"A young girl's erotic journey from Milan to Minsk..." oops, wrong plot, that was from Seinfeld. Anyway, that is probably not too far off a review for this book. Basically, it is a science fiction story of a girl's Golden Summer of traveling vagabond style across the universe to find her destined path on the Yellow Brick Road. Moussa Shasta Leonardo (aka Sunshine, aka Wendi) is an intriguing character and the story does try to capture both the romantic ideals of the 1960s Hippie lifestyle and combine them with a core science fiction concept. Moussa meets Pater Pan, a space going lost boy who is seeking to explore all the experiences of mankind. She lives a Golden Summer with him before Pater moves on to other pastures. Infused with purpose, Moussa then travels with a new boyfriend to a planet of intoxicating botanical life that leads her on a new dangerous journey. The book is long, very long, and often endlessly repetitive. Of the 483 pages, it could probably have done with about 200 being removed. Spinrad's descriptions of characters and events are detailed and enthralling, but repetitive and excessive. At its core, there is a great story being told. Moussa's experience with the alien plant life on Belshazzar, for example, goes from subtly concerning to horribly frightening. It is a threat that creeps up on the reader and presents a nightmare version of the Garden of Eden.With that said, the story goes on too long. The nostalgia of the 1960s flower power style life wears thin. The excesses of drug use ultimately show their terrible consequence, but most of the book seems to look on casual drug use as something to be nostalgic about. The consequences are not blamed on the drug use, but rather simply on a flaw of the human spirit. Maybe staying away from the drugs would have made for even better memories? Also, the sex scenes, including a rape are trivialized. The narrator tends to look at all these bad things she survived as steps on her golden path rather than as lessons to caution others about. In summary: great sci-fi plot at core, interesting characters, but too long and a little morally superficial (IMO).
Norman Spinrad wrote numerous novels and short stories, mostly in science fiction, and is still writing today. His blog is http://normanspinradatlarge.blogspot...._Child of Fortune_ by Spinrad is one of the most wonderful novels I ever read, an under-rated classic of science fiction. It is the opposite of a dystopian novel: it shows a future, which, at least for me, is quite desirable. Two notable elements of this far future is that the human race has colonized hundreds of worlds, and that every adolescent undergoes a wanderjahr. "Wanderjahr" is a German word which means "year of wondering." More loosely speaking, it a period of time when a young person travels in order to find him- or her- self. Examples would be the walkabouts of Australian aborgines; The Grand Tour made by upper-class European males in the 17th to the 19th century; and the medieval Goliards, wondering students who were really interested in wine, women and song.This novel is the wanderjarh of one such adolescent, named Moussa. She travels to three different worlds, meets interesting people, tries out different things, experiences love and loss. At the end of her wanderjarh she, like others who complete their wanderjarh, gives herself a new name reflective of who she is. This is a great work of sustained imagination--wonders regularly unfold such as a device which enhances pleasure; a young looking guy who is hundreds of years old; spaceships powered by something like Reichian orgone energy; a forest of mind and mood altering plants, etc.One current example of the wanderjarh is the international youth hostel movement. Also, I saw a professor say in an internet discussion forum that college is like a wanderjahr for the middle class. Perhapsthis book will give impetus to a social movement promoting the wanderjarh for all young people.
Do You like book Child Of Fortune (2002)?
Child of Fortune found me when I was a teenager. It was the first book I read with a female character who was encouraged (pushed even) into taking control of her whole life, including her sexuality. This is the type of coming-of-age story I wish more girls could experience in real life - that the world is huge and full of the terrific and terrible, that our individual realities are shaped by how we act and with whom we associate, and that it is not only okay but important to enjoy lovers and friends on our own terms, without shame or embarrassment. Spinrad is a highly visual writer - his prose paints itself in my mind in technicolor as I'm reading and I can still 'see' it years after. And when his marvelous characters plunge into philosophical rant or glorious rally I find myself invigorated instead of lulled, inspired instead of bored. Child of Fortune is one of a few books that drives home for me the regret of having been born too soon, stuck on one lonely planet instead of loosed into a world of worlds.
—MissingNorth
I picked this up at Powell's because I remembered loving it as a kid. Apparently I was hypnotized by the combination of two dollar words and sex, because that's all this book consists of. Spinrad is especially fond of 'puissance', 'hypnogogic' and 'lingam'.Here's a random sentence: "In truth, as I knew even then, the weltanschauung which had so consumed my soul with dread under the influence of the psychotropic had been little more than the heightened subjective apprehension of the rudiments of quantum cosmology which we are all taught as children."In a word, unreadable.
—Melody
This is the most ragingly 1960s book I've ever read that wasn't produced by '72. Somehow, it took Spinrad till the mid-'80s to sum it ALL up in the form of an idealized coming-of-age-in-space story set in a culture with a pronounced "journeyman" phase that's celebrated as the cornerstone of identity-building; yes, this is in the same universe as the Void Captain's Tale, which is all about spaceships powered by mentally unstable women strapped into mindblowing-orgasm machines, which probably hints that this ain't aiming at subtle. Written in a pretentious but utterly suitable polylingual style full of Germanic and Spanish and pseudomystical Japanese and Sanskrit, it's totally over the top and totally right on. Plus, it involves traveling gypsy tribes, piles of tantric sex, a fetishization of adventure, a planet full of pernicious flowers producing millions of psychoactive compounds, proud Zelaznyesque mythic indistinguishability between science and magic, an old-school cryogenic immortal or two, and a big fat helping of Northrop Frye hero questing turned into a full on kunstlerroman.Seriously, a very particular kind of person is gonna find this as awesome as I did. Some of those people will be really lame, but the book isn't.
—Michael Alexander
