Mission Child

Author - Maureen F. McHugh ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Eos was reviewed on 14-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:0380974568 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Mission Child Reference Book. Classifications : General AAS United States World Literature Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Contemporary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books McHugh, Maureen F. ( M ) Authors, A-Z Science Fiction & Fantasy Subjects . Click the following link to view the cover of Mission Child.

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1) Hardcover Book Mission Child by Eos. I come away from this book with a firm conviction that Maureen F. McHugh is an excellent writer. Her novels aren´t overbrimming with heartstopping action, but she weaves delicate stories with intricate character and world development. I opened this novel expecting a slow-moving, dense story, instead, sentence by sentence kept me reading late into the night; I absolutely had to know what happened to Janna.

Janna is a teenager on a snowy colony world, growing up on an "appropriate technology mission," where offworld technology is carefully restricted as not to threaten the natural economic development of the world. Yet as all good intentions, the half-hearted involvement of the offworlders only brings the worst of modern griefs to the natives - weapons, war, displacement, plague, without any of the modern benefits. Janna is caught in the middle of all that, from bandit raids, to war, to starvation during a long flight through the snow, to refugee camps. Through it all, her identity slowly matures, from a young naive girl into.. not quite a woman.

The ending felt rather abrupt, although not quite as jarring as in "Nekropolis," and not unsatisfying. The novel just ends, rather than wraps up, but the decisions Janna makes in the end show how far she´s come. I recommend this book to those who are willing to give up some thrills & excitement in return for fine prose and simply a quality literary work. Personally, I liked it a lot and wish I´d read it sooner.¤

2) Hardcover Book Mission Child by Eos. I think very highly of Maureen F. McHugh as a short story writer: i liked almost all the stories in "Mothers and Other Monsters" and particularly admired her writing style: a bit like Ursula K. LeGuin in that respect. However, the plot of this novel - the first I´ve read by her - was so uninvolving I couldn´t finish it. Mainly this is the fault of the main character: it took me a long time to realize that she never figures anything out. In particular, she was brought up in a primitive religion on an alien planet and will never decide there´s nothing to the religion, even though she sees the benefits of modern science in frequent meetings with Earth people (or off-worlders, as they are called). She has been given three implants by her original teacher from Earth, one a distress signal to call the off-worlders, a second that allows her to hibernate if caught outside on the cold world she inhabits, and a third that will supposedly allow her to move very quickly in an emergency. I never saw the third implant used in the 60% of the book I read -- odd, that, since she was in danger of loss of life early in the plot. As for the hibernation implant, it twice saves her life, but she reacts to that by saying death vomited her out, like some food on the planet that people will vomit if they eat. The idea that someone can have their life saved by something and still think of it as a bad thing is typical. I never understood why she was doing anything. (For example, she seems to have fallen into a habit of passing as a man early in the book, and while never able to explain it, she wants to stick to it, except that she also wants to have sex as a woman. What?) For full disclosure, I should point out that I never could read past about page 100 in Rabbit Run (I tried to read it twice because I thought Updike´s writing was supurb). My problem was that Rabbit didn´t know what he wanted and all of the plot, as far as I got, revolved around Rabbit - a relatively young man - deciding to run away from home, driving a long distance, then without actually making any decision, returning home again. Mission Child was like that: I couldn´t figure out where she was going next, but it seemed random and she seemed stupid in many ways. I just can´t get interested in that kind of character involved in a plot made up of random events.¤

3) Hardcover Book Mission Child by Eos. A colonized world develops a unique identity and culture. Years later, one of its citizens develops a unique identity as well, adapting to her culture by taking on the identity of a man. Soon, she finds that her gender-blurring actually appeals to her in ways beyond what her situation demands of her.

I love Mission Child as much as McHugh´s more popular novel China Mountain Zhang, which received the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel.

McHugh is a great writer who can involve readers in any scene, regardless of how much or how little action that scene contains. The language seems descriptive to an extreme, but she still manages to tie those descriptions into the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

Before reading her work, I read reviews that included complaints about her supposedly not focusing on plot. Readers can find countless formulaic, plot-driven science fiction and fantasy novels, but they won´t find many original and evocative writers of McHugh´s caliber.

McHugh´s other novels include Nekropolis and Half the Day Is Night.¤

4) Hardcover Book Mission Child by Eos. Maureen McHugh has outdone her previous two novels (Half the Day is Night, China Mountain Zhang) by a quantum leap with Mission Child.

Mission Child tells the futuristic odyssey of Janna, a young woman who undergoes many changes in her search for a role in life. From her begining as a child of the Hamra Mission, a low-tech culture on a world long-ago colonized by Earth, Janna sets forth on a journey across the planet when her clan is murdered by invaders. It is the first time Janna must come to grips with death, but certainly not the last.

As Janna travels from city to city, we see the colonization of the planet through her eyes. She encounters several different cultures, all vaguely familiar to the reader, yet altered by their adaptation to their new world. McHugh does an incredible job of presenting these cultures through Janna´s eyes in a believeable way. McHugh´s grasp of the narrative is amazing.

I rank this book up there with SF classics like Le Guin´s The Left Hand of Darkness. Definitely a must-read book.¤

5) Hardcover Book Mission Child by Eos. I was completely fascinated by this book. I very much respect how it raises important questions without feeling the need to provide easy answers. Here are a few: What does it mean to be transgendered without the benefit of transgender theory? Would Jan have been transgendered without the implant? What does it mean to live in a colonial world without benefit of post-colonial theory? Is it possible to maintain the purity of a culture? Do the missionaries help or hinder Jan/Janna by the imposition of their technology? Did they have the right to impose their technology in order to "help" Janna? Should survival be the ultimate, over-riding goal?

Initially, Jan survives in spite of him/herself. Ultimately, Jan decides not only to survive but to live. I highly recommend this book.¤

6) Hardcover Book Mission Child by Eos. Young Janna has lived her fourteen years on the icy northern plains of a world that has forgotten its history. Now the arrival of Earthers--descendants of the humans who first settled the planet many centuries before--has violently upset the fragile balance of a developing civilization. The offworlders´ advanced technologies and cruel indifference to local life have brought despair and destruction to janna´s home, robbing her of family, husband, child, and self. Haunted by a dead past--mysteriously altered by the gift of three alien artifacts--Janna must now redefine herself on a devastated planet she no longer recognizes, as she embarks upon a remarkable, transcendant journey into an uncertain future; moving steadily through this strange new world toward a startling realization about her role in the great cosmic order.¤

7) Hardcover Book Mission Child by Eos. Mission Child is an expansion of Maureen McHugh´s "The Cost to Be Wise," a fascinating novella from the original anthology Starlight 1.

Janna´s world was colonized long ago by Earth and then left on its own for centuries. When "offworlders" return, their superior technology upsets the balance of a developing civilization. Mission Child follows the journeys of Janna after she and her young partner escape marauders who attack their hometown. The girl, fast becoming mature beyond her years, sets off across the planet on an odyssey of adventure, poverty, hard work, war, famine, and rebirth. Janna uses her meager skills to eke out a living in a changing world; she gains and loses a husband, a child, friends, jobs, and more.

McHugh weaves together anthropology, sociology, psychology, and gender relations in this wondrous journey. Janna assumes the guise of a boy for protection, but eventually becomes "Jan" to herself as well as others. Reminiscent of Ursula K. Le Guin´s insightful works set in the Hainish universe, Mission Child will doubtless be nominated for a Tiptree Award for its exploration of Janna´s gender identity. --Bonnie Bouman¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 11-Nov-2008, 03809745689780380974566, 860-680-330-010-351-TCB-8

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