I just finished reading Maureen F. McHugh's China Mountain Zhang, which received an editor's choice notice from the New York Times Book Review as well as rave reviews from Robin McKinley and Norman Spinrad. However, while I did think it was well-written, I wound up being a little underwhelmed. The book posits a future where Communist China has taken over the United States, and the hero is a half-Chinese, half Latino gay American who studies engineering. The Communist prejudice against gays is very much in place, rendering him a furtive outsider. There is also pro-Chinese prejudice that causes Zhang to conceal his Latino heritage. One thing I found distracting was McHugh's habit of altering viewpoints every other chapter. Zhang's story is the main thread, but alternating chapters are told by other characters who (mostly) have a brief intersection with Zhang at some point. It seems to me the author could have found a less awkward way of incorporating this material and unifying her book more. The basic thrust of the book has people working hard and slowly improving their lives. We see some of the influence that others have on Zhang, including an unattractive foreman's daughter he is coerced into dating, a refugeee/repairman who gets Zhang to consider systems in a new light, a boyfriend who makes Zhang happy for a time but then commits suicide as his secret is about to be exposed. Unfortunately, not only do I think that McHugh renders the Communists in far too kind a portrait given their history, but the conclusion seems limp as well. Zhang discovers he really likes teaching, though he risks his future by delivering a brief "Marx was wrong" (no duh) lecture, and finishes the novel trying to form a company that is also a community with his now highly marketable skills. Life-like perhaps, but hardly a bang-up finish. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/