Subject: Review of "China Mountain Zhang" by Maureen F. McHugh

From: [email-masked] (P. Douglas Reeder)
Date: 14 Jun 93 23:18:29 GMT

Review of "China Mountain Zhang" by Maureen F. McHugh
review copyright 1993 by P. Douglas Reeder

     In the future of this novel, Communist China is the
dominant world power. Zheng Zhong Shan is an American
homosexual engineer whose mother is Hispanic.  He struggles
to find a place in a world where he must hide both his
sexuality and his ancestry.
     There is little in the way of a plot and the narrative
switches every twenty pages or so from Zhang to other
viewpoint characters who interact only peripherally with
him.  Each of the other characters faces some problem
(unrelated to Zhang's), which is resolved by their final
sections and well before the end of the novel.  Their
narratives broaden the picture of the society, but fragment
Zhang's story.  Zhang is a very minor character in their
stories, which I found most disconcerting, as was trying to
remember who was what after hiatuses of many pages.
     McHugh unfortunately leaves the explanation of how this
unexpected society came about until near the end, since the
background is more plausible than it may at first seem.
     There are several science-fictive elements: direct
brain-computer interfaces, Mars colonies, and towering
latticework cities, but thematicaly the novel is less SF
than East-meets-West, with China of a decade past projected
onto America of two centuries hence.
     The characters are well drawn and the events of the
novel very realistic, natural, and believable, but I found
it difficult to identify with them, perhaps because their
problems would not occur (at least to the extent they do) in
our society.  They accept their society as a fact of life
and don't consider that it might be different, which is a
common theme in science fiction and one which many readers
will have in their minds.  Economic collapse followed by
revolution and the rejection of capitalism is not
implausible, but that the U.S. would emulate modern-day
China is much, much less so.  I would find her society much
more believable if it was set far in the future on some
other planet, and did not require the reader to swallow a
total reversal of current trends.  Future societies which do
not believe in our current values of freedom and tolerance
can be fertile ground for fiction, but identifying one with
our near future makes it very difficult to accept.
     The minimal plot and storyline fragmentation will cause
many readers problems.  If the material was re-arranged as a
collection of short stories with Zhang's novella coming
last, it might allow readers to follow it more easily.  If
the aforementioned elements do not throw you, you may find
this an interesting read.

%A Maureen F. McHugh
%T China Mountain Zhang
%I Tom Doherty Associates
%C New York, NY
%D copyright 1992
%G ISBN 0-812-50892-0
%P 312
%K SF, China
%O paperback $3.99

--
Doug Reeder                              Internet: [email-masked]
Div, Grad & Curl                         USENET:   ...!tektronix!reed!reeder
programming & derivative work 
I am actively seeking scientific programming contracts.