no good reason-and yet I can't stand you. Or say there were somebody I ought to dislike-a total rat, somebody who'll do anything if he sees advantage in it-and I like him. Can you separate liking from what a person does?"
Mr. Mbele smiled, as though the course of the conversation amused him. "Well, do you separate them?"
"No, I don't suppose I do," I said." (p. 100)
"I don't like utilitarianism as a prescription, either.
Treating pleasure and pain as quantities by which good can be measured seems very mechanical, and people become just another factor to adjust in the equation.
Pragmatically, it seems to make sense to say One hundred lives saved at the cost of one?-go ahead! The utilitarian would say it every time-he would have to say it. But who gave him the right to say it? What if the one doesn't have any choice in the matter, but is blindly sacrificed for, say, one hundred Mudeaters whose very existence he is unaware of? Say the choice was between Daddy or Jimmy and a hundred Mudeaters. I wouldn't make a utilitarian choice and I don't think I could be easily convinced that the answer should be made by use of the number of pounds of human flesh involved. People are not objects." (p. 148)
December 22, 2014
I'm not sure why this book has stuck with me so long -- I read it over 20 years ago. But it was one of the most memorable early-Heinlein-era sci-fi stories I ever read. The story is somewhat reminiscent of Heinlein, though the writing is not. The social issues raised in this novel are still compelling, though rather dated now, but I imagine it was even more relevant when it was first published.
I really liked the main character, who was quite believable as a rather privileged teenage girl suddenly forced to grow up. One thing to note: the covers all depict her as a white girl, but in the book, she's described as having dark skin. Not surprising for when it was published (1968), but you'd think at some point someone would have gotten a clue and released a more contemporary cover.
Reread: August 2012
If I was reading this for the first time, I'd probably only give it 4 stars, as it's quite good but probably wouldn't have made my list of "favorites." However, the story has stuck with me all these years, enough that it did become one of those rare books I reread, so it keeps its 5 stars.
Notable to me on this reread is that it's aged pretty well. As with most classic SF, the 21st century reader is likely to notice that this 22nd century starship has less advanced information and communications technology than we have today, but hardly any sci-fi authors wrote futuristic technology 40 years ago that looks plausible today. Other than that, though, it's a work of thoughtful science fiction that's more about the people and the consequences of a society split into people living on Ships and "Colons" (or "Mudeaters" as the Ship people call them) spread across the stars. Most of all, it's a bildungsroman about Mia Havero, who is a spunky, intelligent, and basically decent but very prejudiced and sometimes pig-headed adolescent. She grows throughout the book, and the planetary adventure at the end is indeed a suitable rite of passage for her. The ending still disturbs me in the same way it did years ago, which I think was Panshin's intent.
This is a great classic which really should be better known. If you have ever enjoyed Heinlein's juveniles, or you like what usually gets marketed as "Young Adult" today if it's not some stupid girl-in-a-prom-dress paranormal romance but an actual YA protagonist who thinks meaningful thoughts and makes meaningful choices, I highly recommend it. I am resisting the temptation to shelve this as Young Adult because it wasn't written as a YA novel, but really, it's got a voice and a writing style that should appeal equally to YA and adult readers.
I really liked the main character, who was quite believable as a rather privileged teenage girl suddenly forced to grow up. One thing to note: the covers all depict her as a white girl, but in the book, she's described as having dark skin. Not surprising for when it was published (1968), but you'd think at some point someone would have gotten a clue and released a more contemporary cover.
Reread: August 2012
If I was reading this for the first time, I'd probably only give it 4 stars, as it's quite good but probably wouldn't have made my list of "favorites." However, the story has stuck with me all these years, enough that it did become one of those rare books I reread, so it keeps its 5 stars.
Notable to me on this reread is that it's aged pretty well. As with most classic SF, the 21st century reader is likely to notice that this 22nd century starship has less advanced information and communications technology than we have today, but hardly any sci-fi authors wrote futuristic technology 40 years ago that looks plausible today. Other than that, though, it's a work of thoughtful science fiction that's more about the people and the consequences of a society split into people living on Ships and "Colons" (or "Mudeaters" as the Ship people call them) spread across the stars. Most of all, it's a bildungsroman about Mia Havero, who is a spunky, intelligent, and basically decent but very prejudiced and sometimes pig-headed adolescent. She grows throughout the book, and the planetary adventure at the end is indeed a suitable rite of passage for her. The ending still disturbs me in the same way it did years ago, which I think was Panshin's intent.
This is a great classic which really should be better known. If you have ever enjoyed Heinlein's juveniles, or you like what usually gets marketed as "Young Adult" today if it's not some stupid girl-in-a-prom-dress paranormal romance but an actual YA protagonist who thinks meaningful thoughts and makes meaningful choices, I highly recommend it. I am resisting the temptation to shelve this as Young Adult because it wasn't written as a YA novel, but really, it's got a voice and a writing style that should appeal equally to YA and adult readers.
February 14, 2013
"That's something you don't see in stories. Who buys the food and cooks it, washes the dishes, minds the baby, rubs down the horses, swabs out the guns, buries the bodies, mends the clothes, ties that rope in place so the hero can conveniently find it there 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."
I love this book dearly. To me, it's everything I liked about Downbelow Station and Ender's Game, but without the tedium of Cherryh's book, and without the fearful national security mentality of Card's. This story is exciting and hopeful to anyone who has been moved to improve the times they live in, and true to the experience of growing up.
It seems everyone's read Ender's Game, but how many have actually read Rite of Passage? Because I think the comparisons scream to be made, I wanna say this about two stories about young kids in extraordinary SF circumstances, just trying to survive: I'd pick Mia Havero and Jimmy Dentremont over Ender to be on my soccer team; I'd take the advice of Mister Mbele over that of Graff's any day; I learned more from Mia's universal education than from anything they taught in battle school, and I'm sure I'd take Shakespeare's Sonnet XCIV over the whole Yancy Street gang.
Sometimes it's not about being the one who survives--it's about being the one who's humane. And sometimes it's not about saving the human race--it's about preserving the race's humanity.
"It is harder to assess critically the insanities of your own time, especially if you have accepted them unquestionably for as long as you can remember, for as long as you have been alive. If you never make the attempt, whatever else you are, you are not mature...I knew long ago that the ability to do something doesn't necessarily give you the right to do it--that's the old power philosophy, and I never liked it. We might be able to discipline Tintera but who appointed us to the job? We were doing it anyway and there was no one to stop us, but we were wrong."
I love this book dearly. To me, it's everything I liked about Downbelow Station and Ender's Game, but without the tedium of Cherryh's book, and without the fearful national security mentality of Card's. This story is exciting and hopeful to anyone who has been moved to improve the times they live in, and true to the experience of growing up.
It seems everyone's read Ender's Game, but how many have actually read Rite of Passage? Because I think the comparisons scream to be made, I wanna say this about two stories about young kids in extraordinary SF circumstances, just trying to survive: I'd pick Mia Havero and Jimmy Dentremont over Ender to be on my soccer team; I'd take the advice of Mister Mbele over that of Graff's any day; I learned more from Mia's universal education than from anything they taught in battle school, and I'm sure I'd take Shakespeare's Sonnet XCIV over the whole Yancy Street gang.
Sometimes it's not about being the one who survives--it's about being the one who's humane. And sometimes it's not about saving the human race--it's about preserving the race's humanity.
"It is harder to assess critically the insanities of your own time, especially if you have accepted them unquestionably for as long as you can remember, for as long as you have been alive. If you never make the attempt, whatever else you are, you are not mature...I knew long ago that the ability to do something doesn't necessarily give you the right to do it--that's the old power philosophy, and I never liked it. We might be able to discipline Tintera but who appointed us to the job? We were doing it anyway and there was no one to stop us, but we were wrong."
May 9, 2021
I could not understand my former self…
Rite of Passage’s greatest strength and greatest weakness is that it is a Bildungsroman. Alexei Panshin does a good job of exploring the evolution of the young narrator, but the subtlety is lost when the narrator repeatedly mentions how she has changed and grown. Show us these changes.
I did enjoy the first half of the novel, but I began to lose interest after that. I may have enjoyed this far more in my younger years, but I’m probably twice the age of the target audience now. I’m actually surprised this book hasn’t been turned into a YA film trilogy. It has the perfect makings for one.
Rite of Passage’s greatest strength and greatest weakness is that it is a Bildungsroman. Alexei Panshin does a good job of exploring the evolution of the young narrator, but the subtlety is lost when the narrator repeatedly mentions how she has changed and grown. Show us these changes.
I did enjoy the first half of the novel, but I began to lose interest after that. I may have enjoyed this far more in my younger years, but I’m probably twice the age of the target audience now. I’m actually surprised this book hasn’t been turned into a YA film trilogy. It has the perfect makings for one.
June 24, 2008
'Rite of Passage' is one of science fiction's more overlooked and lesser known masterpeices.
Really, they did know what they were doing when they gave this book a Nebula award.
I think one of the reasons it hasn't maintained the enduring audience of some of other classics from the golden era is that it is a book that suffers from having an uncomfortable relationship with any of its potential readers. On the one hand, adult readers may be put off by a book which appears at first in both its language and ambitions to be little more than reutine young adult fiction in an exotic setting. On the other hand, younger readers may find the book ultimately dark, disturbing, unsettling, and at times too graphic. (Adult readers who have finished the book are probably similarly unwilling to put the book in the hands of their children.)
For my part, I think pretty much everyone is rewarded for pushing through the difficulties. This is a great book that I find myself chewing over in my head time and time again, and repeatedly drawing on for insight. Having become a parent has only deepened my appreciation for the subtleties of the book.
To begin with, it is a great coming of age story. Refreshingly it has a young complex female protagonist - far different from the sort of simple boy-men that typically populate SF coming of age stories. Likewise, this a character that truly comes of age in every way that it is possible to come of age, which I find incredibly appealing compared to the typical 'how I learned calculus and 20 other ways to kill' of more boyish SF. Not that our heroine doesn't learn calculus or... but that might be giving too much away.
On that level alone, 'Rite of Passage' has much to recommend itself. But I'm also repeatedly struck by the insight Panshin shows into humanity and human social structure. Ultimately, this is book about the value of life, about the value of living well, and about what really makes an adult.
I highly recommend this novel. Especially in a time when adults are embrassing young adult fiction, its time to reexamine this little gem.
Really, they did know what they were doing when they gave this book a Nebula award.
I think one of the reasons it hasn't maintained the enduring audience of some of other classics from the golden era is that it is a book that suffers from having an uncomfortable relationship with any of its potential readers. On the one hand, adult readers may be put off by a book which appears at first in both its language and ambitions to be little more than reutine young adult fiction in an exotic setting. On the other hand, younger readers may find the book ultimately dark, disturbing, unsettling, and at times too graphic. (Adult readers who have finished the book are probably similarly unwilling to put the book in the hands of their children.)
For my part, I think pretty much everyone is rewarded for pushing through the difficulties. This is a great book that I find myself chewing over in my head time and time again, and repeatedly drawing on for insight. Having become a parent has only deepened my appreciation for the subtleties of the book.
To begin with, it is a great coming of age story. Refreshingly it has a young complex female protagonist - far different from the sort of simple boy-men that typically populate SF coming of age stories. Likewise, this a character that truly comes of age in every way that it is possible to come of age, which I find incredibly appealing compared to the typical 'how I learned calculus and 20 other ways to kill' of more boyish SF. Not that our heroine doesn't learn calculus or... but that might be giving too much away.
On that level alone, 'Rite of Passage' has much to recommend itself. But I'm also repeatedly struck by the insight Panshin shows into humanity and human social structure. Ultimately, this is book about the value of life, about the value of living well, and about what really makes an adult.
I highly recommend this novel. Especially in a time when adults are embrassing young adult fiction, its time to reexamine this little gem.
August 30, 2019
This is a SF novel that won Nebula and was nominated for Hugo in 1969. Largely it is a product of its time, but there are messages relevant today as well.
Earth was destroyed by overpopulation but before that a number of faster than light colony ships were built from the hollowed asteroids and new colonies were seeded. It was impossible to give colonists neither machinery (which breaks too easily) nor knowledge how to make it (less plausible, but it is an important premise for the story). Now former colony ships with skeleton crews go from world to world and exchange pieces of information for colony’s produce.
Enter Mia Havero, 12 year old small black-haired girl, who lives on the ship. The ship’s society is quite small and rigid, it has too few people to have a market, so it is under a kind of communism, but without a significant suppression. The rejuvenation treatment allows people to live to a hundred. Fearing overpopulation, the strict eugenic system is installed, which women, who try to get more kids than their ‘share’ exiled from the ship (which is almost a death penalty). All children at age of 14 should pass a trial (also known as ‘the rite of passage) – to live for a month in a randomly selected colony world. ¾ of the book are about growing and getting ready for the trial.
It is one of the earliest young female protagonists in SF, and she is no blond sexy booby wonder. As several women suggest (including Jo Walton), it is a rare case of a believable female character written by a SF writer. The story is much better understood as and answer to Podkayne of Mars and juveniles by Robert A. Heinlein. It is written in a similar style with some similarities (a competent youngster, strong willed character, wise older figure) but with significant differences (no moral rightness, a (quite modest) sex scene in a juvenile book!).
While the final is pretty interesting and unexpected, reaching it goes for a little too long and quite a few questions remain unanswered.
Earth was destroyed by overpopulation but before that a number of faster than light colony ships were built from the hollowed asteroids and new colonies were seeded. It was impossible to give colonists neither machinery (which breaks too easily) nor knowledge how to make it (less plausible, but it is an important premise for the story). Now former colony ships with skeleton crews go from world to world and exchange pieces of information for colony’s produce.
Enter Mia Havero, 12 year old small black-haired girl, who lives on the ship. The ship’s society is quite small and rigid, it has too few people to have a market, so it is under a kind of communism, but without a significant suppression. The rejuvenation treatment allows people to live to a hundred. Fearing overpopulation, the strict eugenic system is installed, which women, who try to get more kids than their ‘share’ exiled from the ship (which is almost a death penalty). All children at age of 14 should pass a trial (also known as ‘the rite of passage) – to live for a month in a randomly selected colony world. ¾ of the book are about growing and getting ready for the trial.
It is one of the earliest young female protagonists in SF, and she is no blond sexy booby wonder. As several women suggest (including Jo Walton), it is a rare case of a believable female character written by a SF writer. The story is much better understood as and answer to Podkayne of Mars and juveniles by Robert A. Heinlein. It is written in a similar style with some similarities (a competent youngster, strong willed character, wise older figure) but with significant differences (no moral rightness, a (quite modest) sex scene in a juvenile book!).
While the final is pretty interesting and unexpected, reaching it goes for a little too long and quite a few questions remain unanswered.
February 23, 2018
"Olgunluk, içinde büyüdüğünüz, kabul edilmiş yalanlar ve kendini kandırmalardan ortaya çıkan gerçeğin parçalarını sınıflandırma yeteneğidir."
"Her zaman başka birinin hikâyesinde mızrakçı olmanın ne demek olduğunu düşündüm. Bir mızrakçı, koridorda durup Sezar geçerken hazırola geçip mızrağını yere vuran kişidir. Mızrakçı tehdit altındaki dişi kahramanı kurtarmak için ilerleyen kahramanın doğradığı isimsiz karakterdir. Mızrakçı, hikâyeye atılabilecek bir kâğıt mendil gibi kullanılmak için konmuş bir karakterdir. Bir hikâyede bir mızrakçı, asla birden mızrağını bir kenara atıp, "İstifa ettim. Kullanılmak istemiyorum," demez. Onlar ya atmosfer ya da kahramanın yolundaki ufak engel olarak kullanılmak için oradadırlar, işin kötüsü herkes bir mızrakçılar dünyasında yaşayan kendi kahramanıdır. Biz kullanılıp atılmaktan hiçbir zevk almayız."
"Elimde olsaydı, yalnızca birbirini iyi tanıyan insanlar birbirlerini öldürebilmeli diye bir öneri getirirdim. Hiçbir ölüm burun silmek gibi olmamalı. Ölüm ona neden olanı etkilemesi gerekecek kadar önemli bir şey."
"Her zaman başka birinin hikâyesinde mızrakçı olmanın ne demek olduğunu düşündüm. Bir mızrakçı, koridorda durup Sezar geçerken hazırola geçip mızrağını yere vuran kişidir. Mızrakçı tehdit altındaki dişi kahramanı kurtarmak için ilerleyen kahramanın doğradığı isimsiz karakterdir. Mızrakçı, hikâyeye atılabilecek bir kâğıt mendil gibi kullanılmak için konmuş bir karakterdir. Bir hikâyede bir mızrakçı, asla birden mızrağını bir kenara atıp, "İstifa ettim. Kullanılmak istemiyorum," demez. Onlar ya atmosfer ya da kahramanın yolundaki ufak engel olarak kullanılmak için oradadırlar, işin kötüsü herkes bir mızrakçılar dünyasında yaşayan kendi kahramanıdır. Biz kullanılıp atılmaktan hiçbir zevk almayız."
"Elimde olsaydı, yalnızca birbirini iyi tanıyan insanlar birbirlerini öldürebilmeli diye bir öneri getirirdim. Hiçbir ölüm burun silmek gibi olmamalı. Ölüm ona neden olanı etkilemesi gerekecek kadar önemli bir şey."
Shelved as 'wishlist'
October 31, 2021I'll be reading this very soon! It's one of my Kindle Unlimited finds and the premise is basically, overpopulation destroyed Earth and now colonists jealously guard their population by dumping kids on hostile planets and waiting to see if they're smart enough to keep themselves alive for like a month
February 26, 2017
A very pleasant young adult novel wrapped in science fiction critique.
Like a classic YA story, we follow a protagonist (Mia Havero) as she moves through adolescence towards adulthood. She meets various challenges, struggles with family and love, then grows up.
It's also a recognizable science fiction world. We have a generation ship filled with advanced humans who ply the starways. The setting also includes a space opera framework, with a destroyed Earth and low-technology colony planets.
It's a rich text to think about in terms of science fiction history, especially given the period of its composition. The novel is definitely a response to Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, a 1960s liberal revision with progressive attitudes towards child-reading, pedagogy, sexuality, and family structure. The devastating finale echoes another Heinlein book, Have Spacesuit Will Travel.
About the ending:
Like a classic YA story, we follow a protagonist (Mia Havero) as she moves through adolescence towards adulthood. She meets various challenges, struggles with family and love, then grows up.
It's also a recognizable science fiction world. We have a generation ship filled with advanced humans who ply the starways. The setting also includes a space opera framework, with a destroyed Earth and low-technology colony planets.
It's a rich text to think about in terms of science fiction history, especially given the period of its composition. The novel is definitely a response to Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, a 1960s liberal revision with progressive attitudes towards child-reading, pedagogy, sexuality, and family structure. The devastating finale echoes another Heinlein book, Have Spacesuit Will Travel.
About the ending:
May 5, 2021
This is my favorite SF novel of all time. I have read it over and over.
It is excellent every time. I think I would update about fifteen words in the entire book. (The "men on the counsel" for example should be people or counsel members.)
The POV character is female, lives on a generation ship, explores & discovers what it means to be human and to grow and to wrestle with justice and fairness, and I identified with her perfectly the first time I read this novel in about 1972.
Unlike the typical YA novel of today, this novel's 11-14 year old protagonist is not obsessed by clothing or other passing concerns. She is busy thinking. And though popularity is certainly on the drawing board, she is also wrestling with right and wrong, with justice and honor. A lot of people compare the novel to Heinlein, which is understandable since Panshin wrote the book about that author. But there is more going on here than adventure, though there is surely adventure. More than concern about overpopulation, though surely that is a concern. There is irony and satire and philosophy.
One of my favorite passages:
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. In a story, spear carriers never suddenly assert themselves by throwing their spears aside and saying, "I resign. I don't want to be used." They are here to be used, either for atmosphere or as minor obstacles in the path of the hero. 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. I was finding then, that wet, chilly, unhappy night, that I took no joy in seeing other people used and discarded.
The sonnet from Shakespeare that closes the novel says something about endings too. Certainly it comments on the ending of this novel, and perhaps something about its beginning as well both for the individual characters and for ll of Western society.
I have perhaps 20 copies even today. I managed to teach it twice to my students and it received good feedback from nearly all. A Japanese exchange student painted Mia as a gift to me. The painting is a treasure. Almost all the actual covers are wildly inaccurate. Mia Havero (there should be a bit of a clue in the name) describes herself as small and dark, yet covers often show her blue-eyed and blonde. Written at a time when American culture was still pretending that all women wanted was family, it ignores gender as a determining characteristic for a person's station. This was the key appeal for me when I first read it. SF particularly appealed to me because it could show a time where gender was more something like hair color or curiosity—part of who we are, not all of who we are. I worried about overpopulation (a key issue here) and philosophy when I was Mia's age, and I still do.
Another review claims the novel is dated. I would argue that it is as timely as ever, but if you are looking for an SF novel that reviews how environmental devastation might drive people into generation ships, try Molly Gloss's brilliant SF, The Dazzle of Day, which offers men and women escaping a poisoned planet. That novel focuses on community and the impact of environment from toxic streams to the confine of a generation ship compared to wide open skies. Gloss's characters are all adult. This is no coming-of-age exploration, but people simply seeking to survive.
Clearly time for a reread.
It is excellent every time. I think I would update about fifteen words in the entire book. (The "men on the counsel" for example should be people or counsel members.)
The POV character is female, lives on a generation ship, explores & discovers what it means to be human and to grow and to wrestle with justice and fairness, and I identified with her perfectly the first time I read this novel in about 1972.
Unlike the typical YA novel of today, this novel's 11-14 year old protagonist is not obsessed by clothing or other passing concerns. She is busy thinking. And though popularity is certainly on the drawing board, she is also wrestling with right and wrong, with justice and honor. A lot of people compare the novel to Heinlein, which is understandable since Panshin wrote the book about that author. But there is more going on here than adventure, though there is surely adventure. More than concern about overpopulation, though surely that is a concern. There is irony and satire and philosophy.
One of my favorite passages:
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. In a story, spear carriers never suddenly assert themselves by throwing their spears aside and saying, "I resign. I don't want to be used." They are here to be used, either for atmosphere or as minor obstacles in the path of the hero. 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. I was finding then, that wet, chilly, unhappy night, that I took no joy in seeing other people used and discarded.
The sonnet from Shakespeare that closes the novel says something about endings too. Certainly it comments on the ending of this novel, and perhaps something about its beginning as well both for the individual characters and for ll of Western society.
They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
I have perhaps 20 copies even today. I managed to teach it twice to my students and it received good feedback from nearly all. A Japanese exchange student painted Mia as a gift to me. The painting is a treasure. Almost all the actual covers are wildly inaccurate. Mia Havero (there should be a bit of a clue in the name) describes herself as small and dark, yet covers often show her blue-eyed and blonde. Written at a time when American culture was still pretending that all women wanted was family, it ignores gender as a determining characteristic for a person's station. This was the key appeal for me when I first read it. SF particularly appealed to me because it could show a time where gender was more something like hair color or curiosity—part of who we are, not all of who we are. I worried about overpopulation (a key issue here) and philosophy when I was Mia's age, and I still do.
Another review claims the novel is dated. I would argue that it is as timely as ever, but if you are looking for an SF novel that reviews how environmental devastation might drive people into generation ships, try Molly Gloss's brilliant SF, The Dazzle of Day, which offers men and women escaping a poisoned planet. That novel focuses on community and the impact of environment from toxic streams to the confine of a generation ship compared to wide open skies. Gloss's characters are all adult. This is no coming-of-age exploration, but people simply seeking to survive.
Clearly time for a reread.
February 12, 2011
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.
November 4, 2009
3.5 stars. This is an really good novel (and, amazingly enough, this was Panshin's first novel). It is a classic coming of age story that is very well written, thought-provoking and has very good world-building (I really liked the interplay between the "Ships" and the "colonies"). Unlike some "SF classics" I was never bored with this one and it held my interest throughout. RECOMMENDED!!
Winner: Nebula Award Best Science Fiction Novel
Nominee: Hugo Award Best Science Fiction Novel
Winner: Nebula Award Best Science Fiction Novel
Nominee: Hugo Award Best Science Fiction Novel
December 4, 2010
Alexi and Cory Panshin wrote one of the best histories of early science fiction, The World Beyond the Hill, in 1989. I found the book at a bookstore in Wichita, Ks when I lived there in the early 90's and read it cover-to-cover in one sitting. So it was a surprise to me when I found this neat little book at Indian Path Books a few weeks ago. Needless to say, it ended up in my "To read" pile.
Winner of the 1968 Nebula award, Rite of Passage shows the influence of the dean of American science fiction, Robert Heinlein. I note that Mr. Panshin lives nearby in Quakertown, PA. He also lists Harper Lee as an influence on the novel, which anyone familiar with To Kill a Mockingbird will understand.
The novel follows several years in the life of Mia Havero, who lives on a massive interstellar star ship nearly two hundred years in the future. Obviously there was a huge advancement in technology from the present since the first of the interstellar ships was completed in 2041. Sometime afterwards, a series of wars, brought on by overpopulation, led to the destruction of Earth. Fortunately, a number of other planets outside our solar system had been colonized, so humanity was able to survive. The ship in which Mia lives was made by hollowing out an asteroid. It was built to haul colonists across the galaxy, but the scientists and engineers piloting the ship decided to stay on board after the last colonists were delivered.
Told from the viewpoint an older Mia, the story begins with her moving out of one quadrant of the ship into another at the age of twelve. Her parents having split up, Mia is raised by her father, who has a prominent position in the ship's society. She yearns to be a "synthesist", a person who has accumulated a general, but expansive, amount of knowledge. Her best friend Jimmy, also twelve, wants to be a ordinologist, or classifier of information.
There is one small hurdle they with both have to overcome: The Trial. At age fourteen, after extensive survival training, all children are dropped off the ship at the nearest inhabitable planet. They are expected to survive on their own for one month. At the end of a month, they are picked up. If they manage to survive on their own, the child is now considered an adult and welcomed in the ship's community with all rights and responsibilities. There are no exceptions.
Much of the book leading up to The Trial consists of Mia's recollections of her interactions with other kids and daily life on the ship. She spends a lot of time reading up on ethics at the encouragement of her tutor, Mr. Mbele. She also learns how to ride a horse, since the kids are dropped on primitive planets with them for transportation.
Because of resource limitations, the population of the ship is strictly controlled. Families seldom have more than one or two children. One of the source of disgust is the colonial planets, whom the ship trades information and knowledge with to get needed raw materials. The ship people refer to the colonists as "mudeaters" who practice primitive "free birth". The ship itself has a eugenicists who approves and encourages birthing based on genetic records.
The final test of Mia's class before undergoing The Trial is a tiger hunt. A group of kids are sent out into a wilderness park with their adult survival instructor in pursuit of a full grown tiger. When they do encounter the tiger, they have to kill it using only the knives they carry and whatever rocks can be found. Amazingly, they do it with few injuries. It's Panshin's credit as a writer that he can make this passage so believable.
Mia is finally dropped with her class on a planet known as Tintera. There has been little contact with the planet since it was colonized a 150 years previously. The kids split-up, Mia deciding to spend her month on Trial exploring the planet.
What she encounters is a society similar in technology and organization to what the United States knew at the Civil War. She manages to confront a band of ruffians on horseback before getting bushwhacked. Mia's nursed back to health by an old man named Kutsov who lives alone. She learns enough about the society where she's been dropped to rescue her best friend Jimmy from a territorial prison. They both manage to hide out in the woods until the month has passed and the pick-up ship arrives.
Half of her trial class never make it back to the ship. After hearings are held in the ship's assembly, the citizens decide to punish the inhabitants of Tintera in the worst way possible. I won't spoil the ending of the book for those who want to read it. But I will say the over riding message is how the worst deeds can be justified by the best intentions. Consider Crime and Punishment: it's remarkably simple to justify killing an old woman.
Rite of Passage shows the mark of the time in which it was written. Panshin assumes it would be easy to organize a self-contained society with few internal problems. But this is a minor point. It's a landmark book which needs to be read.
Winner of the 1968 Nebula award, Rite of Passage shows the influence of the dean of American science fiction, Robert Heinlein. I note that Mr. Panshin lives nearby in Quakertown, PA. He also lists Harper Lee as an influence on the novel, which anyone familiar with To Kill a Mockingbird will understand.
The novel follows several years in the life of Mia Havero, who lives on a massive interstellar star ship nearly two hundred years in the future. Obviously there was a huge advancement in technology from the present since the first of the interstellar ships was completed in 2041. Sometime afterwards, a series of wars, brought on by overpopulation, led to the destruction of Earth. Fortunately, a number of other planets outside our solar system had been colonized, so humanity was able to survive. The ship in which Mia lives was made by hollowing out an asteroid. It was built to haul colonists across the galaxy, but the scientists and engineers piloting the ship decided to stay on board after the last colonists were delivered.
Told from the viewpoint an older Mia, the story begins with her moving out of one quadrant of the ship into another at the age of twelve. Her parents having split up, Mia is raised by her father, who has a prominent position in the ship's society. She yearns to be a "synthesist", a person who has accumulated a general, but expansive, amount of knowledge. Her best friend Jimmy, also twelve, wants to be a ordinologist, or classifier of information.
There is one small hurdle they with both have to overcome: The Trial. At age fourteen, after extensive survival training, all children are dropped off the ship at the nearest inhabitable planet. They are expected to survive on their own for one month. At the end of a month, they are picked up. If they manage to survive on their own, the child is now considered an adult and welcomed in the ship's community with all rights and responsibilities. There are no exceptions.
Much of the book leading up to The Trial consists of Mia's recollections of her interactions with other kids and daily life on the ship. She spends a lot of time reading up on ethics at the encouragement of her tutor, Mr. Mbele. She also learns how to ride a horse, since the kids are dropped on primitive planets with them for transportation.
Because of resource limitations, the population of the ship is strictly controlled. Families seldom have more than one or two children. One of the source of disgust is the colonial planets, whom the ship trades information and knowledge with to get needed raw materials. The ship people refer to the colonists as "mudeaters" who practice primitive "free birth". The ship itself has a eugenicists who approves and encourages birthing based on genetic records.
The final test of Mia's class before undergoing The Trial is a tiger hunt. A group of kids are sent out into a wilderness park with their adult survival instructor in pursuit of a full grown tiger. When they do encounter the tiger, they have to kill it using only the knives they carry and whatever rocks can be found. Amazingly, they do it with few injuries. It's Panshin's credit as a writer that he can make this passage so believable.
Mia is finally dropped with her class on a planet known as Tintera. There has been little contact with the planet since it was colonized a 150 years previously. The kids split-up, Mia deciding to spend her month on Trial exploring the planet.
What she encounters is a society similar in technology and organization to what the United States knew at the Civil War. She manages to confront a band of ruffians on horseback before getting bushwhacked. Mia's nursed back to health by an old man named Kutsov who lives alone. She learns enough about the society where she's been dropped to rescue her best friend Jimmy from a territorial prison. They both manage to hide out in the woods until the month has passed and the pick-up ship arrives.
Half of her trial class never make it back to the ship. After hearings are held in the ship's assembly, the citizens decide to punish the inhabitants of Tintera in the worst way possible. I won't spoil the ending of the book for those who want to read it. But I will say the over riding message is how the worst deeds can be justified by the best intentions. Consider Crime and Punishment: it's remarkably simple to justify killing an old woman.
Rite of Passage shows the mark of the time in which it was written. Panshin assumes it would be easy to organize a self-contained society with few internal problems. But this is a minor point. It's a landmark book which needs to be read.
August 16, 2021
"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."
A fine coming-of-age novel that is still relevant today.
This was Panshin's first published novel and my introduction to his work. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1968 and was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best novel in 1969 (losing to Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar; Delany's Nova was nominated this same year too). And now I can see why.
There's something very fascinating for me in the anthropological and psychological aspects of living in spaceships, or any other man-made space structures for that matter (e.g., space stations, merchants). I've read about this before in novels by Heinlein, Silverberg, Delany, Cherryh, just to name a few, and the bottom line is that a new culture will emerge and with it a new set of rules that will favor sustainability. I think Panshin did a great job with the world building and depicting the life of a little girl living under this context, waiting for the Trial to come. They don't just send 14-year-old kids to die in a colony planet, they receive actual training in Survival Class, but despite that, the mortality rate is fairly high. As cruel as it may sound the Trial has a purpose: ensure that those who survive are skilled enough to contribute.
It was really fun and thought-provoking to experience the character's evolution through a series of events and little adventures that end up broadening her world and growing her confidence and moral not only towards her own people but towards the colonists as well. The other major aspect of the book is related to the differences between the ship people and the colonists (derogatorily known as "Mudeaters"). A lot of different subjecs are discussed throughout the book: ethics, philosophy, slavery. Solid story, beautiful book.
A fine coming-of-age novel that is still relevant today.
This was Panshin's first published novel and my introduction to his work. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1968 and was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best novel in 1969 (losing to Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar; Delany's Nova was nominated this same year too). And now I can see why.
There's something very fascinating for me in the anthropological and psychological aspects of living in spaceships, or any other man-made space structures for that matter (e.g., space stations, merchants). I've read about this before in novels by Heinlein, Silverberg, Delany, Cherryh, just to name a few, and the bottom line is that a new culture will emerge and with it a new set of rules that will favor sustainability. I think Panshin did a great job with the world building and depicting the life of a little girl living under this context, waiting for the Trial to come. They don't just send 14-year-old kids to die in a colony planet, they receive actual training in Survival Class, but despite that, the mortality rate is fairly high. As cruel as it may sound the Trial has a purpose: ensure that those who survive are skilled enough to contribute.
It was really fun and thought-provoking to experience the character's evolution through a series of events and little adventures that end up broadening her world and growing her confidence and moral not only towards her own people but towards the colonists as well. The other major aspect of the book is related to the differences between the ship people and the colonists (derogatorily known as "Mudeaters"). A lot of different subjecs are discussed throughout the book: ethics, philosophy, slavery. Solid story, beautiful book.
August 18, 2024
I read Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage again. For some reason, this story is very close to my heart. It's a story of a young girl, Mia, living in a floating spaceship, facing the Trial of her society. This Trial is the mark of adulthood in their community of thirty thousand, their 'Rite of Passage'.
The story began with Mia's little joys and frustrations. And behind that, she had her fears and prejudices. I always love 'coming of age' stories. Usually I just enjoy reading about the growing potential of a young man. But as the story goes on, Rite of Passage becomes much broader than an ordinary coming of age story. I mean broader in the intellectual sense rather than things like epic action with is usually expected of sci-fi stories.
Mia's growth is a course of continuing discarding her own previous convictions and embracing new. At first She had plenty of reasons to dispise other kids. She gradually came to having peace with this sort of unpleasantness. Likewise, she and other Ship people had plenty of reasons to dispise Planet people. But obviously people as a group comes to a change much slower than an individual does. As an individual, Mia came to her own conclusion of how to deal with planet people. I read with enormous joy about how she became more and more open-minded. All that was required is that she had a vigorous spirit and was naturally compassionate.
I have to say that this change of previous beliefs and gradually opening up the mind is the center of growing up, at least that's how I have felt. I can't think of any other fiction that deals with this theme so well. Appearing in sci-fi form gives the story a sense of neutrality, not siding up with anything now in this world. That's one of the advantages sci-fi as a form can provide, which writers should utilize more.
I even love one of the minor implications of the story. It is implied that living self-content like those in the Ship do, without feeling attatched to their primitive Planet people, the society seems to be going nowhere. Creative activities such as writing a novel, or creating art ceases to happen.
The author Alexei Panshin has put his 'making of' this novel on his website Abyss of Wonder. It largely concerns with how he was fancinated by sci-fi because of Robert Heinlein's early work. And later Panshin had serious problems with them. Panshin says in 'Robert Heinlein and Rite of Passage' that as a child he read Heinlein and was led to the question, 'can it be that the present human culture is still in its adolescence phase? do the grown-ups still need to grow up?'. Later he found the answer to those questions is yes as he encountered the problems with Heinlein's work.
The problems Panshin met was that though the West has plenty of reasons to dispise and feel threatened by the Communists, do they have the right o distroy them by atomic bombs? It's very like Ship and Planet relationship in Rite of Passage. And in RoP, Panshin made his points more eloquently than I can put here in a review.
The story began with Mia's little joys and frustrations. And behind that, she had her fears and prejudices. I always love 'coming of age' stories. Usually I just enjoy reading about the growing potential of a young man. But as the story goes on, Rite of Passage becomes much broader than an ordinary coming of age story. I mean broader in the intellectual sense rather than things like epic action with is usually expected of sci-fi stories.
Mia's growth is a course of continuing discarding her own previous convictions and embracing new. At first She had plenty of reasons to dispise other kids. She gradually came to having peace with this sort of unpleasantness. Likewise, she and other Ship people had plenty of reasons to dispise Planet people. But obviously people as a group comes to a change much slower than an individual does. As an individual, Mia came to her own conclusion of how to deal with planet people. I read with enormous joy about how she became more and more open-minded. All that was required is that she had a vigorous spirit and was naturally compassionate.
I have to say that this change of previous beliefs and gradually opening up the mind is the center of growing up, at least that's how I have felt. I can't think of any other fiction that deals with this theme so well. Appearing in sci-fi form gives the story a sense of neutrality, not siding up with anything now in this world. That's one of the advantages sci-fi as a form can provide, which writers should utilize more.
I even love one of the minor implications of the story. It is implied that living self-content like those in the Ship do, without feeling attatched to their primitive Planet people, the society seems to be going nowhere. Creative activities such as writing a novel, or creating art ceases to happen.
The author Alexei Panshin has put his 'making of' this novel on his website Abyss of Wonder. It largely concerns with how he was fancinated by sci-fi because of Robert Heinlein's early work. And later Panshin had serious problems with them. Panshin says in 'Robert Heinlein and Rite of Passage' that as a child he read Heinlein and was led to the question, 'can it be that the present human culture is still in its adolescence phase? do the grown-ups still need to grow up?'. Later he found the answer to those questions is yes as he encountered the problems with Heinlein's work.
The problems Panshin met was that though the West has plenty of reasons to dispise and feel threatened by the Communists, do they have the right o distroy them by atomic bombs? It's very like Ship and Planet relationship in Rite of Passage. And in RoP, Panshin made his points more eloquently than I can put here in a review.
Maturity consists of the ability to sort out portions of truth from accepted lies and self-deceptions that you are grown up with. If you never made the effort, whatever you are, you are not mature.
August 3, 2018
Panshin's novel coming of age science fiction novel won the Nebula and was a close second for the Hugo. It is one of my all-time favorites and I have read it many times, including reading it aloud to my sons when they were children. I just read it again and find it highly relevant.
Here is a tiny slice of why I love this book, and why I grieve each time I read it: "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. . . . No death should be like nose blowing. Death is important enough that it should affect the person who causes it."
At the beginning, Mia Havero is 12, smart, curious, but afraid of change, and in fear she is hostile to difference. She lives on a former generation ship that has been converted to use by the descendants of the scientists and other intellectual elites who escaped Earth and carried people to populates planets.
Generations after Earth is destroyed by war and overpopulation, the Ship society requires all children to pass a literal rite of passage—at age 14 all children, including Mia, are dumped on a strange planet, alone, and with limited resources. If she survives 30 days to set off her beacon, she's a citizen. If not, no one will come looking for her. That's the plot. But she's studying ethics, reasoning through her prejudices, and trying to understand what matters in life. Initially, Mia is narrow in her thinking, but gradually she comes to understand to care about and respect other people. (Roger Zelazny's blurb calls the main character "at that age when girls are most beautiful and pathetic." His words say nothing useful about the novel, but perhaps something unpleasant about Zelazny. Despite the author's unfortunate lack of notable secondary female characters, Mia herself is never pathetic and is a fully *human* being.)
I recognized myself in this story when I first read it as a teenager between terms at the UW. Since then I've read it 8 or 10 times, maybe, and even taught it. I still love it. Overpopulation is a major issue and the trigger for Mia’s circumstances, but social justice and fear of the"other" make it an excellent study as we grow beyond 8 billion people on this planet, more than double what it was when I read it the first time, and nearly the number Panshin cites as the trigger of our planet's destruction.
[There are many covers. The one above is my favorite because it is the cover from my first reading. However, it should be obvious from her name, not to mention her description on the first page, that Mia Havero is dark-skinned with black hair and eyes, while most illustrations give her green or blue eyes and often blond hair. I used the various editions as a dramatic demonstration of the inaccuracy of cover illustrations.]
At one time I owned 30 copies of the novel. At least two of my former students teach this novel themselves and I wonder if they are rediscovering the wisdom of this story as we face a world increasingly divided between those who have and those they fear..
Here is a tiny slice of why I love this book, and why I grieve each time I read it: "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. . . . No death should be like nose blowing. Death is important enough that it should affect the person who causes it."
At the beginning, Mia Havero is 12, smart, curious, but afraid of change, and in fear she is hostile to difference. She lives on a former generation ship that has been converted to use by the descendants of the scientists and other intellectual elites who escaped Earth and carried people to populates planets.
Generations after Earth is destroyed by war and overpopulation, the Ship society requires all children to pass a literal rite of passage—at age 14 all children, including Mia, are dumped on a strange planet, alone, and with limited resources. If she survives 30 days to set off her beacon, she's a citizen. If not, no one will come looking for her. That's the plot. But she's studying ethics, reasoning through her prejudices, and trying to understand what matters in life. Initially, Mia is narrow in her thinking, but gradually she comes to understand to care about and respect other people. (Roger Zelazny's blurb calls the main character "at that age when girls are most beautiful and pathetic." His words say nothing useful about the novel, but perhaps something unpleasant about Zelazny. Despite the author's unfortunate lack of notable secondary female characters, Mia herself is never pathetic and is a fully *human* being.)
I recognized myself in this story when I first read it as a teenager between terms at the UW. Since then I've read it 8 or 10 times, maybe, and even taught it. I still love it. Overpopulation is a major issue and the trigger for Mia’s circumstances, but social justice and fear of the"other" make it an excellent study as we grow beyond 8 billion people on this planet, more than double what it was when I read it the first time, and nearly the number Panshin cites as the trigger of our planet's destruction.
[There are many covers. The one above is my favorite because it is the cover from my first reading. However, it should be obvious from her name, not to mention her description on the first page, that Mia Havero is dark-skinned with black hair and eyes, while most illustrations give her green or blue eyes and often blond hair. I used the various editions as a dramatic demonstration of the inaccuracy of cover illustrations.]
At one time I owned 30 copies of the novel. At least two of my former students teach this novel themselves and I wonder if they are rediscovering the wisdom of this story as we face a world increasingly divided between those who have and those they fear..
March 22, 2012
The first half of this novel is almost unreadable, the narrator a stultifying caricature barely recognizable as a young human, let alone a young human woman. Panshin flinches from even the mildest boundaries in imagining the life of a girl at puberty; his one-sentence glossing over the subject of menstruation brought eye-rolling and disappointed laughs from all the real live women I asked for an opinion.
The second half of the novel is far more interesting and sensitively wrought, a tale of first love and hard adventure that leads into profound moral discussion and a staggering injustice. I found the ending unforgettable, and am damned glad I didn't give in to the impulse to throw the book across the room while still mired in its early chapters.
The second half of the novel is far more interesting and sensitively wrought, a tale of first love and hard adventure that leads into profound moral discussion and a staggering injustice. I found the ending unforgettable, and am damned glad I didn't give in to the impulse to throw the book across the room while still mired in its early chapters.
December 17, 2015
I enjoyed the first two parts of this book, especially the discussions on population and power ethics and the bartering of technology, however the third part - The trial – was a disappointment. 2 ½ stars
April 25, 2011
Spoiler Alert!
Rite of Passage is an easy book to pigeon-hole as a "coming of age" novel, but to do so would be a mistake and a disservice to this excellent little science fiction novel that steps beyond the genre.
The book is written first person past through the eyes of the central character, Mia Havero, looking back at herself from the ages of twelve through fourteen. She is the daughter of the elected leader of a group of scientists and engineers who live on a spaceship at the end of the twenty-second century.
Through internal strife, Earth has essentially destroyed itself. The ships were created to ferry passengers from Earth to new worlds that they might colonize to continue the existence of humanity. But the ships' leaders have made a conscious decision to separate themselves - and their knowledge and expertise - from the farmers who are actually carving out the new worlds. These elitists decided that the knowledge they possess would be useless on worlds barely hanging on for survival, that the knowledge would be lost if they joined in that fight for survival, so they stay on their ships and merely trade bits of knowledge to the farmers ("Mudeaters" they are called) for supplies.
Mia herself, after being separated from her parents for years, recently left the common dormitories to live with her father. She is a precarious character at the beginning, having suffered from her separation, nervous to a fault around others, and easily frightened. At the beginning of the novel, her father is moving them to a different part of the ship and she is losing her tenuous hold on security.
But she begins her new existence by being teamed with a boy named Jimmy Dermently, precocious and just a few months older. They are assigned a tutor who is very old and who has been an opponent of Mia's father. He teaches them to think outside the box and they both jump at the chance. Their major line of study becomes ethics and that leads to the central crisis of the novel.
How nice it is to have an entire novel based around a major ethical crisis.
During the next two years Mia and Jimmy educate themselves and prepare for the Trial that they must endure when they turn fourteen years old. The Trial is a survival ordeal that all juveniles on the ship must undergo to reach adulthood. They are dropped individually onto a planet's surface, supplied with a horse, a gun, a knife and a tent and they must survive for thirty days until they are picked up. Many do not survive the "savagery" of the Mudeaters.
As Mia gains confidence through her survival training, she also studies the great philosophies of Earth’s past, picking each one apart, finding things that she can relate to and ideas that she must outright reject. She is forced to think and to make a major decision that will separate her from her family permanently. It is this part of the novel that it seems many critics completely ignore. But Panshin had some big ideas when he wrote this book and I think it is important that I share at least some of Mia’s thoughts:
“I’ve always resented the word maturity, primarily, I think, because it is most often used as a club. If you do something that someone doesn’t like, you lack maturity, regardless of the actual merits of your action. Too, it seems to me that what is most often called maturity is nothing more than disengagement from life [my emphasis]. 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.”
To readers more accustomed to slam-bang action (which is, I think, a major pitfall in the writing of science fiction), this book may appear slow and way too thoughtful for them. What is mature deliberation is mistaken for plodding and a reader can miss all of the salient points that the novel is meticulously honing.
When a novel wins the coveted Nebula Award and is nominated for the Hugo, it usually means there is something very, very good about the book. I have now had the opportunity to read many reviews of this novel and most of them are frankly superficial and miss the point of the novel. But this is a fine little book, filled with the inner life of a fully realized character struggling to attain confidence and finding it at the point of a knife called ethics.
(As a side note, I read the Timscape paperback by Pocket Books, March 1982, with a terrific cover painting by acclaimed illustrator Rowena Morrill. It captures the absolute essence of Miva Havero, especially in the eyes and the wary set of her face. Great cover art can really help a book to come alive!)
As I said at the beginning of this review, it is a mistake to pigeon-hole this book. It is a much larger and more challenging novel. I strongly recommend Rite of Passage, not just to science fiction readers, but to the general reading audience.
Rite of Passage is an easy book to pigeon-hole as a "coming of age" novel, but to do so would be a mistake and a disservice to this excellent little science fiction novel that steps beyond the genre.
The book is written first person past through the eyes of the central character, Mia Havero, looking back at herself from the ages of twelve through fourteen. She is the daughter of the elected leader of a group of scientists and engineers who live on a spaceship at the end of the twenty-second century.
Through internal strife, Earth has essentially destroyed itself. The ships were created to ferry passengers from Earth to new worlds that they might colonize to continue the existence of humanity. But the ships' leaders have made a conscious decision to separate themselves - and their knowledge and expertise - from the farmers who are actually carving out the new worlds. These elitists decided that the knowledge they possess would be useless on worlds barely hanging on for survival, that the knowledge would be lost if they joined in that fight for survival, so they stay on their ships and merely trade bits of knowledge to the farmers ("Mudeaters" they are called) for supplies.
Mia herself, after being separated from her parents for years, recently left the common dormitories to live with her father. She is a precarious character at the beginning, having suffered from her separation, nervous to a fault around others, and easily frightened. At the beginning of the novel, her father is moving them to a different part of the ship and she is losing her tenuous hold on security.
But she begins her new existence by being teamed with a boy named Jimmy Dermently, precocious and just a few months older. They are assigned a tutor who is very old and who has been an opponent of Mia's father. He teaches them to think outside the box and they both jump at the chance. Their major line of study becomes ethics and that leads to the central crisis of the novel.
How nice it is to have an entire novel based around a major ethical crisis.
During the next two years Mia and Jimmy educate themselves and prepare for the Trial that they must endure when they turn fourteen years old. The Trial is a survival ordeal that all juveniles on the ship must undergo to reach adulthood. They are dropped individually onto a planet's surface, supplied with a horse, a gun, a knife and a tent and they must survive for thirty days until they are picked up. Many do not survive the "savagery" of the Mudeaters.
As Mia gains confidence through her survival training, she also studies the great philosophies of Earth’s past, picking each one apart, finding things that she can relate to and ideas that she must outright reject. She is forced to think and to make a major decision that will separate her from her family permanently. It is this part of the novel that it seems many critics completely ignore. But Panshin had some big ideas when he wrote this book and I think it is important that I share at least some of Mia’s thoughts:
“I’ve always resented the word maturity, primarily, I think, because it is most often used as a club. If you do something that someone doesn’t like, you lack maturity, regardless of the actual merits of your action. Too, it seems to me that what is most often called maturity is nothing more than disengagement from life [my emphasis]. 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.”
To readers more accustomed to slam-bang action (which is, I think, a major pitfall in the writing of science fiction), this book may appear slow and way too thoughtful for them. What is mature deliberation is mistaken for plodding and a reader can miss all of the salient points that the novel is meticulously honing.
When a novel wins the coveted Nebula Award and is nominated for the Hugo, it usually means there is something very, very good about the book. I have now had the opportunity to read many reviews of this novel and most of them are frankly superficial and miss the point of the novel. But this is a fine little book, filled with the inner life of a fully realized character struggling to attain confidence and finding it at the point of a knife called ethics.
(As a side note, I read the Timscape paperback by Pocket Books, March 1982, with a terrific cover painting by acclaimed illustrator Rowena Morrill. It captures the absolute essence of Miva Havero, especially in the eyes and the wary set of her face. Great cover art can really help a book to come alive!)
As I said at the beginning of this review, it is a mistake to pigeon-hole this book. It is a much larger and more challenging novel. I strongly recommend Rite of Passage, not just to science fiction readers, but to the general reading audience.
February 8, 2015
At its core Rite of Passage is a classic coming of age tale. Alex Panshin writes with warmth and pace, and he crafts a story with depth that sets this book apart from many other young adult SFs. It is no surprise that Rite of Passage took home the Nebula. 4/5
I couldn’t help but write down some thoughts I had while reading Rite of Passage.
Trial, the practice of marooning 14 year olds on alien and unfamiliar worlds for 30 days came off as absurd to me. The ritual just doesn’t mix with the sophisticated nature in which shipboard society was portrayed. Every adult’s adolescence would have been traumatized by the loss of several classmates or friends. Too many parents would suffer the ultimate loss. A ship governed democratically by citizens who were also parents would never allow such a practice to continue. Panshin should have made deaths seem like an uncommon occurrence. This additionally would have added weight to Mia’s Trial group’s disastrous experiences.
A safer version of the Trial ritual is practiced right here in the wealthy and powerful space ship called the United States. For decades, possibly starting around the late 60’s when this book was written, a common Rite of Passage for American youth has been travelling to foreign lands. The travellers are looking for adventures, fun times, new perspectives, new faces and perhaps a touch of danger and the unknown. Collectively, these experiences probably do our society a lot of good.
This allegory of Developed Society as the ship and Developing societies as the colonists becomes more interesting still when it is carried through to Rite of Passage’s conclusion. At the end of the book two political factions disagree about how the colonist’s unprovoked violence against Mia’s trial group should be addressed. One side argues that the total destruction of the planet is the only way to contain dangerous ideas that have festered there such as uncontrolled population growth, slavery and possible plots to attack the ship directly. They warn that this path is what ended Earth and pushed human civilization to the brink. The opposing coalition argues that every attempt should be made to reeducate and inform the colonists and that the carefully guarded knowledge and technology in the ship should be freely distributed for the good of all.
In my opinion, Mia’s father seemed much too reasonable early in the book to become Darth Vader at its end. I can only explain the drastic approach in two ways. Either this was to spice up the conclusion in the minds of young readers, or Panshin had a similar allegory in mind and really wanted to drive home how much evil occurs on our behalf in the developing world – we might as well be piloting the Death Star ourselves.
Drastic approaches aside, the exposition of the ship’s moral dilemma at the conclusion of the book was excellent. It tied up everything from Mia’s morality essay to her move across the ship to her experiences on Trial. Is the protection of what we deem to be sophisticated knowledge worth the blood and suffering of the masses? As someone who is paid to study physics in a gleaming white tower, this is a question worth grappling with on a personal level.
There were so many other things I liked in this book. The spear carrier and the storytelling. Mia’s Hell on Wheels attitude, her self awareness, and the development of her character. I was impressed by how well this book has aged since the late 60’s (I assumed it was from the late 80’s while reading it, for no particular reason). I liked that the ship’s government reminded me of Alastair Reynold’s Demarchists (Reynolds of course doesn’t claim to have invented this idea, but his books introduced it to me).
Overall, a Rite of Passage is a wonderful coming of age story that is worth your time and thoughts. If you know any young teens who like reading, get them a copy of this and assign them the task of writing a comparison between this and The Hunger Games or Divergent. At least, that’s what I’m planning to do to my 13 year old sister!
I couldn’t help but write down some thoughts I had while reading Rite of Passage.
Trial, the practice of marooning 14 year olds on alien and unfamiliar worlds for 30 days came off as absurd to me. The ritual just doesn’t mix with the sophisticated nature in which shipboard society was portrayed. Every adult’s adolescence would have been traumatized by the loss of several classmates or friends. Too many parents would suffer the ultimate loss. A ship governed democratically by citizens who were also parents would never allow such a practice to continue. Panshin should have made deaths seem like an uncommon occurrence. This additionally would have added weight to Mia’s Trial group’s disastrous experiences.
A safer version of the Trial ritual is practiced right here in the wealthy and powerful space ship called the United States. For decades, possibly starting around the late 60’s when this book was written, a common Rite of Passage for American youth has been travelling to foreign lands. The travellers are looking for adventures, fun times, new perspectives, new faces and perhaps a touch of danger and the unknown. Collectively, these experiences probably do our society a lot of good.
This allegory of Developed Society as the ship and Developing societies as the colonists becomes more interesting still when it is carried through to Rite of Passage’s conclusion. At the end of the book two political factions disagree about how the colonist’s unprovoked violence against Mia’s trial group should be addressed. One side argues that the total destruction of the planet is the only way to contain dangerous ideas that have festered there such as uncontrolled population growth, slavery and possible plots to attack the ship directly. They warn that this path is what ended Earth and pushed human civilization to the brink. The opposing coalition argues that every attempt should be made to reeducate and inform the colonists and that the carefully guarded knowledge and technology in the ship should be freely distributed for the good of all.
In my opinion, Mia’s father seemed much too reasonable early in the book to become Darth Vader at its end. I can only explain the drastic approach in two ways. Either this was to spice up the conclusion in the minds of young readers, or Panshin had a similar allegory in mind and really wanted to drive home how much evil occurs on our behalf in the developing world – we might as well be piloting the Death Star ourselves.
Drastic approaches aside, the exposition of the ship’s moral dilemma at the conclusion of the book was excellent. It tied up everything from Mia’s morality essay to her move across the ship to her experiences on Trial. Is the protection of what we deem to be sophisticated knowledge worth the blood and suffering of the masses? As someone who is paid to study physics in a gleaming white tower, this is a question worth grappling with on a personal level.
There were so many other things I liked in this book. The spear carrier and the storytelling. Mia’s Hell on Wheels attitude, her self awareness, and the development of her character. I was impressed by how well this book has aged since the late 60’s (I assumed it was from the late 80’s while reading it, for no particular reason). I liked that the ship’s government reminded me of Alastair Reynold’s Demarchists (Reynolds of course doesn’t claim to have invented this idea, but his books introduced it to me).
Overall, a Rite of Passage is a wonderful coming of age story that is worth your time and thoughts. If you know any young teens who like reading, get them a copy of this and assign them the task of writing a comparison between this and The Hunger Games or Divergent. At least, that’s what I’m planning to do to my 13 year old sister!
August 5, 2022
If you grew up in the 80s, you might fondly remember a genre of science fiction books that your school library had, ones that had been specifically written for kids. I'm not sure if Panshin wrote this as a "juvenile" sci-fi novel, but it reads like one with its direct, simple story and adolescent musings.
The best part of these kinds of stories, which seem to have been written overwhelmingly in the late 60s and into the 70s (pre-"young adult", oh, how that term makes me shudder!), is that they're usually told from the kid's perspective, not an easy thing to pull off. Now, Panshin, who I don't think was at the time a 14-year old girl living in an asteroid space-ship after the Earth has been destroyed, is good at this kind of writing, counter-intuitively so, which makes this a nice little scifi gem.
The skinny: Mia lives in an asteroid space-ship after the Earth has been destroyed, with her dad, a kind of asteroid congressman. Her mom is absent, since the family has basically been ruled as inefficient. There is a Ship Eugenist who gets people together to fuck and have kids. The wake of the cataclysm has certainly shifted societal parameters. So much so that when you turn 14 you get dropped on a wild planet and have to survive a month before you can become an adult. Mia's story is about the years leading up to her Trial, her friends, her teachers, boys, shitty girls, and being kind of a shit herself. Once she gets dumped on a world for her Trial shit starts to hit the fan pretty quick.
Surprisingly ethical and thoughtful, there's a classic story of ideas and peoples at loggerheads, even young versus old, and so on, made a lot more fun through its simple narrative and Mia's often hilarious bitching about this supposed future utopia.
The best part of these kinds of stories, which seem to have been written overwhelmingly in the late 60s and into the 70s (pre-"young adult", oh, how that term makes me shudder!), is that they're usually told from the kid's perspective, not an easy thing to pull off. Now, Panshin, who I don't think was at the time a 14-year old girl living in an asteroid space-ship after the Earth has been destroyed, is good at this kind of writing, counter-intuitively so, which makes this a nice little scifi gem.
The skinny: Mia lives in an asteroid space-ship after the Earth has been destroyed, with her dad, a kind of asteroid congressman. Her mom is absent, since the family has basically been ruled as inefficient. There is a Ship Eugenist who gets people together to fuck and have kids. The wake of the cataclysm has certainly shifted societal parameters. So much so that when you turn 14 you get dropped on a wild planet and have to survive a month before you can become an adult. Mia's story is about the years leading up to her Trial, her friends, her teachers, boys, shitty girls, and being kind of a shit herself. Once she gets dumped on a world for her Trial shit starts to hit the fan pretty quick.
Surprisingly ethical and thoughtful, there's a classic story of ideas and peoples at loggerheads, even young versus old, and so on, made a lot more fun through its simple narrative and Mia's often hilarious bitching about this supposed future utopia.
September 8, 2021
Re-read from decades ago. In fact my paperback copy is falling apart.
A great coming of age sci-fi novel that has some similarities to the Hunger Games premise.
I did like Mia, the teenage protagonist, who reminded me of Katniss. I also think the powers of these children were a bit excessive or unrealistic (relative to the adults on the planets) which is also reminiscent of Hunger Games.
I really like the notion of a spaceship flying around for centuries and using various primitive planets to forcibly provide them resources.
4.5 stars
A great coming of age sci-fi novel that has some similarities to the Hunger Games premise.
I did like Mia, the teenage protagonist, who reminded me of Katniss. I also think the powers of these children were a bit excessive or unrealistic (relative to the adults on the planets) which is also reminiscent of Hunger Games.
I really like the notion of a spaceship flying around for centuries and using various primitive planets to forcibly provide them resources.
4.5 stars
September 3, 2007
Dated SF published in 1968. It's one of those books that's entertaining in how it reflects its own time more than the future it's describing, though with a few surprises, including a disturbing ending. It's a bit over-explanatory and preachy, but a good adventure most of the time. (November 19, 2006)
November 12, 2017
An allegory about what it takes to become an adult: decisions, challenges, events, understanding different situations. As I see it, this story had a big influence on Ender's Game and The Hunger Games.
December 13, 2024
A scifi book from the 60s, with a young black girl as protagonist, written by a white dude from the US, that isn’t terrible? And also isn’t praised and listed on all the reading lists everywhere? Reading this book was a big surprise, I have to say.
This book is a take on generation ships that not only pays attention to society on the ship (which I think basically all generation ship stories set out to do), but also economics, and how the ship relates to non-ship space (and hot damn colonialism on a bicycle, it’s not pretty). The protagonist is proactive, very very flawed in a way that works with her being, y’know, a 14-year-old girl born to influential parents, but *also* not stupid.
Granted, the story has limited depth in the end – it *is* a coming-of-age story, but I thought things felt very alive and well-handled. And, what’s more, the ending! Oh my, the ending. When the subject of the climax became clear, I was very afraid it’d be tacky or moralising or cheap, and it was none of that. Really glad I read this book.
This book is a take on generation ships that not only pays attention to society on the ship (which I think basically all generation ship stories set out to do), but also economics, and how the ship relates to non-ship space (and hot damn colonialism on a bicycle, it’s not pretty). The protagonist is proactive, very very flawed in a way that works with her being, y’know, a 14-year-old girl born to influential parents, but *also* not stupid.
Granted, the story has limited depth in the end – it *is* a coming-of-age story, but I thought things felt very alive and well-handled. And, what’s more, the ending! Oh my, the ending. When the subject of the climax became clear, I was very afraid it’d be tacky or moralising or cheap, and it was none of that. Really glad I read this book.
October 7, 2022
Novela singular, en un principio casi no parece de ciencia ficción, sino fuera porque el mundo de Mia Havero es una gran nave en forma de roca que vaga por la galaxia. De niña a adulta, Mia nos relata los cambios en su vida, sus nuevos amigos, enemigos, primeros novios, etc, todo ello a la sombra del rito que todo joven de catorce años en la Nave debe obligatoriamente cumplir: sobrevivir un mes en un planeta colonia.
Bien escrito, las aventuras de Mia pueden parecer juveniles pero tienen un fondo ético y moral interesante, además que describe un conflicto sobre la herencia humana para nada improbable.
Si lo encuentran, léanlo, les gustará.
Bien escrito, las aventuras de Mia pueden parecer juveniles pero tienen un fondo ético y moral interesante, además que describe un conflicto sobre la herencia humana para nada improbable.
Si lo encuentran, léanlo, les gustará.
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January 21, 2021Jasno mi je zašto je Panshin dobio Nebulu pored Laffertyja i Brunnera i jasno mi je zašto danas gotovo nitko ne zna za ovaj roman.
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