Lunar Leitmotifs: Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson

Red Moon is definitely not destined to be among my favorite Kim Stanley Robinson novels.  It's nowhere near the Mars Trilogy, Aurora, or The Years of Rice and Salt (my personal favorites), nor is it quite as much fun as Galileo's Dream, as engaging as Shaman, or as wide-ranging as 2312.  In fact, Red Moon may be my least favorite of KSR's novels I've read.  But as I said in my review of New York 2140 (another book I liked but didn't love), I'd be happy to read KSR's grocery list.

The focus on China is interesting, although sometimes it felt as if people forgot that countries besides China and the US exist. China is going to be a major player in space exploration in the future, and it was interesting and presumably realistic to read about all the factions within the government. My favorite character was Ta Shu, a TV host with a penchant for what might be called "science fictional Feng Shui" and the vehicle for a lot of KSR's typical ruminations on history, philosophy, science, economics, etc.  The odd couple of Qi and Fred is fun, but in retrospect it was odd that it was always from Fred's POV and never from Qi's.


The plot is a bit meandering, but I found it engaging enough to continue, even though I read this one pretty slowly.  A surprising amount of the novel, including a 50-60 page chapter in the middle, doesn't even take place on the moon.  But the parts on the moon are fascinating.  Hard SF fans will appreciate how much attention KSR gives to things like the effect of the moon's lower gravity on everything the characters do and the necessity of living underground (both literally and figuratively for some of the characters).

Philosophically KSR isn't breaking a lot of new ground.  His usual anarcho-socialist leanings are on full display in the disintegration of centralized power and the creation of bottom-up political movements. His typical thoughts on the wildness and newness beyond the Earth are here, although this time on the moon instead of Mars as in the Mars Trilogy.  There's even an AI that starts developing a personality, although it's not as interesting as the one in Aurora.  Probably his engagement with Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism are most interesting here, although some of that has been present in his earlier work, too.

Without giving any spoilers, I'll say I like how the novel ends.  Is the ending KSR's philosophical and artistic statement about what we can know about where the future is taking all of us?  I don't know.


See my Goodreads review.