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Kim Stanley Robinson

Red Moon Hardcover – October 23, 2018

by Kim Stanley Robinson (Author)

336 ratings

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Red Moon is a magnificent novel of space exploration and political revolution from New York Times bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson.

It is thirty years from now, and we have colonized the moon.

American Fred Fredericks is making his first trip, his purpose to install a communications system for China's Lunar Science Foundation. But hours after his arrival he witnesses a murder and is forced into hiding.

It is also the first visit for celebrity travel reporter Ta Shu. He has contacts and influence, but he too will find that the moon can be a perilous place for any traveler.

Finally, there is Chan Qi. She is the daughter of the Minister of Finance, and without doubt a person of interest to those in power. She is on the moon for reasons of her own, but when she attempts to return to China, in secret, the events that unfold will change everything -- on the moon, and on Earth.

Print length

464 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Orbit
Publication date

October 23, 2018
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

0316262374
ISBN-13

978-0316262378
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...fresh and exciting. Another stellar effort from one of the masters of the genre."―Booklist (starred) on Red Moon

"Enjoyable and thought-provoking...[Robinson] is one of contemporary science fiction's great scene-setters."―SF Chronicle on Red Moon

"...as convincingly textured and observant as we've come to expect from one of the finest writers of his generation."―Locus magazine on Red Moon

"...as nuanced a portrait of connection between two people - two people who may never admit out loud that they've come to care for each other even the slightest bit, even if only as partners in survival -- as we've seen in science fiction in quite some time. Robinson nails the dynamic. Bravo."―SCI-FI magazine on Red Moon

"New York may be underwater, but it's better than ever."―The New Yorker on New York 2140

"Massively enjoyable."―The Washington Post on New York 2140

"Science fiction is threaded everywhere through culture nowadays, and it would take an act of critical myopia to miss the fact that Robinson is one of the world's finest working novelists, in any genre."―Guardian on New York 2140

About the Author

Kim Stanley Robinson is a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy and the critically acclaimed Forty Signs of Rain, The Years of Rice and Salt, and 2312. In 2008, he was named a "Hero of the Environment" by Time magazine, and he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. He lives in Davis, California.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orbit; First Edition (October 23, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316262374
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316262378
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #464,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,426 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- #2,791 in Colonization Science Fiction
- #3,139 in Exploration Science Fiction

Customer Reviews:
336 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		46%
4 star		21%
3 star		15%
2 star		10%
1 star		9%

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Top reviews from the United States

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A grim but ultimately hopeful vision of the world at mid-century

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2018

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He's a polymath: He knows a lot of stuff about a lot of things. For example, in his breakthrough work, the Mars Trilogy, demonstrates an understanding of history, social psychology, political science, and other social science disciplines as well as a smattering of hard science fields. And now, in Kim Stanley Robinson's new novel, Red Moon, he shows off a more than superficial grasp not just of quantum mechanics but also of Chinese language, history, philosophy, and culture. Yes, the word "red" in the title refers to Red China. In Robinson's tale, China has become the dominant power on the moon in the mid-21st century.

Revolution is the central theme
In Robinson's telling, China and the US share superpower status in the world of 2046. Both countries are in a pre-revolutionary state, with millions of their citizens becoming increasingly restless. Democracy is breaking down in the United States, and a chaotic new leadership transition is underway in Beijing. Revolution is the central theme in Red Moon.

In the US, millions of people are moving their money from the banks to a new cryptocurrency, which causes the banking system to fail. Their demands include "a universal basic income, guaranteed healthcare, free education, and the right to work, all supported by progressive taxation on both income and capital assets."

In China, "the billion" internal migrants and urban poor are mobilizing to exert pressure on the leadership as it heads into its 25th Party Congress. They demand the restoration of the "iron ricebowl" (guaranteed job security, steady income, and benefits ), the rule of law, the elimination of the Great Firewall, and a semblance of democracy that allows grassroots pressure to make itself felt at the top.

Robinson demonstrates a sure grasp of political dynamics in his account of these revolutionary developments.

A story anchored in a small cast of characters
Robinson succeeds in painting on such a broad canvas by zeroing in on a handful of principal characters. The action swirls around just two of them: a Chinese "princessling" who is leading the country's grassroots insurrection, and an American quantum mechanics technician whose life becomes entangled with her on the Moon. Other characters include a nameless analyst and the Artificial Intelligence he is programming, an aging man whose travelogues have made him a star in the Cloud, and a young American woman in the Secret Service who reports directly to the US President. Robinson is a skilled writer, and every one of these characters becomes believable in the telling.

Kim Stanley Robinson's new novel is a flawed but engaging tale
The action in Red Moon shifts abruptly on too many occasions, as the two central characters flee, evade capture, are then recaptured . . . repeatedly. This becomes tiresome. Robinson might have made the point with a single repetition. And at times, especially in the thinking of the analyst and his AI, the text is difficult to decipher. The story is worth sticking with for the insight it offers into the revolutionary process. But it's not always fun to read.

About the author
Kim Stanley Robinson has written a total of 19 novels and a slew of short stories to date. (You can find a complete list of his works here.) Robinson's doctoral thesis, published in 1984, was The Novels of Philip K. Dick. But it's difficult to see Dick's influence on his work. Dick wrote about the ephemeral nature of reality and the search for identity; the characters in his novels frequently lost touch with reality, as Dick himself often did. Robinson's novels are grounded in hard science and a deep understanding of the social sciences.

41 people found this helpful

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Dusty

Wait until you can get the whole story in one book. Not satisfying cut into serial chunks.

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2018

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This book started out great and had some interesting ideas. Then it started to drag and it got worse as it went on. When suddenly it's cut short, not ending at all and another potentially good novel is turned into a freaking serial. Just finish the dang book, dude. Cripes, I'm not going to buy any more!

33 people found this helpful

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Joe Karpierz

Not up to the quality of Robinson's recent works

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2019

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Kim Stanley Robinson is something of an oddity in the field of science fiction these days. While the awards finalists lists are dominated by a group of extremely diverse relative newcomers, Robinson is old guard. He doesn't fit the demographic of today's genre writers. He's a 66 year old white male, one that is having a nice late career surge. While he's probably most well-known for his Mars Trilogy of books from back in the 1990s (RED MARS, GREEN MARS, BLUE MARS), his late period novels have garnered him a lot of attention, making the Hugo finalist list with NEW YORK 2140 and 2312 (as an aside, I think a better book, AURORA, should have made the list as well).

Robinson's latest book is RED MOON, a novel that is apparently in the same timeline as that of New York 2140. The moon has been colonized mostly by the Chinese; they basically control the south polar region of the moon, while the north polar region is left for everyone else. The year is 2047, a year that I felt was wildly optimistic to have full colonization of our satellite until I read that the Chinese are launching an expedition to the far side of the moon, and I'm now wondering just how far off Robinson really is.

The story, such as it is, kicks off with an American bringing a revolutionary (now that I think about it, that's a funny way of putting it) quantum communications device to the moon as part of a deal made with the Chinese administration there. He gets caught up in a successful assassination attempt, and thus begins the wild ride of Fred Fredericks (the American) and his unlikely involvement with a Chinese revolutionary named Qi as they traverse the moon north to south and back again, and while they're at it, travel back and forth from the Earth to the Moon as well. But all that running around the moon and the Earth have almost nothing to do with that communications device. That little item was just a way to get the story started.

Robinson recently stated in an interview in Locus magazine that RED MOON was about the Chinese colonization of the moon. Quite frankly, I don't buy that. Qi's father is involved in the latest Chinese dynastic succession on Earth. Qi is a wild card in that story. Her father is involved, but she is extremely outspoken in her opposition to the Party. She is also pregnant, which happened while on the moon and is not allowed. She is sent to earth, along with Fred, early on in the story to get her off the moon and hidden so the embarrassment to her and her father can be hidden from the authorities. From that point on, the story deviates from that of Fred and the communications device to that of the next great Chinese dynastic succession. One note about Qi's pregnancy. I'm not really sure what it adds to the story, unless I'm missing some subtle point (always a possibility). There certainly is a great deal of symbolism between her pregnancy and the new regime on Earth. But beyond that, I'm at a bit of a loss.

And this is why I don't think this book is about the Chinese colonization of the moon. Just as Robinson originally wanted to write a book about financial markets and ended up with NEW YORK 2140, he wanted to write a book about the next great Chinese dynastic succession, and he was able to do so by setting it in the future and showing how technological advances would affect that succession, while at the same time showing that the succession really still is a succession, no matter what causes and influence it.

Robinson is well known for being an ardent supporter of infodumps, and is not shy about including them in all of his novels. RED MOON is no different, although this time around the infodumps are not always about science - although we get more than our share about the colonization of the moon. They are about Chinese philosophy, government, finances, history, and motivation.
They are about Chinese society, and eventually how all these things led to where we are in RED MOON. To this reviewer, it all points to the fact that Robinson wanted to write about the succession, not about moon colonization. The colonization was just a convenient vehicle for telling his story.

Yes, I know, who I am to say what Robinson's motivation really was for writing the book? I can't argue with that point of view. To put a bit of a gentler spin on the novel, it sure seems to me that he wanted to tell the succession story, and that I could be wrong about that.

Don't get me wrong. RED MOON is well written. As was once put to me about something else entirely, it's written in a way that would make your high school literature teacher proud that you read it. But like most of Robinson's other novels recently - the notable exception being AURORA - it's light on traditional story telling structure and plot.

As with NEW YORK 2140, multiple narrators are used in the audio production. I liked the way the multiple narrators were used in that book, but not so much here in RED MOON, and I'm not sure why. I guess they just didn't work for me this time around. Also, I feel like Joy Osmanski was under-utilized. She read very few chapters in comparison to the two male narrators. In any event, the narration was serviceable and worked well enough; it just wasn't as outstanding as the narration in NEW YORK 2140.

I could say the same for the novel itself.

12 people found this helpful

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Slavko Oršolić

Weakest KSR book so far

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2018

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I am really a big fan of Kim Stanley Robinson, and have read everything he published (some novels several times). This one just doesn't cut it. This is all I can say, without dissecting it

24 people found this helpful

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Brevemike

Not impressed. Waste of time.

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2018

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If you remove all the philosophizing, political rumination, and bad poetry - none of which move the story along - you’re left with about an hours worth of dull, unoriginal poltical intrigue. The book ends on an uninspired cliff hanger leaving you with an unresolved story unworthy of a sequel to close the loop. The most interesting thing about this book was the time sepnt on the web looking up some Chinese history and geography and a few translations. Glad I bought it on sale.

12 people found this helpful

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Ruykann

Just stops doesn’t really end

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2018

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I’m a fan of KSR, especially the Mars trilogy but this book in contrast just wanders and then stops. Nothing is really tied up so you assume there must be another book but instead of good story telling, it is more like the publisher walked in the room and said, “that’s it!” between continuous chapters. A seasoned author can do better.

14 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

P. G. Harris

Hard Sci Fi, Quntum Physics and Revolutionary Politics.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 1, 2018

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An American technician, Fred Fredericks, working for a Swiss Company travels to the moon to deliver a hi -tech (quantum) phone to a Chinese base at the south pole. On his journey, he meets a Chinese poet and on line media star, Ta Shu. On arrival he is inadvertently involved in the murder of a senior official. To keep him safe from competing political factions, he is returned to earth. On his homeward journey he is accompanied by a pregnant young woman, Qi, who turns out to be the dissident daughter of one of China's ruling elite.

That is the set up for a hard sci-fi thriller of what might be described as bi-global scope. On the moon a treaty prevents militarisation and colonisation, but the Chinese dominate the south pole while the rest of the world are dotted round the north. When a US ship lands at the south it doesn't create a diplomatic incident, but tensions are raised. Meanwhile, on the rest of the moon private enterprise is building a foothold. On Earth Qi's return is the catalyst for both popular revolution and for a war of succession at the top of the party. On the other side of the world, America is also in turmoil, as the populace are in economic rebellion, switching from the dollar to a green on-line currency.

In the same way that so much British fiction, science- or otherwise, is currently inflected with a post Brexit tone, this has a whiff of post-Trump. Author Kim Stanley Robinson recognises the forces of grassroots discontent which are currently fuelling global populism. His sympathies are not, however with the orange one. This is a classic Robinson book where he takes an optimistic view of human nature, and tying in to another regular theme of his work, there is a strong eco-strand in his popular rebellion. This repetition of past themes also comes up when some (currently) minor characters visit a private lunar colony which has much in common with the "new age hippies in space" tone of the Mars sequence. Robinson does, however, take a very gentle side swipe at his idealists trying to build a new world, pointing out how much easier it is with wealth behind one.

While I described this as a thriller, it is at times contemplative and leisurely. In an early section Fred and Qi are hiding in a flat in Hong Kong and have long conversations which intertwine revolutionary Chinese politics and quantum physics. Ta Shu's poetry regular inserts itself into the narrative.

The relationship between Fred and Qi is also more nuanced than one might expect from a genre novel. It is the story of two people with absolutely nothing in common learning to rub along. There is believably no hint of romance.

That said, the hard sci-fi is very strong at both a human level, with the difficulty of movement in 1/6th terran gravity a continuous theme, and at a technological level, with the protagonists zipping around on and in any number of rail-gun launched space capsules, moon rovers, and lunar trikes. There is also the question of an AI released onto the internet by a hacker hidden in the Chinese Security system.

As it heads towards its cliff hanger conclusion (yes this is apparently the first in a sequence), the pace accelerates significantly as characters fly between earth and moon, and race across the lunar surface dodging missile strikes before launching into an unknown future.

Robinson is always firmly at the intelligent end of science fiction, but with a tendency at times to step over into pretentiousness. Here he approaches the boundary, but manages to stay on the right side. A triumph.

One final thought - there are sufficient eco logical themes here to suggest that the next book might be Greem Moon.

8 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Gripping tale, shame about the ending

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 23, 2018

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I would normally expect to give this author 4 or, more likely, 5 stars, as would most readers who can enjoy or ignore his tendency to long-winded lecturing. The story is gripping and the characters well drawn. However, it ends abruptly without really tying up the loose ends. It is not as though the author has left us with a cliff-hanger, setting us up to fork out more cash for a sequel; more like the publisher has forgotten to print the last half dozen pages. Disappointing.

8 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2018

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Apart from the fact that Robinson cuts off this novel abruptly with numerous plot threads just left hanging, which is a discourtesy to the reader, I was irritated by the whole Chinese-on-the-Moon schtick; not because that's a bad idea in itself (far from it) but because it's just not very well done. If your whole thing is about Chinese culture and politics, you shouldn't (to pick one example among many) have Chinese characters asking other Chinese characters they've just met to address them by their given names. The research just isn't thorough; as another reviewer says, there's a bit of the Dan Brown about it.

I wasn't as taken as some reviewers with the characterisation, either, which strikes me as pretty stereotyped.

Worth reading, I suppose, but by no means up to Robinson's best level.

6 people found this helpful

John

Disappointing KSR Outing on Near Future Moon Colonisation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 18, 2020

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Set in the near future, the moon has been colonised and is largely split between a US dominated northern zone and a southern one where China holds sway. We join Fred Fredericks travelling to the moon on a business trip and Ta Shu, a Chinese celebrity 'blogger', poet and Feng Shui obsessive.
When Fredericks' business meeting goes terribly wrong, he is unwittingly caught up in a political mess related to the upcoming communist party congress. Our third lead is Chan Qi, a princessling whose important father may be about to become president of China. However, she appears to be on the wrong side of some of the politics that Fredericks finds himself caught up in. We spend our time with these three main characters, travelling in China, to and from the Moon and around on the moon.
I have to say, I did not enjoy this book, so much so that I was very close to quitting reading it after about a third. I found the constant references to Feng Shui really irritating, and there seemed to be no plot or storyline - just a rambling poet, a privileged young woman and a strange American. Things did pick up though, and I enjoyed the middle section, which focused on the moon colonisation and life there. However, the end was another disappointment - it just stopped.
I have read and enjoyed KSR previously (esp. the Mars trilogy) so I will be reading more of his stuff, but this was a real disappointment.

K. Roberts

A classic KSR read. New, yes. But with the feel of older works. I really enjoyed this.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 27, 2019

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As a Mars trilogy lover, this book certainly fits into that world. Note: it is quite definitely part 1 of a series. The final few chapters were nail bitingly exciting. I was muttering “go, go, get there”. You’ll see.... a very Im,very interesting exploration of the Chinese psyche. If you loved Antartica, this will fit well too. Please someone bring out a Kindle version of Antartica?