Rite of Passage is a science fiction novel by Alexei Panshin. Published in 1968, this novel about a Shipboard teenager's coming of age won that year's Nebula Award. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969.
Rite of Passage is told as a flashback by Mia Havero, the daughter of the Chairman of the Ship's Council, after she has completed her own rite of passage, also known as Trial. She has survived for thirty days on a colony...
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Rite of Passage is a science fiction novel by Alexei Panshin. Published in 1968, this novel about a Shipboard teenager's coming of age won that year's Nebula Award. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969.
Rite of Passage is told as a flashback by Mia Havero, the daughter of the Chairman of the Ship's Council, after she has completed her own rite of passage, also known as Trial. She has survived for thirty days on a colony planet with minimal supplies as part of her initiation into adulthood on one of several giant Ships that survived Earth's destruction in AD 2041. To prevent overpopulation on the Ships, family units can only produce children with the approval of the Ship's Eugenics Council. The penalty for breaking this rule is exile to a colony world.
By the year 2198, Mia Havero is twelve years old and, like most of Ship-bound humanity, regards the colonists as "Mudeaters", a derogatory reference to frontier life on a planet. When she accompanies her father...
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