I could pretend to love The Left Hand of Darkness, but I never did. I could acknowledge that I do love many other novels such as Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, Vonda McIntyre’s Dream Snake, and Molly Gloss’s The Dazzle of Day. But my favorite science fiction novel is Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin. Above are a few of the covers of this science fiction novel title.

The first time I read it, I was in college and about the age of the main character as she tells her story.

Rite of Passage is a science fiction novel by American writer Alexei Panshin. Published in 1968 as an Ace Science Fiction Special, this novel about a shipboard teenager’s coming of age won that year’s Nebula Award, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969.—Wikipedia

This is the dystopian coming-of-age novel people should be reading, what is known as “hard” science fiction because there is no magic, no fantasy, only scientific possibility. There are also no clear villains, just people doing the best they know how to take care of the themselves and their own. The “heroes” are flawed, the ethical choices are not clear cut and tidy, and no one is shot with an arrow.

Mia Havero is a “little black-haired, black-eyed girl” of about 12 at the start of the story she tells of her rite of passage. Few of the covers I have seen indicate that the designers had actually opened the book, much less read it. Upper left and middle are solid. Sometimes what you see is not what you get.

I was reminded of this a day or two ago when I found a meme in my feed with a misquote of the Constitution of the United States. The meme contended that if the President were impeached, he and all his people (VP on down) would be forced from office. A lot of people liked the meme. People who have college degrees and should know better. And I will admit that I would be happy to see the back of Pence and the rest of Trump’s minions, but that is not what would happen.

That so many people accepted this meme as true was disappointing. I was left wondering if no one else remembers anything from our Constitution?

Does no one verify their sources anymore?

The left has been eager to throw up their hands at the ignorance of those supporting Trump. I have witnessed this again and again. Sadly, there is plenty of evidence that those on the right believe exactly what they want to believe. It is so much easier than actually finding out what is true. Those on the left do that too sometimes.

There is this simple black-and-white view of the world that is not the least helpful to accomplishing anything. It’s comfortable to discard another’s viewpoint just because it differs from our own, to ignore the demands of people we do not identify with. Working to hammer out solutions is messy compared to simply “laying down the law.” The Russian interference in our national conversation has done further damage to thinking that already viewed “compromise” as a dirty word.

We seem unwilling to understand that the world is not a YA dystopia with an evil force (them) fighting to take down those fighting purely for good (us). Reality is a whole lot of people with different ideas about how to achieve justice and liberty. When we acknowledge that complexity, we will get farther as a nation. There are times when the only solution is an imperfect one, when you get a little of what you want and I get a little of what I want, but no one gets buried in the process.

I read science fiction to find a laboratory for possibility. I already know how things can go wrong. I am interested in how things go right without the intervention of comic book heroes. Plenty of science fiction and fantasy is just another world struggling for power, but some science fiction and fantasy looks hard at difficult ideas. Not the dark lord or evil empire, but really people struggling to do their best.

Mia Havero is a Latina name. The author is American, and his book is back in print.

“The Nebula Award-winning novel, back in print at long last!

“In 2198, one hundred and fifty years after the desperate wars that destroyed an overpopulated Earth, Man lives precariously on a hundred hastily-established colony worlds and in the seven giant Ships that once ferried men to the stars.

“Mia Havero’s Ship is a small closed society. It tests its children by casting them out to live or die in a month of Trial in the hostile wilds of a colony world. Mia Havero’s Trial is fast approaching and in the meantime she must learn not only the skills that will keep her alive but the deeper courage to face herself and her world.

“Published originally in 1968, Alexei Panshin’s Nebula Award-winning classic has lost none of its relevance, with its keen exploration of societal stagnation and the resilience of youth.”—Fairwood Press