By: Larry Niven, Brenda Cooper Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Tor Science Fiction Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 512 Publication Date: April 04, 2006 Release Date: April 04, 2006
The first interstellar starship, John Glenn, fled a Solar System populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids, threatened by too much nanotechnology and rife with political dangers. The John Glenn’s crew intended to terraform the nearly pristine planet Ymir, in hopes of creating a utopian society that will limit intelligent technology. But by some miscalculation they have landed in another solar system, and extremely low on the antimatter needed to continue to Ymir, they must shape the nearby planet Harlequin’s moon, Selene, into a new, temporary home. Their only hope of ever reaching Ymir is to rebuild their store of antimatter through decades of terraforming the moon. Gabriel, the head terraformer, must lead this nearly impossible task, with all the wrong materials. His primary tools are the uneducated and nearly illiterate children of the original colonists, born and bred to build Harlequin’s moon into a virtual antimatter factory. With no concept of the future and with life defined as duty, one girl, Rachel Vanowen, begins to ask herself the question: what will become of the children of Selene once the terraforming is complete.
The book really doesn't go anywhere... The first 200-250 pages aren't bad, but then the book takes a turn and you wonder where it is going... No where. I was holding on through the first 200 pages, then I just saw it was going nowhere and sadly I was right it didn't go anywhere. I finished the book confused and empty handed. Niven's style isn't apparent in this book, and I wonder who this newcomer Cooper is. The hard SF in this book also isn't well supported and the characters don't develop as they should. I'm surprised I finished the book...
Grand story, History that might yet be For a novel with a grand vision of what a slice of the fate of humanity might be, it succeeds quite well. Far from being some wrote stage play of archetypes, it takes a scientific scenario of a marooned interstellar expedition, and explores how that situation might play out.
I have never read any science fiction story like it, and it shows some serious thought as to how technology, humanity, artificial intelligence, and the uncaring nature of universal physics might play out in some far-flung future. I think it is the constant presence and interplay of human nature that sets this novel apart from a solo Larry Niven effort, offering non-sci-fi twists to the plot, and yet it has a great amount of tech play too. A good change of pace that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Insubstantial and shallow frippery, NOT a Niven book I have been a fan of Larry Niven as well as his frequent co-writers (Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes) for decades and I am utterly surprised that this novel actually made it to print.
In my opinion, this book should be borrowed from a library, bought in garage sales and second-hand stores, not new. Niven fans should be warned. This is NOT a book that reflects any of his writing style. It appears that he has taken Brenda Cooper "under his wing" and given this "newcomer" almost all of the responsibility over the material that she was simply incapable of supporting by becoming lost in irrelevant detail, careless use of characters and over-explanation that makes one's head throb with worthless detail.
On the first page, inside the cover lists eight "reviews," supposedly of this particular book, three of which do not mention Cooper's name at all, so whether their "praise for Larry Niven, Brenda Cooper, and Building Harlequin's Moon," is true of all eight reviews is questionable, many citing only Larry Niven's known abilities to do what he is best at: create believable worlds, characters and stories that are involving with page-turning suspense and excitement. This is NOT true of this book. Niven's brilliant style is nowhere to be found. I am amazed at the large number of reviews claiming four or five stars.
Only two reviews with Cooper's name are from known publications: Publisher's Weekly and Booklist, and the other well-known writer is Steven Barnes, who may just be politely patting the back of his friend and mentor, Larry Niven. Curiously, and conspicuously absent are any remarks from the legendary Jerry Pournelle, with whom Larry has co-written some of the best world-building literature known in science fiction.
Publisher's Weekly notes, in their slightly ambiguous review of `Harlequin': "Niven and newcomer, Cooper's well-written tale of a 60,000 year layover in space ... Niven and Cooper provide complicated characters, particularly the AI, which struggle with realistic moral dilemmas."
Booklist describes the book as "...an entertaining epic with subtexts concerning obsessiveness and the fear and worship of science." Also somewhat true, except that I found it plodding and difficult to follow, since many of the details of the first half of the book are not explained until very late in the novel.
Steven Barnes states that "...the novel is a hugely ambitious, meticulously rendered feast for both eyes and heart; I can't wait to see what they do next!" I found this comment surprisingly inaccurate.
Brian Herbert, whose review is listed in Amazon's review site, considers this book "fast-paced." Which, due to the enormous amount of time involved and the lack of focusing on a very few main characters, is the most incredible review of all.
The remainder either praise Niven only (which do not mention the book or Brenda Cooper), or are from individual sci-fi writers who are not well-known, either for their writing or for their expertise specifically in the sci-fi genre.
What I found most surprising was that Niven's skill of world-building was conspicuously absent. Several of the reviews indicate that there are characters "that you care about," or that "live and breathe," something I found non-existent until the latter quarter of the book, and even then, the characters were unable to generate the feeling of stress or protectiveness by the reader when any of the myriad characters faced hazards or vulnerability.
As I see it, many of the problems with this book stem from the fact that it takes place over 60,000 years, attempting to establish the science of cold sleep, nano-technology, rejuvenation and literally building a moon over the above mentioned years of careful moonlet smashing to create a world that will one day become able to support life in order that the crew, after escaping Earth with runaway AI (overly similar to "The Terminator('s)" world of smart computers that "failed" - killing millions because of man's inability to control it) could build a ridiculously contrived "antimatter generator" to replace the antimatter on the ship that originally marooned them in the star system in the first place.
Another issue was almost biblical, in that, some 60,000 years later, there are "children" on the moon, who are basically slaves to create the antimatter generator, whose origin is never truly explained, for example: there is no reference those who created the children, either by embryo's harvested from ship stores (as in "The Legacy of Heorot") or the ship-side citizens who were forced to mate and nurture the "children" until they came of sufficient age (about 10 or 12 years old). The running thread through the book is that the citizenry on the ship prefer to stay "cold" - an extremely over-used term - and ignore the children that they bore so that they would not form "attachments" to them, since their ship was on its way to somewhere else at an indeterminate point in the future once their antimatter could be resupplied in order to get to their ultimate destination, a previously terraformed planet (so they think) called Ymir.
With the indifference of most of the "children's" creators added to the enormous timeline and a tremendous amount of poorly fleshed-out characters, it's difficult to feel anything for the over-abundance of individuals who are introduced in this novel.
Add to that, the Earth-born "heroes," and "children-sympathetic" characters such as Gabriel, (who is the one that supposedly cares most for the world he created and the inhabitants thereof) remains calloused about the slaves' position in the society until the very last couple of chapters of the story, demonstrating that many of the "Earth-born" characters are painted as ignorant and suddenly "seeing the light" when the story is practically over is mind-numbingly preposterous. These last chapters where all parties "fall in love and live happily ever after" places this book firmly in the realm of children's literature, were it not for the over-detailed pseudo-science that any child who reads it would certainly become boggled over in the first few pages.
The absurd notion that the Earth-born, those who escaped dying on Earth, could not see the correlation between their own slavery to the AI on Earth and the slavery they imposed on the "children," which in their personal "time-lines" of only about eight years while they were asleep during roughly the 100,000 years of being "cold," creates the Earth-born as obtuse hypocrites.
Since I am extremely familiar with the style of Larry Niven, it's clear that he contributed almost nothing to this novel and it's also evident that he should have reigned in Brenda Cooper's need to over-explain the science as well as introducing far too many characters to keep track of, or care about.
One of the most over-used words in the book, besides "cold" and "warm " (which describes the Earth-born's ability to enter a completely frozen hibernation state that rejuvenates them while they impatiently await the creation of the antimatter that will get them on their way to their haven, Ymir), is "effective."
I have never seen a word so abused in literature, and certainly not in the works of Niven, nor in his collaborations with his frequent co-writers. "Effective" is used to explain an incredible amount of detail and theory, without ever alternating with, what I believe would have been a far better word, "relative," made me want to throw this book across the room many times.
For instance, "effective" time-lines, "effective" difference, and the most absurd: the "effective" limit of upper atmosphere, ad nauseum. Since we are dealing with scientifically and quantumly RELATIVE material such as space/time, I'm stunned to realize that, not only did Niven allow the repetitive misapplication of the word, it also slipped by, or was ignored by the science editor prior to the book making it to print.
I personally, in contradiction to Steven Barnes butt-kissing review of 'Building Harlequin's Moon,' most certainly CAN wait to see what they do next, but I won't read it...
Too much gardening, not enough character development. Plowing (pun intended) through the gardening in the first third of the book was tedious. I can identify cacti, don't be giving me gruesome details on trees and flowers and fertilizer.
I'm a major Niven fan, but this was just dull, dull, dull at first.
Then, we have characters introduced in the last half of the book that just kind of pop in and out. No real character development or background (Shane and Star just come and go?), but at least the gardening gets left behind, pretty mu(l)ch.
Some short sections of the book were really good, but I'm not sure they outweighted the gardening part.
Not enough Niven and I think Brenda needs some more practice.
A readable, enjoyable, but not particularly great novel. Building Harlequin's Moon is a novel built around the premise that in the future technology gets out of control and a segment of the population decides to get out and colonize another planet where they will live more naturally. The catch of course is that they have to use technology to get to that new planet. In the process of traveling to the new world their starship breaks down in a system devoid of habitable worlds and they come up with the grand idea of building a world where they can develop a population that will build the equipment necessary to refuel their starship and get them to their original destination. Unfortunately in the process of creating this world of people they focus on the goal more than the process and end up creating an underclass that resents them and their motives.
The attraction to Building Harlequin's Moon is based on the name Larry Niven, but this is a collaboration and while Niven's voice finds its way into the novel Brenda Cooper's is quite evident as well. The problem with having Niven's name on the book is that there are some high expectations that come with that. Having read a lot of different Niven solo novels as well as collaborative efforts of his with Pournelle and Barnes it's easy to see the differences between his solo work and his collaborative work. Often his collaborators fill out various character details that Niven leaves by the wayside as he explores the ideas that drive the plot. In this book the central character is a young girl, which one would assume is written by Cooper primarily.
While Building Harlequin's Moon entertained me it certainly didn't awe me with big ideas like in some of Niven's Known Space novels or keep me on the edge of my seat as in some of his collaborations with Pournelle. It's not really a hard sci-fi novel, which for the average reader is a good thing as often hard sci-fi has less character depth.
Overall, the book was a bit predictable in plotting and the ending felt abrupt, but in general the pacing was good and I found myself interested in the main characters of Rachael and Gabriel. I could see recommending this to my wife who isn't usually a sci-fi buff. It's not an overly complicated story or weighed down by science geek stuff, but the science that is in there is interesting and serves the story well.
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