Review of Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin

Robert Heinlein is best known these days for a handful of novels—Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. But before these books were published, Heinlein had built a foundation on YA fiction featuring silver space ships, clunky computers, intergalactic aliens—he helped shaped the stereotypes. Almost two decades later, when science fiction was near the end of the generation which followed Heinlein's YA work, New Wave sf, Alexei Panshin decided to throwback with Rite of Passage (1968), and oddly enough, was rewarded for it.

Rite of Passage is as classic a YA bildungsroman as classic YA bildungsromans can be. It tells the story of Mia Havero, teenager living aboard a galactic ship that moves from planet to planet, trading knowledge for the goods its limited population need to stay alive. Eugenics are part of the reason the population is tight, but another is that every teen must go through a rite of passage. Each year the group of teens coming of age are dumped on a strange planet with basic supplies, and thirty days later the ship returns to pick up the survivors. Hotheaded, arrogant Mia has a lot of work to do to get ready for this trial.

If you were expecting Hunger Games based on that description, walk away. Rite of Passage is Heinleinian YA fiction through and through. It's as innocently American as apple pie (the girl and the horse on the cover are real), but at the same time tries to dig into basic social science that still matters today. There is no dark, post-modern edge, or twists that subvert dominant political or social ideologies. Mia's emotions are big and obvious, as are her conflicts with her peers and father. But the crust on the apple pie is the titular rite of passage. It's a John Wayne series of events, complete with horses, jailbreaks, and goofy accents.

The book has a chance of being a success with teens looking into the history of sf. I fully realize such books are virtually inaccessible to modern youth due to the smothering blanket of YA fiction released the past decade, not to mention indirect efforts to remove certain historical fiction for political reasons. That being said, if you or your teen is into old school space westerns, this one is worth a read. Panshin's prose is clean and effective, Mia's experiences occur in scenes teens can relate to, and the epilogue (not conclusion) can provoke a thought or two.

In the end, the reader's potential enjoyment of Rite of Passage will depend on their level of maturity. It is a well-written, paint-by-the-numbers YA bildungsroman that explores a young woman coming into independence. The obvious nature of the morals, the Aw-shucks climax, and the big, flagged EMOTIONS are likely to be too simple for the adult reader. For reference, True Grit is a similar but more mature version of this type of story.