I have never read anything quite like this, and found myself wishing it were twice as long (or more!) because just imagine the adventures of the space veterinarian! The possibilities are endless! Funny and fast-paced and deeply creative. [And also deeply sexist. Now, a lot of that is on the narrator, who explicitly acknowledges his misogyny and of course its his POV that flavours the whole book, but its also woven into the narrative and worldview in general.] I am very glad I know a bit of basic Spanish, because all the dialogue in the book is in Spanglish—the lingua franca of the galaxy’s ftl-spacefaring races—but with high school French and a smattering of Portuguese and Spanish, and an ability to take clues from context, I understood about ninety percent of it barely needing to pause, and the rest with a little thought and some judicious google translate.
Author: Tyrannosaurus Regina
Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
In short, this is pretty awesome. Stylistically it’s a bit jumpy for my taste in places, but overall it’s notably different and very satisfying. When I want to pick up the next book immediately, I know that it’s done something very right.
This deserves some more examination, particularly of the make-up of and relationships between the main families, and of the commercial nature of the colonisation of the moon which differs from many colonisation stories, so I hope that I will find time to come back to it and write something more thorough.