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Reviews by Contributor: Panshin, Alexei (3)

A Defector of a Kind

Rite of Passage

By Alexei Panshin  

21 Jul, 2019

Because My Tears Are Delicious To You

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Alexei Panshin’s 1968 Rite of Passage is a standalone SF novel. It won a Nebula Award and was nominated for a Hugo. 

Mia Havero grew up on a great Ship, an asteroid-sized vessel that wanders from star to star. It’s all she’s ever known. Mia’s Trial, a mandatory test that winnows the unfit from the fit, is approaching. If she passes, she will live out her life on her Ship. If she fails, she might be exiled. Or dead. 

Mia Havero is twelve, going on thirteen. 


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New Celebrations

New Celebrations  (The Adventures of Anthony Villiers)

By Alexei Panshin  

15 Jul, 2014

Rediscovery

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One reason I don’t get all het up about how slowly new installments in the serial of The Knights Who Say Fuck are coming out is because I don’t read that series but a more important one is because I have been waiting for more installments in the Anthony Villiers series for most of my life; mere half decades between volumes do not compare. I discovered Panshin’s light-hearted (or at least seemingly light-hearted) series when I was 17. I am no longer 17. I do not have in my possession the fourth or subsequent books in this series and as long as I don’t have them I do not have the spoons to spare for lesser series. But I am not bitter because I do have the first three and those three are treasures. 

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