22 thoughts on “New Lunar Fiction”

  2. Unfortunately, based on the review, it appears the author has taken a page from Paul Verhoeven’s “Total Recall” – where the lower classes have to worry about buying air from the upper class. Yeah, that Paul Verhoeven, the one that turned Heinlein’s Starship Troopers into a crappy parody of itself.

    1. Maybe I don’t understand what point you are making, but In the Moon is Harsh Mistress, people had to buy air too. Here is an excerpt:


      “It was when you insisted that the, uh, young lady, Tish—that Tish must pay, too. ‘Tone-stopple,’ or something like it.”
      “Oh, ‘tanstaafl.’ Means ‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.’ And isn’t,” I added, pointing to a FREE LUNCH sign across room, “or these drinks would cost half as much. Was reminding her that anything free costs twice as much in long run or turns out worthless.”
      “An interesting philosophy.”
      “Not philosophy, fact. One way or other, what you get, you pay for.” I fanned air. “Was Earthside once and heard expression, ‘Free as air.’ This air isn’t free, you pay for every breath.”
      “Really? No one has asked me to pay to breathe.” He smiled. “Perhaps I should stop.”
      “Can happen, you almost breathed vacuum tonight. But nobody asks you because you’ve paid. For you, is part of round-trip ticket; for me it’s a quarterly charge.” I started to tell how my family buys and sells air to community co-op, decided was too complicated. “But we both pay.”

      1. In the Moon is Harsh Mistress, people had to pay an air tax if they wanted to breath in public areas. In private air space that tax didn’t apply, the owner could manufacture and recycle air by whatever means that saw fit. And the air tax was local to the municipality.

      2. Sure, everybody bought air on the moon in TMIAHM. But it was the same for everybody, not a class warfare thing. Are you really that clueless?

        1. It wasn’t the same for everyone. The protagonist is part of a family who owns a tunnel and mines ice. But most of the three million people on the moon live in warrens and don’t have any ability to mine or recycle air. Beyond that: In Heinlein’s book, the Lunar Authority controls, for most people, the access to air and other essentials, while in McDonald’s book, five families have that control. What’s the important difference?

          And to answer your question, yes, yes, I’m clueless. For example, I have no clue why you are being rude.

          1. The difference between a single governmental entity controlling the air and five clans each controlling their own air space is pretty simple – competition. With five clan enterprises competing for the best workforce, air taxes would be as low as possible, probably on a sliding, productivity-based scale. The normative leftist would reject this, supposing the five clans would naturally collude to keep air taxes as high as possible – the class solidarity of the oppressor class doncha know. In practice, no one operates on the basis of “class interests” when there’s money at stake. Exhibit 1: OPEC. Exhibit 2: Post-bellum white landowners in the Reconstruction and Jim Crow South. Despite many attempts to establish a cartel to fix the wages of sharecroppers, everyone bid up the share deals offered, under the table, to the best tenants to get the best talent.

            In TMIAHM, it is also established that the Lunar Authority is also the Department of Corrections for Earth; the Moon is a penal colony. After several generations, most of the population are no longer transportees, but are descendants of same who now have the status of hereditary serfs. The air tax exists solely to insure no able-bodied transportee or serf can get away with not serving the State if they can’t find employment, or an advantageous marriage, in the private sector.

            Interestingly, the lunar insurrectionists do not choose to abolish the air tax. There is a minority of socialistically-inclined Loonies who want the post-Authority government to provide free “air, food, water, power, phone and cubic,” but this faction is shouldered aside by the majority TANSTAAFLers who don’t fancy paying for slackers and layabouts.

          2. Dick,

            In your comment above, you suggest that the five families compete such that air taxes would be as low as possible, but I don’t think that’s in the book. I haven’t read the book, but I read quite a few reviews, and I didn’t see even a hint of that arrangement.

            Here’s an excerpt from Cory Doctorow’s review:

            You get to the moon by entering into a contract with the Lunar Development Corporation — the nice folks who’ll be selling you your air, bandwidth, carbon and water for the rest of your life […]

            From http://boingboing.net/2015/09/22/ian-mcdonalds-luna-new-mo.html

  3. The book may be great, awful, or in between; I haven’t read it yet. But the review did nothing to attract me. These days, I want fiction to be fun — and none of the review sounded fun.

  4. I’ve found that if IO9 is giving a book a glowing review, it’s probably garbage. I’ve made the mistake of going off their reviews a few times, and only once was I even able to get halfway through the book before losing interest.

  5. I wonder if the Liptak has actually read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? Because I’m pretty sure the Moon was *not* controlled by large corporations in that book.

  6. Yawn… Wake me up in at least 20 years and we’ll see if Luna: New Moon has withstood the test of time. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress has certainly more than passed the test.

    BTW, stories about warring families don’t terribly excite me. Most such stories can take place in a Western setting and still be pretty much the same story. I personally prefer science fiction that explores new ground than families populated by children with daddy issues… Cough, The Force Awakens, cough…

    1. “TW, stories about warring families don’t terribly excite me. ”

      Well…The Godfather was pretty exciting 😉

      1. I watched the first episode of The Expanse too, but it’s very much on the bubble for me. Part of the problem is the dimwitted leftish Manichaenism of the premise – the evergreen Eeeeeeevil corporations trope. Governments are never the bad guys for these people unless, of course, they’re militaristic governments. This is apparently the case with Mars and maybe even with Earth, which is – natch – run by the UN. There’s at least one high-ranking female Earth politico who’s a pretty nasty piece of work. If the One World UN government turns out to be – gasp! – bad guys, I’ll have to give at least a few props for a serious kink in the usual cookie-cutter leftist futurism.

        The economic premises appear to suffer from the book series on which the show is based having been written before the Curiosity and Dawn missions revealed that Mars is, comparatively speaking, soaking wet, and that Ceres – where much of the action in The Expanse centers – may well be even wetter. The primacy of water as a commodity of trade is good, but portraying both Ceres and Mars as importers of water is kind of goofy in light of recent findings.

        I’ll watch a few more episodes and see how things go. So far I’m not finding any of the characters interesting enough to really grab me. I will say that, tepid though it be thus far, The Expanse is practically Shakespeare compared to the godawful Dominion and Defiance, now both, mercifully, gone.

      2. I’m enjoying it so far. Agree on the evil corp trope but I do find the casting pretty good so far. The main problem is their decision to bring the Avasarala character in from the beginning. Leviathan Wakes didn’t have her in it and the entire book was just Holden and Miller trading viewpoints. Adding a third one for me is too distracting. Too hard to keep up with what’s going on. I would much prefer just the two.

        But I will say I have found the graphics and overall production to be excellent. Can’t wait to finally see the Rocinante.

  9. I occasionally watch folks debunk TMIAHM style kinetic kill weapons. Then they smugly proclaim the moon will never have any military value. Such pundits demonstrate only their own ignorance and lack of imagination.

    There’s possibly rich volatile deposits at the lunar poles. Propellent exported to EML1 and/or EML2 could make access to assets in cislunar space much more routine. As Spudis notes, this would be of great commercial and military value.

    (Looking at Liptak’s review…) Helium 3? Rats. No ground breaking SF here.

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