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lushr's review against another edition
4.0
If you liked The Martian and the future hopeful politics of Daniel Suarez’ novels then this book is a treat!
This story covers three characters swept up in huge political change while on the moon, it’s like a spy novel that moves between china and the moon. always exciting, never sure where they’re going next.
Great strong female character in Qi who is pregnant, powerful and determined to bring China to positive political change. Fred is along for the ride, while Ta Shu - an older poet and vid celebrity - tries to help them.
Really great read. wish the ending wasn’t so abrupt, there’s obviously more stories to come.
This story covers three characters swept up in huge political change while on the moon, it’s like a spy novel that moves between china and the moon. always exciting, never sure where they’re going next.
Great strong female character in Qi who is pregnant, powerful and determined to bring China to positive political change. Fred is along for the ride, while Ta Shu - an older poet and vid celebrity - tries to help them.
Really great read. wish the ending wasn’t so abrupt, there’s obviously more stories to come.
meghan_is_reading's review against another edition
Wait what? Are you telling me this isn't part of a series? Dang it. It was both too long and too short. What happened with the AI? What happened with everything? Aaaarg.
ozgold's review against another edition
1.0
Enjoyed the early sci-fi imagery but the story didn't hook me, felt no connection to the characters, and gave up 99 pages in.
elienv's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't really know what to expect from this book, or indeed any book by the author. The summary has much more of a thriller feel than the book itself does, which was a bit of a shame. Red Moon proves to be more a of a geopolitical drama set in the future, with an on-the-run aspect involved. Robinson raises a lot of worthwhile themes, such as the dominance of finance in our society, how the colonisation of the Moon might go, what China and the US might look like in the future. Some parts of the book, however, are a bit too philosophical for my taste, and the quantum tech bits a bit too dense. I really liked the two central characters, though, and their rapport throughout the story.
christyco125's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.0
Ugh. I wish I weren‘t such a completionist some times. The story offered an interesting story concept with China and the US colonizing the moon. But, I lost interest about halfway into the first return to Earth. I understand there needed to be some political intrigue to push the plot along but it became overwhelming halfway through the book.
megsib's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
frogggirl2's review against another edition
3.0
I read New York 2140 due to the cool idea of a flooded New York and thought the writing was great. I found this book disappointing since they basically just go back and forth repeatedly fleeing all over China and from China to the moon which gets old after a while. This is a book about class, China, revolution and government but not so much about the moon, which is what I expected.
harmless_old_lady's review against another edition
4.0
Thrills and chills! And politics! In China. And the moon. Feng shui and May 35th. I feel both smarter and more hopeful having read this.
tasadion's review against another edition
2.0
Complicated book to review, had a few stages I went through with this one:
Early on, indeed for the first half of the book I was pretty bored, trying to be interested in the lunar parts of the story, but only marginally interested, the parts on the earth seemed ok, but parts did not seem futuristic at all, current events has caught up to this novel a little.
Later the story become a little more interesting, and some characters came some into play, but the plot was still struggling to really emerge.
Then in the final 50 pages everything really started to happen and the book began to go faster and faster, and... there was no real resolution at all. Pffah.
The story reminded me of William Gibson at his more unengaging, where the plot seemed aimless, and without Gibson's obsessive descriptive and sparse prose.
So some interesting observations here and there, particularly around Chinese culture and politics, but took too long to get moving and didn't even try to come to a conclusion.
Early on, indeed for the first half of the book I was pretty bored, trying to be interested in the lunar parts of the story, but only marginally interested, the parts on the earth seemed ok, but parts did not seem futuristic at all, current events has caught up to this novel a little.
Later the story become a little more interesting, and some characters came some into play, but the plot was still struggling to really emerge.
Then in the final 50 pages everything really started to happen and the book began to go faster and faster, and... there was no real resolution at all. Pffah.
The story reminded me of William Gibson at his more unengaging, where the plot seemed aimless, and without Gibson's obsessive descriptive and sparse prose.
So some interesting observations here and there, particularly around Chinese culture and politics, but took too long to get moving and didn't even try to come to a conclusion.
colossal's review against another edition
2.0
A geopolitical allegorical story using the trappings of mid-21st century colonization of the Moon.
Fred Fredericks, a quantum mechanic, as he arrives at the Chinese moonbase at the Moon's south pole where he gets caught up in an assassination, nearly dying himself. He gets linked up with a pregnant young Chinese woman, Chan Qi, who has her own problems with the authorities. The story follows the two of them as they bounce between the Moon and various places there, China on Earth and back to the Moon, all with the backdrop of the author's wish fulfillment fantasy of eco-techno-Marxist revolution in both China and the USA at the same time.
Fred Fredericks is mildly autistic and insular with very little understanding of China or the Chinese people, even though his business is with China and he can't seem to disengage from China in general. (Pssst. He's a metaphor for the United States.)
Chan Qi is a party princess who's the figurehead leader of a ground-swell new people's revolution. (You'll never guess who she's a metaphor for. Hint: take out the 'Q' in her name and there's an anagram going on.)
The two of them find themselves in similar difficult circumstances and form a co-dependent relationship. (PSSST. IT'S A METAPHOR.)
The two muddle along, threatened at all stages by activity in the world that they had a hand in but have no control over, largely mediated by the general population and emerging new technologies. (DO YOU GET IT YET?! DO YOU??!??! METAPHOR!!)
And all of that gets mixed in with a healthy dose of infodumps on quantum theory, space science and engineering, geopolitics, economics, democracy vs Chinese socialism and in-party politics within China, handily given by an unnamed analyst working on an emergent artificial intelligence.
The story is an absolute mess and even more of a political wish fulfillment fantasy than the previous [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1471618737s/29570143.jpg|49898123]. At no point do the characters transcend their origins as allegories, and the "on-screen" action is both mostly unbelievable and not the most interesting thing happening at the time. I understand the author's political beliefs and I even share many of them, but this is too heavy-handed and poorly executed for even this leftie.
Fred Fredericks, a quantum mechanic, as he arrives at the Chinese moonbase at the Moon's south pole where he gets caught up in an assassination, nearly dying himself. He gets linked up with a pregnant young Chinese woman, Chan Qi, who has her own problems with the authorities. The story follows the two of them as they bounce between the Moon and various places there, China on Earth and back to the Moon, all with the backdrop of the author's wish fulfillment fantasy of eco-techno-Marxist revolution in both China and the USA at the same time.
Fred Fredericks is mildly autistic and insular with very little understanding of China or the Chinese people, even though his business is with China and he can't seem to disengage from China in general. (Pssst. He's a metaphor for the United States.)
Chan Qi is a party princess who's the figurehead leader of a ground-swell new people's revolution. (You'll never guess who she's a metaphor for. Hint: take out the 'Q' in her name and there's an anagram going on.)
The two of them find themselves in similar difficult circumstances and form a co-dependent relationship. (PSSST. IT'S A METAPHOR.)
The two muddle along, threatened at all stages by activity in the world that they had a hand in but have no control over, largely mediated by the general population and emerging new technologies. (DO YOU GET IT YET?! DO YOU??!??! METAPHOR!!)
And all of that gets mixed in with a healthy dose of infodumps on quantum theory, space science and engineering, geopolitics, economics, democracy vs Chinese socialism and in-party politics within China, handily given by an unnamed analyst working on an emergent artificial intelligence.
The story is an absolute mess and even more of a political wish fulfillment fantasy than the previous [b:New York 2140|29570143|New York 2140|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1471618737s/29570143.jpg|49898123]. At no point do the characters transcend their origins as allegories, and the "on-screen" action is both mostly unbelievable and not the most interesting thing happening at the time. I understand the author's political beliefs and I even share many of them, but this is too heavy-handed and poorly executed for even this leftie.