James Nicoll Reviews

Robin Sloan’s 2024 Moonbound is a stand-alone science fiction novel. 

In a land far, far away, a long time from now, young Ariel de la Sauvage lives in a magical kingdom ruled by the Wizard Mallory. Mallory has plans for Ariel.

Mallory’s plans are upended when Ariel discovers Altissa Praxa’s last resting place. The woman is long dead — 11,000 years dead, in fact — but her symbiont, packed with knowledge from an era very different from Ariel’s, is still functional and perfectly capable of transferring from one host to another. Farewell, Altissa, hello Ariel.

Eleven thousand years ago, the world was a very different place. Humanity’s grandest civilization, the Anth, had transformed the Earth into a virtual paradise. Determined to defeat Einstein’s limit, they created the dragons, immaterial beings of prodigious ability, to explore the stars on the Anth’s behalf. Results were mixed: the dragons did explore the stars, but the experience drove them mad. The dragons created a veil of dust to hide Earth from the stars. When the Anth resisted, the dragons launched a genocidal war against humanity.

In the year 13777, the dragons still rule from the moon. The Earth is still shrouded in dust. Humans appear to be thriving — curious, as the Anth all died — animals can speak, and Mallory has a bold plan to overthrow the dragons.

Ariel was a key part of the plan. The boy’s discovery of Altissa and his recovery of the treasures hidden with Altissa made him unsuitable for the plan. No problem! Mallory will simply dispose of Ariel and begin again. Creating beings to order is what wizards do, after all.

Ariel’s unnamed companion saves Ariel by making the boy deaf to Mallory’s otherwise irresistible commands. Ariel flees Sauvage. Somewhere out there, there may be a refuge that can protect Ariel from Mallory. If so, the boy needs to find it soon. Mallory has other, formidable, servants, and they are pursuing the wizard’s lost property.

~oOo~

Today is James Nicoll Reviews’ 10^th birthday! 

Moonbound is apparently part of Sloan’s ​“Penumbraverse.” I have not read other Sloan works so I am not entirely certain what that means.

When I say the Anth all died, I mean that in the same sense as DC Comics means all Kryptonians died with Krypton, which is to say not every Anth died. Oddly, the fact that a lucky few got put on ice has nothing to do with why there seem to be humans running around despite humans having been expunged 11,000 years ago. That involved a convoluted method that will please Janet Kagen fans.

This method apparently confers a remarkable degree of linguistic inertia, because the character who slept away the last eleven millennia has no trouble communicating with moderns. Eleven thousand years is more time than has elapsed since the invention of beer.

Having created a magical (well, entirely technological but conforming to the conventions of talking animal fantasies) world, Sloan structures his plot so that Ariel will get to tour in person a considerable part of it. Forcing young protagonists to quest to reveal a world new to the reader is as traditional and somewhat more plausible than providing utopians with outsiders to whom all the minutia of the utopia will be explained.

Alas, to enable all this plotting the author relies on one of my least favorite contrivances, which is poor communication. It is entirely possible that if the dragons had explained what they saw Out There, the Anth might not have resisted and there would have been no human-Anth war. If Mallory had bothered to explain to Ariel what Ariel’s role in the Mallory’s grand plan was, Ariel might have cooperated and none of the running around would have happened.

Many online reviewers appear to have loved this adventure. I thought it was perfectly acceptable without being especially remarkable. This isn’t the first such stark disagreement between me and the rest of the planet, which I ascribe to a nearly universal conspiracy possibly involving the Bureau international des poids et mesures.

Nevertheless, this is an amusing tour of a science-fantasy setting. I suspect it would be more amusing to readers who have not read as many science fantasies as I have.

Moonbound is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Apple Books), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).