Although some wonderful works of science fiction have be published in recent decades, the genre remains in the back rooms of literature. For instance, sci-fi novels usually receive reviews bunched into occasional columns published by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and other mainstream critics of today's literature. Only in the struggling sci-fi magazines and the Sci-Fi Channel's Science Fiction Weekly web site devote attention to the mass of material pouring from numerous publishers.
Science fiction produces greatness only occasionally, but that's the case with other genres of writing as well. The majority of sci-fi seldom rises above the level of entertainment. Maureen F. McHugh may be the writer to make strides toward greatness. Her latest novel, Mission Child (Eos/Avon, $20), takes somewhat familiar material involving earth people struggling for survival on an alien world.
Her trick to make Mission Child more than just another entertaining novel (and it certainly is entertaining) is to focus on the characters and not the background. The book is narrated by young Janna, whose journey from child to woman involves a journey that produces continuous battles against enemies of all sorts. Yet the novel also is a personal story of a remarkable protagonist, whose stubborn refusal to give up makes her one of the most intriguing and believable characters in recent fiction.
Mission Child in essence is one of literature's most common devices, a coming-of-age tale transferred to the hostility and strangeness of a planet that demands new strengths for its embattled heroine. By McHugh's decision to focus on the character of Janna and her goal to find a purpose in her life, the reader is smoothly transferred to a world that presents challenges far beyond those most of us will have to make.
McHugh, who lives in Northern Ohio, writes with great skill and a keen eye for detail, while keeping the spotlight on her intrepid main character. Mission Child deserves consideration when award time comes for the best books of 1998.
