China Mountain Zhang

McHugh, Maureen F. China Mountain Zhang. New York: Tor, 1992.

A bildungsroman using "many of the conventions of cyberpunk" and dealing well with hero's dealing with technologies in constant flux. Rev. Robert Reilly, SFRA Review #202 (Dec. 1992): 42, our source for this part of the entry entry and whom we quote. (RDE, 09/02/93)

In "Feminist Cyberpunk," Karen Cadora notes that this is a novel that takes a gay man as its protagonist. In some ways, this novel typifies traditional cyberpunk: the young, talented, male outsider, Rafael Zhang, manipulates the Net to work his way into a system that rejects him. Beyond that, however, the novel departs significantly from the conventions of masculinist cyberpunk. Because Zhang is gay, there is no need for a feminized Net in which he can assert his heterosexuality. Zhang acts out the homoerotic potential built into this genre. Eliminating heterosexuality as a required element in cyberpunk ensures that there is no need for a gendered computer network and no restrictions on the gender of those who can work and play on the net. The erotic play and gendered interactions in feminist cyberpunk undermine the conventional notions of male and female upon which masculinist cyberpunk relies. (p. 363)

Expanded RDE, 16May19