Books : Science Fiction & Fantasy : Authors, A-Z : M : McHugh, Maureen F.

Shop Categories

...M

China Mountain Zhang

Maureen F. McHugh

This debut SF novel won several awards, because it's finely written, warmly characterised and refreshingly different. 22nd-century Earth is run by China (still officially Marxist), and our hero Zhang is one of many people who need to exploit the cracks in the system. Good news: he looks Chinese, now a plus point for getting construction work in New York. Bad news: being half Spanish, he daren't risk racist gene testing, and being gay, he's embarrassed by his Chinese foreman's hope of marrying off an ugly daughter. In further episodes he survives the long winter night at a frozen Baffin Island research station, plays illicit virtual-reality games, studies organic architecture in Beijing, teaches an unconventional college class, and more. Meanwhile there are sidebar chapters about the fascinating people whose lives touch Zhang's. One is a flyer, neurally linked to her silk kite--a descendant of today's hang-glider--and competing in death-defying races above Greenwich Village. Two more are struggling colonists on Mars, and the foreman's daughter is likewise a deeply human being with her own story. No one overthrows the government; no one saves the world. With charm, wit, and carefully layered plausibility, Zhang and his friends get along somehow, and find more elbow-room in the system than they expected. Richly intelligent SF. --David Langford
China Mountain Zhang

Maureen F. McHugh

This debut SF novel won several awards, because it's finely written, warmly characterised and refreshingly different. 22nd-century Earth is run by China (still officially Marxist), and our hero Zhang is one of many people who need to exploit the cracks in the system. Good news: he looks Chinese, now a plus point for getting construction work in New York. Bad news: being half Spanish, he daren't risk racist gene testing, and being gay, he's embarrassed by his Chinese foreman's hope of marrying off an ugly daughter. In further episodes he survives the long winter night at a frozen Baffin Island research station, plays illicit virtual-reality games, studies organic architecture in Beijing, teaches an unconventional college class, and more. Meanwhile there are sidebar chapters about the fascinating people whose lives touch Zhang's. One is a flyer, neurally linked to her silk kite--a descendant of today's hang-glider--and competing in death-defying races above Greenwich Village. Two more are struggling colonists on Mars, and the foreman's daughter is likewise a deeply human being with her own story. No one overthrows the government; no one saves the world. With charm, wit, and carefully layered plausibility, Zhang and his friends get along somehow, and find more elbow-room in the system than they expected. Richly intelligent SF. --David Langford
Half the Day Is Night

Maureen F. McHugh

Here's the second novel from an author whose first, the 1992 China Mountain Zhang, was widely acclaimed in sf circles. In contrast to the earlier book's world-spanning jaunts, this one offers a tight, tight focus on a claustrophobic setting--Caribe, a deep-sea habitat far beneath the Caribbean, where the sun doesn't reach and all the lighting is artificial. So is a great deal of habitat life, which is full of sharp details like the need to give yourself an artificial fever with "pyroxin" to maintain body warmth when scuba-fishing in the chill waters outside. McHugh's lead characters are both distrusted misfits who are at risk in this high-tech segment of the Third World: a male French-Vietnamese mercenary and the female Chinese-American banker who takes him on as a needed bodyguard. Tension steadily increases through financial shenanigans, terrorist intervention, scapegoat-hunting local police, sudden gunfire, and explosive sabotage. Ultimately, this seabed pressure-vessel called Caribe is a huge sealed trap for outsiders, who end up on the run, stripped of their exit visas, all the options closing down except the remote hope of making a break for it. The story squeezes harder and harder until the satisfyingly understated finale. Not a flashy novel, but a good one. --David Langford
Mission Child

Maureen F. McHugh

With her third SF novel, Maureen F. McHugh continues the dense plausibility and warmly human characterisation that she achieved in China Mountain Zhang and Half the Day is Night. Human settlements on the colony planet Koziko are carefully restricted to appropriate technology for their region. Thus tough heroine Janna grows up in a "Mission" village in frozen northern territory, whose most high-tech product is whisky to be traded with clans of wild, gun-toting herders.
When tragedy strikes and the Mission is wiped out, a village elder gives Janna some advanced biotech implants which are both blessing and curse--summoning airborne help that thanks to the non-interference policy is no help, keeping her alive when she wants to die, and doing something worse that emerges only years after. Janna finds uneasy security in posing as male while wandering the world as refugee, translator, factory worker, fugitive, security guard, gardener and paramedic, forever torn between the mystic, shamanic tradition of her upbringing and the double-edged benefits of off-world technology. Each port of call has the lived-in feel of a real, working community. Janna isn't out to save the world, just to find a home and come to terms with herself; McHugh skilfully makes this modest quest seem as important as any galactic war. Fine, understated SF. --David Langford
Mothers & Other Monsters

Maureen F. McHugh
Half the Day Is Night

Maureen F. McHugh

Here's the second novel from an author whose first, the 1992 China Mountain Zhang, was widely acclaimed in sf circles. In contrast to the earlier book's world-spanning jaunts, this one offers a tight, tight focus on a claustrophobic setting--Caribe, a deep-sea habitat far beneath the Caribbean, where the sun doesn't reach and all the lighting is artificial. So is a great deal of habitat life, which is full of sharp details like the need to give yourself an artificial fever with "pyroxin" to maintain body warmth when scuba-fishing in the chill waters outside. McHugh's lead characters are both distrusted misfits who are at risk in this high-tech segment of the Third World: a male French-Vietnamese mercenary and the female Chinese-American banker who takes him on as a needed bodyguard. Tension steadily increases through financial shenanigans, terrorist intervention, scapegoat-hunting local police, sudden gunfire, and explosive sabotage. Ultimately, this seabed pressure-vessel called Caribe is a huge sealed trap for outsiders, who end up on the run, stripped of their exit visas, all the options closing down except the remote hope of making a break for it. The story squeezes harder and harder until the satisfyingly understated finale. Not a flashy novel, but a good one. --David Langford
Mission Child

Maureen F. McHugh

With her third SF novel, Maureen F. McHugh continues the dense plausibility and warmly human characterisation that she achieved in China Mountain Zhang and Half the Day is Night. Human settlements on the colony planet Koziko are carefully restricted to appropriate technology for their region. Thus tough heroine Janna grows up in a "Mission" village in frozen northern territory, whose most high-tech product is whisky to be traded with clans of wild, gun-toting herders.
When tragedy strikes and the Mission is wiped out, a village elder gives Janna some advanced biotech implants which are both blessing and curse--summoning airborne help that thanks to the non-interference policy is no help, keeping her alive when she wants to die, and doing something worse that emerges only years after. Janna finds uneasy security in posing as male while wandering the world as refugee, translator, factory worker, fugitive, security guard, gardener and paramedic, forever torn between the mystic, shamanic tradition of her upbringing and the double-edged benefits of off-world technology. Each port of call has the lived-in feel of a real, working community. Janna isn't out to save the world, just to find a home and come to terms with herself; McHugh skilfully makes this modest quest seem as important as any galactic war. Fine, understated SF. --David Langford
Mothers & Other Monsters

Maureen F. McHugh
Nekropolis

Maureen F. McHugh
Mission Child

Maureen F. McHugh

With her third SF novel, Maureen F. McHugh continues the dense plausibility and warmly human characterisation that she achieved in China Mountain Zhang and Half the Day is Night. Human settlements on the colony planet Koziko are carefully restricted to appropriate technology for their region. Thus tough heroine Janna grows up in a "Mission" village in frozen northern territory, whose most high-tech product is whisky to be traded with clans of wild, gun-toting herders.
When tragedy strikes and the Mission is wiped out, a village elder gives Janna some advanced biotech implants which are both blessing and curse--summoning airborne help that thanks to the non-interference policy is no help, keeping her alive when she wants to die, and doing something worse that emerges only years after. Janna finds uneasy security in posing as male while wandering the world as refugee, translator, factory worker, fugitive, security guard, gardener and paramedic, forever torn between the mystic, shamanic tradition of her upbringing and the double-edged benefits of off-world technology. Each port of call has the lived-in feel of a real, working community. Janna isn't out to save the world, just to find a home and come to terms with herself; McHugh skilfully makes this modest quest seem as important as any galactic war. Fine, understated SF. --David Langford
China Mountain Zhang

Maureen F. McHugh

This debut SF novel won several awards, because it's finely written, warmly characterised and refreshingly different. 22nd-century Earth is run by China (still officially Marxist), and our hero Zhang is one of many people who need to exploit the cracks in the system. Good news: he looks Chinese, now a plus point for getting construction work in New York. Bad news: being half Spanish, he daren't risk racist gene testing, and being gay, he's embarrassed by his Chinese foreman's hope of marrying off an ugly daughter. In further episodes he survives the long winter night at a frozen Baffin Island research station, plays illicit virtual-reality games, studies organic architecture in Beijing, teaches an unconventional college class, and more. Meanwhile there are sidebar chapters about the fascinating people whose lives touch Zhang's. One is a flyer, neurally linked to her silk kite--a descendant of today's hang-glider--and competing in death-defying races above Greenwich Village. Two more are struggling colonists on Mars, and the foreman's daughter is likewise a deeply human being with her own story. No one overthrows the government; no one saves the world. With charm, wit, and carefully layered plausibility, Zhang and his friends get along somehow, and find more elbow-room in the system than they expected. Richly intelligent SF. --David Langford
Nekropolis

Maureen F. McHugh
China Mountain Zhang

Maureen F. McHugh

This debut SF novel won several awards, because it's finely written, warmly characterised and refreshingly different. 22nd-century Earth is run by China (still officially Marxist), and our hero Zhang is one of many people who need to exploit the cracks in the system. Good news: he looks Chinese, now a plus point for getting construction work in New York. Bad news: being half Spanish, he daren't risk racist gene testing, and being gay, he's embarrassed by his Chinese foreman's hope of marrying off an ugly daughter. In further episodes he survives the long winter night at a frozen Baffin Island research station, plays illicit virtual-reality games, studies organic architecture in Beijing, teaches an unconventional college class, and more. Meanwhile there are sidebar chapters about the fascinating people whose lives touch Zhang's. One is a flyer, neurally linked to her silk kite--a descendant of today's hang-glider--and competing in death-defying races above Greenwich Village. Two more are struggling colonists on Mars, and the foreman's daughter is likewise a deeply human being with her own story. No one overthrows the government; no one saves the world. With charm, wit, and carefully layered plausibility, Zhang and his friends get along somehow, and find more elbow-room in the system than they expected. Richly intelligent SF. --David Langford
Half the Day Is Night

Maureen F. McHugh

Here's the second novel from an author whose first, the 1992 China Mountain Zhang, was widely acclaimed in sf circles. In contrast to the earlier book's world-spanning jaunts, this one offers a tight, tight focus on a claustrophobic setting--Caribe, a deep-sea habitat far beneath the Caribbean, where the sun doesn't reach and all the lighting is artificial. So is a great deal of habitat life, which is full of sharp details like the need to give yourself an artificial fever with "pyroxin" to maintain body warmth when scuba-fishing in the chill waters outside. McHugh's lead characters are both distrusted misfits who are at risk in this high-tech segment of the Third World: a male French-Vietnamese mercenary and the female Chinese-American banker who takes him on as a needed bodyguard. Tension steadily increases through financial shenanigans, terrorist intervention, scapegoat-hunting local police, sudden gunfire, and explosive sabotage. Ultimately, this seabed pressure-vessel called Caribe is a huge sealed trap for outsiders, who end up on the run, stripped of their exit visas, all the options closing down except the remote hope of making a break for it. The story squeezes harder and harder until the satisfyingly understated finale. Not a flashy novel, but a good one. --David Langford