Moonseed | |||||||||
Stephen Baxter | |||||||||
HarperPrism, 535 pages | |||||||||
|
A review by Steven H Silver
Leaving his ex-wife, astronaut Geena Meacher, behind in
Houston, Henry travels to Scotland in hopes of putting his
Houston failures behind him. On a whim, he appoints
a young man with no formal geological training, Mike Dundas,
as his lab manager and begins to oversee work on his lunar
sample. When Mike presents his sister with a small vial of
dust from the sample, she allows some to fall on Ard Tor, an
extinct volcano in the heart of Edinburgh which leads to the
dissemination of the Moonseed. Although Baxter is never
fully clear on what the Moonseed is, or how it works, he is
clear on its destructive behavior and Edinburgh is soon facing
catastrophes of epic proportions. It also becomes clear
that the rest of the world will face similar problems and eventually
be destroyed like Venus unless something is done, although
nobody knows what that something should be.
Unfortunately, even as the destruction of the world begins,
Baxter never really conveys the feeling of panic or fear. The
evacuation of Scotland is shown as being orderly, and, although a
few fights break out, relatively peaceful. The rest of the
world, including London, seems to treat Edinburgh's loss as an
interesting news story, but not something to worry about. Even
Henry Meacher's doomsaying is low key as he is the only person to
fully understand the ramifications of the Moonseed.
Oddly for a disaster novel, Moonseed manages to avoid
the pessimism which was endemic to Titan. Instead,
the novel seems to have a strange mixture of Luddite and
technological philosophy. Baxter seems to be saying that,
yes, many of our modern problems are caused by technology, but
the proper way to solve them is to throw more technology after
them. This, perhaps, is why Moonseed works as well
as it does. Baxter does not paint an entirely rosy picture
of technology and the future, but neither does he portray the
future as bleak, even a future in which the world's destruction is at
hand, or technology as evil. Nevertheless,
in Moonseed, Baxter is intent on the destruction of
the world without the grandiose planet-saving abilities so
often seen in science fiction novels and films. Responding
to a review in Locus, Baxter comments that Gary [Wolfe]
was exactly right that the Moonseed's sole purpose is to chew
rock slow [sic] enough for the characters to react; "in
fact in my original outline I have the humans beat the Moonseed
and save the Earth, much as Tommy Lee Jones beat that volcano
and Bruce [Willis] beats the asteroid, but what kind of wimpish
threat would that have been?"
Of course, space technology is one of Baxter's strong suits,
and he once again explains how NASA can perform amazing tasks
with existing technology. In his last novel, Titan,
he sent humans on a one-way trip to Saturn using shuttle and Apollo
technology. In Moonseed, the mission is only as
far as the moon, but he adds Soyuz technology to the shuttle
and Apollo technology of the last novel, eventually sending a
mission to the moon. Like the mission in Titan,
the mission in Moonseed completely fails to examine
relationships prior to the launch, resulting in a mission consisting of
Henry, his ex-wife, and her current lover.
Meacher's relationship with Geena is not Baxter's only failure
in creating realistic relationships. When Meacher first
arrives in Scotland, Mike introduces Meacher to Jane, his
aforementioned sister. Throughout the novel, even as
they are separated by the catastrophe, the two begin a
long-term relationship, which, unfortunately, highlights
one of the weaknesses of the novel. Baxter is dealing
with many complex relationships in Moonseed, from Henry
and Geena dealing with their divorce to Jane, Mike, and Ted's
familial relationship. Unfortunately, none of these
relationships ring particularly true. The characters
are not two-dimensional, but neither do they appear
to really connect with anyone they come into contact with.
Baxter has paced Moonseed slightly faster than
his previous novel, Titan, but he still has a tendency
to bog down in details which may or may not be interesting and
frequently are unimportant to the plot of the story. His
characters are likable and believable as individuals, even if
their interpersonal relationships don't always seem to be
particularly realistic or complex.
Steven H. Silver is one of the founders and judges for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. He sits on concoms for Windycon, Chicon 2000 and Clavius in 2001 and is co-chair of Picnicon 1998. Steven will be serving as the Programming Chairman for Chicon 2000. In addition to maintaining several bibliographies and the Harry Turtledove website, Steven is trying to get his short stories published and has recently finished his first novel. He lives at home with his wife and 3200 books. He is available for convention panels. |
If you find any errors, typos or other stuff worth mentioning,
please send it to editor@sfsite.com.
Copyright © 1996-2014 SF Site All Rights Reserved Worldwide