Rarely does a novel garner as much critical praise as China Mountain Zhang. Winner of the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award, the Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and nominated for both a Hugo and a Nebula, China Mountain Zhang is probably one of the most critically acclaimed novels you'll see reviewed on this site. Not surprisingly then, it's also probably the best queer-themed science fiction novel I've read.
Set in such disparate locales as New York City, Baffin Island, the city of Nanjing in the People's Republic of China, and a fledgling colony on Mars and told from the perspectives of five characters, China Mountain Zhang packs a lot of novel into a small package (just over three hundred pages). The eponymous main character, Zhang for short, is a young engineer living in a near-future America, which has undergone a communist revolution and is now under Chinese control. Zhang is lucky: unlike the unskilled hordes who are forced to take government-assigned jobs, and to commute into New York City from government-assigned housing in Pennsylvania, Zhang is a certified engineer. He has a decent job in construction and makes enough to rent a tiny flat in the city. His life is mundane, but comfortable and secure.
Zhang is also gay and, like most gays in Chinese-controlled America, knows that to be openly gay would be to jeopardize his job. When Zhang's boss, Foreman Qian, strongly encourages Zhang to take an interest in his daughter, San-xiang, Zhang finds himself in a serious bind: he cannot tell Foreman Qian that he is gay, but refusing to date his daughter would be a grave insult. When things between Zhang and San-xiang inevitably do not go according to Foreman Qian's plans, Zhang finds himself newly unemployed, and forced to leave everything he knows behind, taking a job at a research station on Baffin Island in the Canadian arctic. By a lucky turn, though, taking such an undesirable job entitles Zhang to visit China and attend a Chinese university--a privilege almost unknown to those born outside of China. As we follow Zhang in his journey, we are treated to lengthy asides, told from the perspectives of four related characters: Foreman Qian's charmingly self-deprecating daughter, San-xiang; Angel, a flier in the popular kite races; Martine, a bee-keeping goat-herder in a small Martian colony; and Alexi, a single father and recent arrival on Mars.
China Mountain Zhang is full of sumptuous treats for the reader. McHugh's depiction of a near-future world will simultaneously surprise readers with its originality and draw them in with its thorough believability, informed, no doubt, by the time she spent teaching in China. The vividness of the settings is eclipsed only by the colourfulness and believability of the characters. Despite the novel's brevity and frequently changing perspective character, McHugh deftly develops all five perspective characters into complex, fully-fleshed individuals that we feel invested in, whose stories matter to us. The narrative structure is almost that of an anthology, composed of several very tightly integrated short stories. Initially, I found this distracting, but ultimately, I think it is one of the strengths of the novel because it allows McHugh to showcase her talent for characterization.
As queer-themed science fiction goes, I can't think of a book I would more heartily recommend than China Mountain Zhang. The portrayal of a queer culture repressed by a controlling communist government, the secretive but popular gay pickup places, the constant paranoia about being outed, the intensity of passion when relationships do miraculously materialize--reminds me in an uneasy but fascinating way of the pre-1970's closeted America that I have only ever read about in books. Though there is something of a love story buried among Zhang's travels, I found the relationship Zhang has with an ex-lover, Peter, to be more interesting and endearing. Peter is the friend that every young gay man seems to have--the one with whom romance never quite panned out, but instead was transmuted into the deep and abiding affection that means always knowing where to find a hug and a friend. Peter is Zhang's extended family. Certainly any gay reader of this novel will find some aspect of him or herself portrayed therein, and that goes a long way to explaining my wholehearted recommendation of this book.
There are a bundle of reasons to recommend China Mountain Zhang to any reader. The writing is superb, the characters provoke thought and empathy, the story is engrossing, and the queer characters possess a depth and believability not shared by most of their compatriots in science fiction and fantasy. Drop whatever you're reading and go out and get China Mountain Zhang. You'll thank me later.