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A review by abandonedmegastructure
Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
A solid techno-thriller that focuses around the moon in 2050 (settled by a number of nations, but mostly China). It's an unquestionably political book, but rather less gung-ho america-saves-the-day than 90% of thrillers featuring some big foreign power, which is nice. As far as science goes, everything is broadly accurate (if a little ambitious, but when are near-future stories not), and the book has some interesting ideas mixed in there.
The two main drawbacks are firstly that the book is simply too slow: time after time we hear information repeated so new characters can learn it, time after time long boring scenes are written out in excruciating detail, and at some point it feels like plot beats start repeating for no clear reason: the book could be half as short and it'd have fixed so many pacing issues. Secondly, the ending is quite open; not altogether bad, but certainly less comprehensive than I'd have liked. Only read this one if you have a lot of spare time; it's not worth it otherwise.
The two main drawbacks are firstly that the book is simply too slow: time after time we hear information repeated so new characters can learn it, time after time long boring scenes are written out in excruciating detail, and at some point it feels like plot beats start repeating for no clear reason: the book could be half as short and it'd have fixed so many pacing issues. Secondly, the ending is quite open; not altogether bad, but certainly less comprehensive than I'd have liked. Only read this one if you have a lot of spare time; it's not worth it otherwise.