Day, Thomas A.: A Grey Moon Over China
A Grey Moon Over China (2006)
Written by: Thomas A. Day
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 411 (Hardcover)
I've been wanting to read this book ever since it came out in 2006, when it was published by a different, smaller press. I loved the cover, the premise intrigued me, but because it was an author I'd never heard of, I wanted to wait for a cheaper version. So imagine my surprise when I found the hardcover in Borders, not published by original small press, but by Tor instead! And I knew right then I'd be waiting even LONGER for a cheaper copy, and curiosity had been gnawing at me long enough. I had an excellent coupon, so I used it, and picked up my copy. Decided to read it this month because digitalclone and I have picked up our monthly reading challenges once more, and she picked this title off my list.
The premise: pulling straight from B&N.com: Army engineer Eduardo Torres is caught up in the world’s raging oil wars when he stumbles onto the plans for a quantum-energy battery. This remarkable device could slow civilization’s inevitable descent into environmental disaster, but Torres has other plans. Forming a private army, he uses the device to revive an abandoned space colonization effort in an ambitious campaign to lead humanity to a new life in a distant solar system.
The massive endeavor faces many challenges before the fleet finally embarks for the Holzstein System many light-years away. But even as the feuding colonists struggle to carve out homes on alien worlds, they discover that they have not left their old conflicts and inner demons behind.
Nor are they alone on this new frontier. Awaiting them are inhuman beings who strike without warning or explanation--and who may spell the end of humanity’s last hope.
Review style: This is a difficult book to review, so I'm reverting to my stream-of-conscious babbling and hope something makes sense. This is also a difficult book to discuss without spoiling it, so go ahead and expect spoilers. BUT! Unlike most of my reviews, this is somewhat of a comparison, as I've seen it pop up over and over and feel the need to add my two cents. Plus, it's a way to focus the review, because I'd be lost otherwise. The comparison? A Grey Moon Over China versus Battlestar Galactica (the new series, not the old).
I repeat, this is such a difficult book to review. It's hard to know where to start, which may be telling in an of itself, because I finished this book a week ago and I still don't know what to say about it.
But here's an angle: I've seen reviews and commentary liken this book to the new Battlestar Galactica, to which my first response is, "Are you on crack?" I kept thinking about the comparison, which is some cases is meant to be positive (if you love BSG, you'll love this!), and some negative (imagine BSG without any ray of hope or happiness, and you'll have this book), and I have to step back and really consider the comparisons.
On the surface, I don't feel they're anything alike. After all, Eddie Torres is part of a military group looking to escape Earth and find a new home, but they aren't being DRIVEN from their home by homicidal machines bent on destroying their masters. However, that's sort of the catch: they inadvertantly CREATE the homicidal machines who become bent on destroying their masters, but said machines don't MEAN to. It's all interesting to see how that comes about, but damn, it's a very, very slow ride.
When you consider it, the damn slow ride is rather realistic, especially when considering Earth's first colonization attempt into space. It's not going to be quick or easy or even clean, and this book makes it dirtier than most. The characters are so many shades of human it makes you sick, because they're everything we don't want our heroes to be: selfish. I mean, let's face it: Torres has found an energy source that could not only solve Earth's problems in terms of resources, but could easily become a step towards world peace. What does he do with it? Hordes it, manufactures it, sells it to the highest bidders, all the while creating the technology to get the hell out of dodge. Like I said, realistic and selfish, but not by any means heroic.
In fact, I'm hard-pressed to remember a moment when a reader could truly call Eddie Torres heroic. Oh, he has opportunities, but he lets them slide by or someone else steps in to fill the hero's shoes.
And then you consider the power-structure and how all the nations interact, especially once in space. Here, the BSG comparison certainly shines, as people are making HUGE decisions that affect the colonists, and not all of those decisions are easy or popular. BSG certainly had many of those, but BSG didn't have a character that would've lasted as long as Polaski, a man I couldn't, for the LIFE of me, understand. And by that I don't mean I didn't understand his character: I did, easily. What I didn't understand is why it took so FRAKKING LONG for someone to take the bastard out. This, too, points to our narrator's lack of heroism. Polaski was what Torres needed him to be, so that Torres didn't have to get blood on his hands. Ironic then, that later Torres learns that the colonists see him and Polaski as one and the same: it doesn't matter who the decisions come from, because the two men are interchangeable. In fact, I was really, really, REALLY hoping for some Fight Club-esque reveal that they were literally ONE AND THE SAME PERSON. That would've been enjoyable, but no. And believe me when I say that someone should've blown Polaski and his men off the frakking ship before things got as bad as they did, and really, the fact it didn't happen is the narrator's fault, which makes the narrator even more sad, more pathetic, and more frustrating.
Our Starbuck in the story comes in the form of a woman named Pham, except Pham is what Starbuck would've been had Starbuck been completely dominated and broken down by men. However, Pham still provides a very interesting thread to the story. As Torres states in the prologue, this was truly Pham's story, which sort of makes me resent the fact we didn't get it through Pham's eyes. Also, the fact that every time Torres and Pham interacted, I wanted to tell them to go screw each other already and get it over with. Really. In fact, I was so hoping they'd have A MOMENT by the end that what little we got just wasn't enough for the romantic in me. Though, it was poignant and completely in line with Torres's character. I just wish that, for once, he'd let go of the rigid control he held on to for so long.
So what's the Cylon faction, and how does it all happen accidentally? This is rather delicious, and while it took way to long to get there, I rather like the revelations which I'm completely spoiling here, but I warned you, didn't I? In order for their version of FTL to work, jump points, toruses, have to be built. And once you build a torus, it's a one way ticket, so you need to build ANOTHER on the other side to come back. I think that's how I understood it. The coming back is important, because the ships can't just go there without knowing what they're getting into, so they build drones that are essentially human in thinking, but machine in body. The drones build the torus, jump to the proper system, do their surveys and start terraforming, build the torus to go back, and then jump home to report findings. Well, due to their programming by the single genius in charge of them (who didn't trust humanity any further than she could throw it), they developed a fear of aliens with WEAPONS and due to the slight malfunction in their original launch, they lost all knowledge of humanity being their creators. Which means when they finally do hook up with humanity again, with humanity pointing WEAPONS everywhere, they freak out. They think humans are aliens, and part of their programming is to protect the system they're in, and that's what they do. And the kicker is that while the drones think humanity is the aliens, due to the time the drones have had to grow, evolve, and replicate, when humanity finally catches up with them, they think the DRONES are actual aliens.
Of course these guys are going to fight each other. It's all a big misunderstanding, of course, but it's one that makes sense on so many levels it's not even funny. The drones eliminate anything that's perceived as a weapon, so if you're holding a gun when the drones attack, you're toast (pun intended, but if you don't get it, don't worry). But if you're not holding a weapon, you're fine. The drones are merely protecting the planets they were sent to find and terraform, and if humanity could only live in peace, without weapons, everything would be fine.
And that's the irony, because even as Torres and Polaski learn the truth about the drones and what will or will not make them attack, they just can't bring themselves to let go of war.
It's a deep book. It's a poignant book. It's also slow and not very happy, but I didn't come to this text to be mindlessly entertained. This book is chock FULL of details and details and layers and layers. It's an onion of epic proportions, and it deserves a slower read than I gave it. It's an introspective book with plenty to consider regarding humanity and religion and politics and so much more that it's obvious, more than obvious once you start reading, why I keep seeing reviews mention BSG.
But I will nitpick: what the HELL was the author thinking when he named a Lieutenant MICHAEL FREAKING BOLTON?!?!?! Was Day trying to make a joke? And if so, doesn't he realize that joke was covered quite thoroughly in the movie Office Space? Okay, so this is the future and the poor character is from Ireland, I believe, but STILL. You're writing for MODERN READERS, and never once was it mentioned that some character recognized the name not for the Lieutenant, but for some old singer way back when. At then, I could've appreciated the joke. But no, there's no reference that I picked up, so I was annoyed every time I saw the character's full name.
Another thing that bothered me, and this is far more serious, was the constant manipulation of the author. For starters, I didn't care for the prologue at all and it broke all the rules writing workshops tell you to never do when starting a book: having a character wake up. Having a character think about his life. I think there's another rule it broke, but it's escaping me.
But more frustrating was the manipulation of information. The narrator would think of something IMPORTANT but not let US know what it was, or he'd handle it later, or someone would try to say something IMPORTANT and we'd not get it. This happened enough that it's no longer a case of the author trying to keep a few aces up his sleeve, it's a case that the author keeps taunting me with clues and letting them pile up that when a reveal does happen, I've forgotten what the clue was and I can't remember where to look back in the book to find it. This happened over and over and over, and I suspect that if I'd been taking notes and writing down all the questions that popped up in such a manner, I would not have gotten an answer for them all.
That's frustrating in a book so dense. But hey, like I said, I read it faster than it really deserves, so I'm perfectly willing to admit that I may have missed something.
But still: Michael Bolton? Really? REALLY? UGH!!!!
My Rating
Buy the Paperback: It's interesting, it really is. It deserves a reader who's going to take his/her time with it. An introspective book with an ugly, ugly look at humanity that nonetheless makes you think. It's fascinating in that way. I would recommend this to the light-SF reader, but I will say the comparisons to BSG, once you start peeling back the layers, are pretty interesting and compelling, and I don't mean that in a "Oh, this book is a rip-off of BSG!" way. It's NOT, not by a long shot. But it's cool to see that darker tone of SF in fiction, and this is definitely dark. However, if I'd waited to get this in paperback, I think I would've been happier, overall, with my purchase.
Cover Commentary: The Tor cover is both ugly and interesting at the same time. Ugly because while the title stands out, it's just not very PRETTY. What is rather pretty is the image in the upper right hand corner that I have to squint at even with my glasses on. The cover I prefer is the one from the original release, as seen behind the cut. Now that's a beautiful and compelling cover!
Next up: Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev