This book left a lasting impression on me, since I read it over 30 years ago and it still pops into my head without warning. I very much enjoyed it. ( )

A Coming of Age by Timothy Zahn is exactly the kind of thing Tim Zahn is good at writing: a whodunit with a science fiction milieu and a heavy dose of intrigue. Is is also further evidence that Zahn is the most consistent sci fi writer in the business, as it was published in 1984, and I honestly couldn’t tell. The man just keeps writing to the same standard, year in and year out. This was only his second published novel, but Zahn did have a couple of dozen short stories in print by then, which is less common now for an author just starting out.

I suppose one clue as to the age of the book might be the psychic powers: an idea that was pushed heavily by John Campbell and a frequent element of Campbelline era science fiction, but has since fallen out of fashion. On the world of Tigris, children develop telekinetic powers at around the age of five. Their strength continually grows as they do, with pre-teens capable of lifting thousands of pounds of weight at once, until it all abruptly comes crashing down on them at about puberty as their powers fade.

Zahn’s strength as a world-builder is in taking a world fundamentally like our own, changing one thing, and following the implications to a logical end. And in this case logic takes you to some pretty strange places. In this world, almost all heavy labor is done by children. Mining, construction, even power generation. All of that psychic power gets put to work.

Schooling, on the other hand, does not even begin until puberty hits, and the power fades. Partly this is because children are useful, and partly this is rooted in the bitter experience known as the Lost Generation that haunts Tigrin history. Since this is a whodunit, I won’t spoil exactly what that entails. The result of that cataclysm is that all children are taken from their parents around age five, and raised in the unsubtly named Hives.

A predilection for child labor isn’t the only thing that the world of Tigris shares with Georgian England. Power, ignorance, and naiveté make telekinetic children popular targets of scam artists and conmen know as Fagins, since copies of Oliver Twist seem to have survived the Lost Generation. Small minded Fagins might content themselves with training children to be pickpockets and thieves, but whole new vistas in crime are available on Tigris.

This is an element that makes A Coming of Age seem more contemporary to me. Zahn’s description of the psychology of grooming is all too accurate. Today, when the McCarrick Report is freely available, and organizations like the Boy Scouts offer training courses on how to spot the manipulation of children, this knowledge is easier to come by now than it would have been in the 1980s.

Another bit done well is the technobabble surrounding the research of one of the characters on why telekinesis ends around puberty. I am close enough to the world of small-molecule hormone research to have heard this kind of thing myself, and while I’m far from an expert in the field and thus unable to offer any substantive assessment, Zahn did at least capture the feel of how researchers in this field tend to talk about their work, rather than assembling complex-sounding but otherwise nonsense words.

As the title tells us, this is not only a whodunit, but also a coming of age story. A girl on the cusp of womanhood faces the Transition, when she will lose her powers, move out the Hive in which she has grown up, and join the wider society. Anticipation, fear, and a terrible awkwardness are all on display as this fourteen year old comes to terms with what growing up means on Tigris..

It is relatively common for cultures to have sharply delineated worlds for children and adults, with a rite of passage marking the boundary between the two. Tigrin society, like ours, does not formally differentiate between genders, which makes some sense as telekinesis eliminates many of the physical differences. However, rites of passage are almost always strongly gendered when they do exist. I wonder whether Tigrin society mostly lacks a true rite of passage, as there are many hints it doesn’t go well.

However, we do not actually see the Transition in the text, only its shadow looming over everyone. Which is just as well, while it is a fun thing to speculate about, I’m not sure it would have made this book more interesting to see the event itself. The Transition impels many characters to act as they do, but everyone has a different relationship to it. For some, it is a looming deadline. For others, a distant and painful memory. It can be an opportunity, or a dragon to slay.

While there is a character who serves as the primary antagonist, in a sense the Transition itself is the real antagonist of the book, and the driver not just of these events, but all events in the history of Tigris after humans came to live there. Why not come along for the ride and see how Zahn crafts all that into a story? ( )

Flashback Friday: Losing power in adulthood

A Coming of Age by Timothy Zahn (Open Road Media, $7.99)

On the planet Tigris, the colonizers found that their children were born with telekinetic powers. Although the kids lost those powers as they grew into adulthood, it made them pretty frightening kids—with power over their parents, they ran amok.

Now, it’s two centuries after the Lost Generation. Institutions and rituals have adapted to cope with the powers children possess and with the “power-down” they face as they approach adulthood.

But of course, there’s a scientist who’s tinkering with the “tekes” ability , using kidnapped children, in hopes of extending the telekinetic power—a change that will disrupt life on Tigris, and perhaps end it.

The story centers on two threads: Lisa is a tween who is concerned about her upcoming Transition to non-telekinetic powers, and detectives Tirrell and Tonio are following leads that might bust open the plans of Dr. Jarvis before—quite literally—all hell breaks loose.

This young adult/tween book is an excellent example of using science fiction devices to address the state of affairs that exists between every kid and every society, ever. Always loved, envied and feared—think of every “new youth danger” story on the news—and inevitably about to join adults, each new generation struggles with what it means to “grow up.” This excellent YA novel, first published in 1984, is one of the good ones resurrected from out-of-print status by the digital age.

(Published on Lit/Rant on 3/7/2014: http://litrant.tumblr.com/post/78840747088/flashback-friday-losing-power-in-adul... ( )

It was OK. Kind of a reverse X-Men where the kids get their powers pretty much at birth and then lose them with puberty. That Lisa chick cries way too much. LOL. ( )

This was my first encounter with Timothy Zahn. Since A Coming of Age does not have high rating on Goodreads (only 3.6) and it was written in 1984 I started reading this book with caution.

There are so many older novels that simply got run over by new styles or trends. But do not be afraid, I can assure you that this is not the case with A Coming of Age. Timothy Zahn writes with a straight-forward matter-o-fact style that never gets old. His world building is so subtle than you don't even notice when and where he explained all that unknown customs and terms.
I can become overwhelmed if authors piles up all the data at the beginning of book or if he keeps bombarding me with unknown (invented) words. Sometimes, I can even give up reading the book altogether because of that. So this is a BIG plus for me.

When the Humans colonized planet Tigris, they never imagined that it would lead to genetic mutations that will trigger telekinetic powers in kids at the age of five. Or that those same powers will inexplicably disappear when children reach puberty.

When someone first mentions telekinesis my first association is moving and throwing objects around. But Timothy Zahn gives us a delightful new aspect to this ability - flying. Anybody else thinking about 'Peter Pan'? :)

Unfortunately (as we all know) children are usually the ultimate hedonists. The do not plan or think about the future - they only want to satisfy their current needs. So what will happen if that type of humans had the most power in society? And what would be solution to that?
In A Coming of Age, Timothy Zahn does not gives us a pretty picture of society. This is a great book for a book club to discuss possible alternatives and flaws in the structure Tigris' society is organised.

We are introduced to the world of planet Tigris through eyes of a couple of characters: Lisa Duncan (coming of age teen who is going to lose her telekinetic powers soon), Stanford Tirrell (quirky detective working on a child-kidnaping case), Dr. Matthew Jarvis (brilliant scientists) and Prophet Omega (shady leader of mysterious new cult).

Altough character building of others is not neglected, most attention is devoted to Lisa Duncan. When you read about her thoughts and fears, you read about the usual problems that coming of age teens meet: dealing with changes in your body and how the society and your friends will accept them.

You gotta like Lisa - she is smart, innovative, ambitious, inquisitive... And she is not afraid to break the rules. ;)

In the end, of course, all the plot lines untangle and all the characters clash together in an ultimate showdown. Yes, there is big aerial battle. ;)

This book has something for everybody. A little bit of mystery, coming of age teen problems, dystopian fiction about oppressive government and enough action and adventure to keep you interested until the end.

I recommend this book to fans of: classic science fiction, quirky detectives, coming of age stories or speculative fiction about colonization of other planets.

Disclaimer: I was given a free eBook by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. This text is also posted on Amazon and my blog. ( )