In a talk given to the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, Maureen F. McHugh identified a pervasive trend in SF:
“…something required for the genre or genres, whether to reestablish order or transcend it, is the hero who changes everything. [...] It doesn't matter if the story is on the scale of a city or a planet or the galaxy, sf is the story of the outsider who is smarter, mutated, or endowed with special powers and therefore is the person, the only person who can make the difference.”
In her debut novel China Mountain Zhang, McHugh set out to prove that a world-changing hero is not a precondition for an interesting science fiction story. The book is set at some point in the 22nd century, in a world in which the global balance of power has shifted dramatically. The United States has been brought low by a Second Great Depression and a bloody civil war. By contrast, socialist China is the preeminent superpower, extending its influence all the way to new colonies on Mars.
Zhang Zhongshan is a construction technician working in New York City. He has no towering ambitions, nor any desire to change his world. He wants only to make a good life for himself, which is complicated by his status as a gay man living under a regime in which homosexuality is illegal. China Mountain Zhang is not about changing the world, but about finding a way to live in it.
McHugh’s first novel has a slightly unusual structure. Around 60% of the book focuses on the title character. Each of the lengthy chapters covers a particular phase in Zhang’s life, set over a period of a few years. Between these chapters there are sections which focus instead on other characters. These include:
These sections and Zhang’s sections each stand alone, but are subtly and indirectly linked with each other. For this reason, Jo Walton identifies China Mountain Zhang as “one of the best mosaic novels ever written”. While the other perspectives help to enrich the depiction of McHugh’s future, Zhang’s story is undoubtedly the dominant one and the one which leaves the strongest impression. The main narrative is quite episodic, and relates a number of self-contained parts of Zhang’s life. One deals with his time spent working in the frozen conditions of Baffin Island in northern Canada, while another deals with his immersion into a subversive subculture in China. McHugh deftly uses the shifts in setting and perspective to explore more aspects of her projected future world, which she characterised as “neither all bad nor all good.” The Chinese-dominated future is repressive and rigid in a number of ways, not least in its restricted freedom of movement and its intolerance of homosexuality. In other ways, society has advanced by the 22nd century. The colonisation of Mars has opened up new opportunities, and technological advancement has delivered breakthroughs in medicine, engineering, and entertainment.
China Mountain Zhang is sometimes referred to as “mundane science fiction”, for its ostensibly realistic narrative and relatively low-key concerns. This contested label can be misleading, however. At times, Zhang’s story is one of life and death stakes, but of a different kind than is usual in SF. In its setting, the protagonist’s homosexuality exposes him to a risk of imprisonment or worse. Zhang’s life is not always ordinary or mundane. His adventurous job posting to Baffin Island, for example, is a stark contrast to his more everyday existences in New York and later, in Nanjing.
More clearly, the book is an example of social science fiction. McHugh’s main emphasis is not on technology or the hard sciences, but rather on the social systems which shape the characters’ lives. This is not a strongly plot-driven book, but the key events are largely driven by the dictates of those social systems. For example, early in the novel Zhang briefly dates San-xiang because her father insists upon it. San-xiang is bound by the cultural expectation that she obeys her father. Zhang is bound by the cultural expectation that he appears to be straight. In their own ways, each person is trapped by conformity. Similarly, Zhang’s career and life path are determined by a larger and more concrete system - the bureaucracy of the Chinese government, which extends its influence into the United States. In order to secure job postings and advance his career, Zhang must keep up appearances and conform to expectations. Never truly free, he must carve out the best life he can within the cracks in the system. This sets up what is arguably the main theme of China Mountain Zhang. More than anything, McHugh’s novel is about fitting in, and about trying to find a place in the world. Zhang is a complex and rounded character. In different times and places, he finds ways to fit in and become accepted by the people and institutions around him. Crucially, he must present himself differently in order to do this. This takes on racial, gender, professional, cultural, political, and sexual dimensions. The Zhang that fits in on a New York construction site is very different to the one that is at home in an underground gay club in Nanjing. In this sense, China Mountain Zhang could be said to be ahead of its time. Its exploration of different spaces and their divergent expectations chimes strongly with the concerns of the 2020s. At the same time, McHugh is not entirely uninterested in hard science concerns. The section focusing on Angel deals with a solidly futuristic extreme sport. Angel is a daredevil who flies a sophisticated kite in dangerous races over New York, a kite to which she is bonded by a high-tech brain-computer interface. McHugh does not dwell on advanced technologies for their own sake, however. This section is tightly linked to another of the novel’s social themes: its intense exploration of labour and its impact on our lives.
China Mountain Zhang was not the first novel to couch science fiction in grounded, human terms. McHugh followed in the footsteps of authors like Ursula K. LeGuin, who also dealt with characters unable to meaningfully change the world around them. At the same time, this is a surprisingly engaging novel. The China-dominated future world feels convincing and lived-in, and never comes across as over the top. This is another way in which the novel feels prescient. In 1992, many people still saw Japan as the main rising power in Asia, but today we are all too aware of China’s greatly increased role in the world.
McHugh delivers not one but several complex and rounded characters, enmeshed within believable social systems both on Earth and offworld. At first, the Martian colony setting can seem incongruous, but McHugh deftly integrates it into her wider mosaic of stories. Here, again, the book recalls LeGuin - the harsh Martian setting and the need for cooperation recall The Dispossessed (1974). For a book with a minimal plot, China Mountain Zhang moves at a surprising pace and remains impressively engaging throughout. China Mountain Zhang won the Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and the James Tiptree Jr. Award (now known as the Otherwise Award). It was also nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel in 1993. Surprisingly, Maureen F. McHugh only wrote three further full-length novels, most recently Nekropolis in 2001. At the conclusion of her talk, McHugh mused on whether she had really done what she had set out to do: "I don't really write the anti-sf novel, much as I would like to. But I'm afraid that if writers don't constantly examine the genre, it will fossilize and die, so I'm always looking for the unconcious assumption I make and wondering if it shouldn't be pinched or twisted or turned on its head."
China Mountain Zhang does examine the genre of science fiction, and makes a notable contribution to it. Today, it remains a landmark book and one which - with its emphasis on gender, sexuality, and the rise of China - can only grow in relevance in the years to come.
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Weekly blog exploring classic science fiction, with a focus on the 1950s to the 1990s. |
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