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Lunar Review
Oct. 7th, 2015 02:39 pmHey,
So Ian McDonald is one of my favorite sci-fi authors (he wrote a book about trains on Mars). His latest book came out and I finished plowing through it. The book is called Luna: New Moon and, as you might guess, it's a near-future novel set on the moon.
The moon is a libertarian wet-dream. There are no police, no laws, no crime, just contracts and negotiation. When you arrive on the moon you're outfitted with an implant that tracks your consumption of the four elements -- air, water, carbon and data. Everything you consume comes at a cost so if you don't have some cash coming in you're going to die and your body will be reclaimed by roving recycle bots trying to help settle your accounts.
Of course, not everyone is scraping for cash. At the top of the heap sits the Five Dragons, five families who own the major corporations that drive the lunar economy. Above them sits the Eagle of the Moon, the head of the Lunar Development Corporation who tries to keep things moving smoothly along.
The book mostly focuses on the youngest of the Five Dragons, the Cortas family who provide the Helium-3 that keeps the lights on down on Earth. The book opens with a celebration and an assassination attempt and then spirals out from there.
The writing is top-notch. The cast of characters are all well drawn and the world-building (moon-building?) is fantastic. The moon is settled by people from all over the world so a lot of cultures blend and meld and the book happily sets forth various cultural ideas and words and sends you scrambling to google to look stuff up. It also takes all this and builds a lunar culture that really comes alive and seems real.
So yeah, a fun book if you like dynastic family squabbles on the moon (and there's more than just that). The only downside is that this is the first of two books and there's not even a token attempt to find a good stopping point. It's just a big cliffhanger and it's over. So if that irks you, maybe wait until the second one comes out. I'll be looking forward to it eagerly.
later
Tom
So Ian McDonald is one of my favorite sci-fi authors (he wrote a book about trains on Mars). His latest book came out and I finished plowing through it. The book is called Luna: New Moon and, as you might guess, it's a near-future novel set on the moon.
The moon is a libertarian wet-dream. There are no police, no laws, no crime, just contracts and negotiation. When you arrive on the moon you're outfitted with an implant that tracks your consumption of the four elements -- air, water, carbon and data. Everything you consume comes at a cost so if you don't have some cash coming in you're going to die and your body will be reclaimed by roving recycle bots trying to help settle your accounts.
Of course, not everyone is scraping for cash. At the top of the heap sits the Five Dragons, five families who own the major corporations that drive the lunar economy. Above them sits the Eagle of the Moon, the head of the Lunar Development Corporation who tries to keep things moving smoothly along.
The book mostly focuses on the youngest of the Five Dragons, the Cortas family who provide the Helium-3 that keeps the lights on down on Earth. The book opens with a celebration and an assassination attempt and then spirals out from there.
The writing is top-notch. The cast of characters are all well drawn and the world-building (moon-building?) is fantastic. The moon is settled by people from all over the world so a lot of cultures blend and meld and the book happily sets forth various cultural ideas and words and sends you scrambling to google to look stuff up. It also takes all this and builds a lunar culture that really comes alive and seems real.
So yeah, a fun book if you like dynastic family squabbles on the moon (and there's more than just that). The only downside is that this is the first of two books and there's not even a token attempt to find a good stopping point. It's just a big cliffhanger and it's over. So if that irks you, maybe wait until the second one comes out. I'll be looking forward to it eagerly.
later
Tom
