No sabia que esperarme pero desde luego no me esperaba este novelón.

Al principio quizá cuesta entender que esta pasando ya que te suelta sin mucho contexto, pero enseguida se pilla el hilo. Me ha gustado el mix cultural que hace en la Luna y que además no es la típica americanada, todo lo contrario, los que han triunfado en la Luna no son los típicos.

Aviso a navegantes, obviamente es una trilogia y el final es totalmente abierto (ya estoy buscando la segunda parte). Por lo demás, entrad y enamoraos de los Corta y de la critica al capitalismo más voraz que hace este libro.
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[a:Ian McDonald|25376|Ian McDonald|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1372533252p2/25376.jpg] is one of my favorite authors, and Luna did not disappoint. As with [b:River of Gods|278280|River of Gods (India 2047, #1)|Ian McDonald|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388256017s/278280.jpg|2440580], [b:The Dervish House|6993091|The Dervish House|Ian McDonald|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1257600283s/6993091.jpg|7235789], and [b:Brasyl|278281|Brasyl|Ian McDonald|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386925633s/278281.jpg|269900], McDonald weaves a rich tapestry of culture. This is my favorite of his talents. The plot and characters are enjoyable, too: lots of depth and surprises. As always, I look forward to McDonald's next book. ( )

I came across this novel by pure accident. While I am not person that gets triggered by cover blurb (of these most interesting for me was comparison with Godfather series) it sounded interesting enough so I decided to pick it up.

But oh boy did it leave me with mixed feelings.

First the good stuff. Lunar society is presented extremely well. Cringe moments like music/jazz effects on this dystopian but oh so musically mature world aside writing is excellent and story flows very fast. We are introduced to neo-feudalistic society on the Moon, five families controlling entire world and for all means and purposes enslaving the populace to involuntary life in debt where rich get rich and can do almost anything possible while others live in ghettos and fight for life while working for the same rich guys. Technology does not play main role in the story (but when it pops up it is in a very organic way and extremely amazing) and focus is on members and interaction of the five families. Our main protagonists (although I did not find one likeable character anywhere) is family of Cortas that finds itself on the crossroads, generational change - one that could prove to be deadly for the entire family. This is where parallels with Corleone family can be made, old godfather retiring and passing the "business" to Sonny (hothead). Action (when it happens) is fast and deadly. Having fights concentrated on use of blades (projectile weapons being very dangerous in environments that rely on pressure enabled by thin protection domes) everything is very much up close and personal. Characters are very well fleshed out (to the level of completely useless information) and one can feel the unease and sometimes open hostility between families but also within the families themselves. This is world where no-one is 100% ally and everyone is opponent (in smaller or greater degree). Mentioned families are mix of nationalities from China, Africa, Brazil, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. Although majority of the story is linked to families coming from what today might be called nations that preach all the utopian-like ideals (Africa, Brazil, to a degree Australia and New Zealand), author shows that human nature is same everywhere. No matter how mystical or enchanting are the customs if given opportunity people will grab the power with all the excuses as previous power holders. It is also in very stark contrast how these same families talk about freedoms Lunar society enjoys which is very much like code of honor among gangsters - they have freedom to live while their vassals have exclusive freedom to die when their masters decide. And have no mistake - vassals remain vassals because after certain time there is no going back to Earth - physiological changes are at that point complete in a way that even just coming under Earth's gravity is deadly for Lunar colonists. Social engineering - be it through AIs, secret societies or Afro-Brazilian church was very Dune-like and sounds like a very interesting development for other books in the series (where I hope it will play a role).

The bad stuff. All of the bad stuff I came across seem to be pure page filler. First thing - sex. I am not puritan by any means but this is ridiculous. I understand that Lunar society is open to anything (read everyone is aiming to nail anything that has pulse, marriages are not marriages but contract-level relationships for a specific duration of time and monogamy needs to be specified in contract itself or else :)) but do I need to know all escapades of Lucinho Corta or his aunt's SMBD-like auto-sex-pleasuring or how almost every female on Luna experiences orgasms when suiting up for Lunar surface actions? I understand importance of character building but when it comes to Lucinho (for example) I can see from chapter #1 that he is horny teenager who has no idea what he wants in his life and basically abuses his family power for his escapades. I have a feeling Lucinho is to pay the role of Michael Corleone but here we have major difficulty here because while former knows who his family is and uses the power of the family for his own purposes, latter was a person aiming to disassociate himself from his criminal life and live normally away from gangster/feudal way of life. It will be interesting to see how story goes for him.
Second filler are almost psychedelic parts of book like Lucinho's luster for making cakes (what?), juvenile behavior and almost never-ending orgies of Lunar youth (again - sex). It is not that cyber-punk-dystopian novels like this dont have sex (just check Richard K Morgan), it just needs to be in support of the story not present for its own sake.
Also what is the point of listening about Lucas Corta proposing to a musician, building beautifully sound isolated room when all of this plays no role at all? I still see his very dark side in the novel. Knowing he is touched by music is plain ridiculous especially since that same music does not stop him from slaying his opponents in a most brutal and merciless ways. This marks my second part - useless information. We watch Lucinho baking cakes, obsessing about cakes and paying his debt to friends and family by them. Cakes, people! For at least two chapters! We see Raffa Corte ending up in bed with so many different woman that it becomes stupid (I understand need to be macho but come on). Third part is the court of law on Luna. This is so cringy and seems to be ripped out of 2000AD comics or like proposal from president Camacho from Idiocracy. Court in which lawyers use their champions (professional fighters) in combat to death to decide on the verdict because they do not accept decision from judges. This type of setting feuds is so much better handled in Dune (Wars of Assassins) not to mention actual historical records (from where Dune got the inspiration).
Entire Brazil colony is presented in samba/jazz/capoeira light - this becomes tiring after a while. Very tiring. I understand culture and its impact but after a while descriptions of how people just melt away while listening to bossa nova while discussing beheading of opponent grows as stale as watching Italian gangster dipping his food into oil olive and drinking red wine in rural area in the Mediterranean. Ok, we got it, they come from dancing knife-fighters land, can we continue with the story. Same applies to Australian/New Zealand company, ore diggers and hard man all - with a curious propensity for under aged boys. Very twisty, perverse and oh so cliche.

So much filler data is here that I have a feeling author wanted 400 pages book. With main plot, character side-events and Adriana Corta's story this would be much slimmer and more intense read.

All in all very good book. If it weren't for these page filler and utterly unnecessary parts it would be excellent book. Whenever I think of books on this subject (mighty families duking it out) Glenn Cooks Starfisher trilogy comes to mind. Now there you had no page filler (at least IMHO).

To be honest I got hooked and I recommend it to anyone wanting to read about corpo-level-conflicts, feudal lords of tomorrow, high tech and mercenaries fighting it out for their lords. If you can go over the page filler stuff I mentioned above and understand that cover blurb is always something to be taken with grain of salt I highly recommend this book.

It is very good entry to a new series [that hopefully gets better as it gets going]. ( )

recenzia mea aici: https://bloguldesefe.ro/2021/01/24/dragonii-sangerosi-ai-lunii-despre-luna-noua-... ( )

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