Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I was real happy until I got to the end -or maybe it wasn't?, October 15, 2004
Rebel Moon is a fastpaced, fun sci-fi book. Set in 2069, the various colonies of the moon have revolted against the United Nations and declared their independence. The UN is not happy and responds by sending in peacekeepers to pacify things. A small, professional armed force augmented by volunteer militia fend off the UN and German forces (the world may be dominated by the UN but some individual countries still pursue their own agendas).
This is a non-techno space romp. There's enough science to please most sci-fi fans but it as kept simple as we are introduced to the fighting styles of the future through the eyes of a computer geek militia member. The politics of the day are murky enough to seem plausible.
I would have easily have rated this book a '4 stars' or, perhaps, even a '5 stars' if the ending had not been so terribly abrupt. Will there be a sequel. Did he just run out of time or space? Who knows, but it left a curious taste in my mouth.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Bethke's writing, Vox's vision, September 3, 2006
Rebel Moon the book is based on Rebel Moon the computer game, one of two put out by Vox Day's early 90s game company before it folded in a legal dispute over a third, and I suspect that the game was (not so) loosely based on Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."
That being the case, the similarities are significant: the UN runs the world, a small group of lunar colonists feed a significant part of earth's hungry population, the colonists decide a la the Spirit of '76 that it's time to go it alone. There's a spiritual leader who gives his life for the cause ("Prof." in Mistress, von Hayek - nice libertarian name, that one - in Rebel Moon), a computer geek who serves as the focal point (Mannie/Dalton), an advanced computer to plan strategery (Mike/General Consensus), help "Earthside" (Stu La Jolie/Lord Haversham) though they assist for different reasons, and in each case the food transports serve as the booty for which the war is played out between the Earth's bureaucrats and the Lunar Rebels.
Rebel Moon really moves after a slow start, and Vox's anti-fascist, anti-UN, and gamer-to-the-end heart shines thru in much of the characterization, though I suspect Bethke did most of the writing - at least his name headlines the cover. I most enjoyed the scene in which Haversham, exposed as a mole by a UN assistant with an almost miraculous gift for research, requests a final cigarette before his hastily-arranged lethal injection in a UN prison/hospital. "I'm sorry," the nurse replies in perfunctory bureaucratic fashion, "this is a smoke-free building." Oh, the ironies of collectivism!
Rivetting battles rage between white knights (and a few oriental ones), conscripted UN blue-helmets, and wickedly efficient black-suited stormtroopers (these of the New German Unity, once again pursuing their historical Germanic shenanigans). The latter decide to go into business for themselves when the UN effort to re-capture the colony flounders - as in Mistress, the earth's unity is more formal than real, and the demands of geopolitics ensure that the rebels have at least a minimal opportunity to divide if not conquer - and the war peters out with the UN scheming to re-take several captured domes (colonies) from the Germans.
But unlike Mistress (and to be honest, most disappointing to me) the book's end does not bring victory or even real defeat. Like the final chapter of a bad Agatha Christie novel, the ground beneath the struggle shifts, new factors are introduced - as Truman Capote raged in the finale of Murder by Death: "You introduced characters in the last few pages that were never in the book before" - and the heroes are overshadowed by circumstance before they fade into insignificance.
The way it occurs is clever, the implementation frustrating. You see, Dalton is a gamer, and in the opening scene he's locked in epic battle with a fericious monster alongside one of his pals. But as a thief (Finn Fingers) he's not much good in combat, so his companion, playing a barbarian in the online game, heroically sends Dalton off to find a magical key while he fights the monster alone. The dialogue is replayed word-for-word in "real life" later as they battle stormtroopers. At the end the battle itself is re-lived, this time against a real-life dragon, or rather a huge red bug that belches plasma, and the creature is defeated. Instead of being an evil menace, however, it turns out the bug is a mother-creature of some aliens who have been using abandoned moon mines as a birthing chamber, aliens who have been providing the colonists with the technology that has allowed them to fight off their more numerous earthworm opponents. Killing the bug - which rather than being heroic "may go down in history books as one of the biggest screw-ups of all time" - results in Dalton and several of the heroes being beamed away into exile as the moon rebellion ostensibly fails.
Such twist was apparently part of the later Vox game "Rebel Moon Rising." Unfortunately, as I never played the game, this unexpected discovery overwhelms the battle for freedom - both in my mind and the minds of the fighting factions - making the emotional investment in the story pretty much a sunk cost. Vox, economics major that he is, would certainly understand my desire not to invest anything further in the venture.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting story with a side order of alphabet soup, January 19, 2005
I picked up this little book at a local dollar shop. The only thing that grabbed my attention was that it was co-authored by Vox Day, whose columns I enjoy reading over at WorldNetDaily.
In the 21st moon, the Moon is colonized and produces much of the food needed for the world. The world is now governed by the United Nations, which is, well, the UN. After years of mismanagement and heavy-handed administration, the colonies revolt against the New World Order and declare themselves a free state. And then the fight begins.
Along the way you meet Dalton Starkiller, a techno gaming geek who volunteers for the lunar militia in a moment of patriotism. Dalton soons discovers war is no video game. And there are more discoveries to be made by all parties involved.
The writing is uneven throughout the book. The description of lunar combat is well-thought and creative, the historical observations are also interesting and the descriptions of national tendencies are amusing. And in keeping with the theme of global bureaucracy, get ready for LOTS of three-letter phrases all through the book. Might want to make your own little glossary.
Unfortunately, many of the characters only seem to be stereotypes of so many other sci-fi types. Other aspects of technology and culture are ignored, and the ending, well, what is it? The end, or the beginning of an unpublished sequel? You can't tell.
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