A review by siria
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh
3.0
The peculiarities of the last fifteen to twenty or so years means that this novel seems simultaneously very fresh, and very dated. It seems more and more likely that the world will become increasinly sinocentric over the coming years, but I'm not certain that it would—or could—happen in the way McHugh describes here.
At least not in political terms—culturally, I think this is a great snapshot of how two very disparate cultures, Chinese and American, could mingle together. I thought there were some very nice touches which added depth to the narrative, such as the awkwardness of navigating the vagaries of Chinese instead of American etiquette and vice versa; McHugh also layers in one or two things casually (metabolic and genetic therapy, catastrophic climate change) which make it clear just how different a place this future is. Her world-building is really quite strong. That said, I don't think that the interludes from other characters—fliers, a young Chinese-born woman, some colonists on Mars—added much to the book. They certainly expanded our knowledge of the world in which the characters were living, but I don't think those chapters added anything to the story itself.
It was space she could have devoted much more to developing Zhang's character, because while I found him an interesting and mostly sympathetic protagonist, I never found him truly engaging—kind of a reflection of the book as a whole, I think.
At least not in political terms—culturally, I think this is a great snapshot of how two very disparate cultures, Chinese and American, could mingle together. I thought there were some very nice touches which added depth to the narrative, such as the awkwardness of navigating the vagaries of Chinese instead of American etiquette and vice versa; McHugh also layers in one or two things casually (metabolic and genetic therapy, catastrophic climate change) which make it clear just how different a place this future is. Her world-building is really quite strong. That said, I don't think that the interludes from other characters—fliers, a young Chinese-born woman, some colonists on Mars—added much to the book. They certainly expanded our knowledge of the world in which the characters were living, but I don't think those chapters added anything to the story itself.
It was space she could have devoted much more to developing Zhang's character, because while I found him an interesting and mostly sympathetic protagonist, I never found him truly engaging—kind of a reflection of the book as a whole, I think.