Review - Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson

Red Moon
Kim Stanley Robinson
Orbit, 25 October 2018
HB, 447pp

I'm grateful to Nazia at Orbit for an advance copy of Red Moon.

Red Moon is a story of epic proportions, told through quite a narrow perspective. It's a story of the future, and necessarily science fiction, but also a story of people and politics, of the future of Earth and some of the great nations upon it. And also, of course, a story of the Moon.

Our guide into this story is Fred Fredericks, an engineer visiting the Moon to set up an entangled quantum communications device for a Chinese client. (In 2047, China is dominant in lunar exploration and settlement).

Visiting the Moon on the same ship is Ta Shu, a Chinese poet and online travel broadcaster. (Some the sections of the book are Ta Shu's broadcasts, either actual or projected, describing his impressions of what he sees and thinks).

Fredericks, through no fault of his own, becomes involved in political trouble, which links him up with Chan Qi, daughter of a powerful figure in the Chinese Government. The two set off on a series of adventures across the Moon and then Earth, a travelogue in itself (if being recorded) during which they rely on the support of many friends and allies and are hunted by multiple Chinese security agencies which frequently seem to be as hostile to each other as they are to the fugitives. (' "I wish I knew what was going on." "It's China" she said. "Give up on that." ')

Oh, and Qi is pregnant...

During this time Qi and Fred become close, although not - quite - romantically close (which is refreshing). I enjoyed Robinson's portrayal of Fred, his feelings and thought processes possibly placing hi on the autistic spectrum - a classification which Robinson firmly, and explicitly, resists - leaving us with a wonderful, complicated and un-pigeoonholable character who is nevertheless clearly not "neurotypical". He's discussed at one point by Qi and a couple of Chinese lunar prospectors, their speech rendered into English by a cheap pair of translation glasses:

"So this guy cannot act?

That is right. That is what shyness is. He thinks he has to be real. So he has stuck to me. But there is no harm in him..."

(Robinson returns to this idea of "acting" later, when Ta Shu's friend Zhou points out that "We all present a persona to other people. Some have a wide range... A real cast of characters". Perhaps Fred is the only unvarnished, truthful person here?)

I enjoyed the depth of Robinson's rumination on China, its history, future and politics. Obviously placing the story twenty years in the future, and foregrounding China while making clear that the only other global power, the US, has big problems of its own, distances Robinson's take from being about China as it is now - and distances this book from any criticism that it is hostile to China. That may be as much a pragmatic marketing tactic as it is an artistic choice. But on the other hand it's also clear that little in Chinese politics has changed from now to then. I can't say whether or not a Western author can fairly discuss or represent China, or whether it's even wise to try, but Robinson at least approaches China as a reality, as a civilisation, as something to be analysed and understood in its own terms (and those terms go deep into the history of China - it's not just about the 19th and 20th centuries and the Revolution) not according to Western concepts. So for example we get a discussion by Chinese officials on the Moon of aggressive US behaviour which likens it to that of a toddler. "Three years old, three hundred years old- same thing, right? When you're talking about China, five thousand years old? Fifteen times older than this kid?"

Equally I sensed, perhaps, Robinson's frustration in places, as when he has Ta Shu say that "We think in pairs and quadrants, and in threes and nines, and every concept has its opposite embedded in it... So we can say... China is simple, China is complicated. China is rich, China is poor. China is proud, China is forever traumatised by its century of humiliation... all the combinations come to this... China is confusing." Much of this analysis indeed comes from Ta Shu and his debates with old friends he encounters on the Moon - some of them now powerful and rich friends. (The low gravity on the Moon is, we're given to understand, congenial to those of advancing years who are suffering from problems with their joints). There is philosophy and even poetry, as a counterpoint to the more hectic chase involving Qi and Fred. That is inevitably a journey of discovery for him, both of China, and of how to live alongside a young woman but it's also an intensely practical business and the book frequently spends long periods following a particular aspect of the journey - for example, a scramble down the precipitous slopes of a mountain in Hong Kong. (The two actually shuttle several times between the Moon and Earth, each time on the basis that this will make them safer - although it never seems to work very well).

If I had one criticism it would be that the degree of focus here is quite uneven. For example, while certain parts of the chase are shown in great detail, others aren't covered at all: at one point Fred disappears into some kind of captivity, is lost sight of for a while, and then simply discovered again by another of the security factions; we're never given much of an account from his perspective of where he was or how he was treated although episode must have been as important from his perspective as some of the events described in loving detail.

That isn't me pleading for less detail, by the way, but for more! I suspect that things have been left out here to prevent the book getting too long - well, i'd read it if it were twice as long! I find Fred in particular a fascinating character and I'd be interested in more of his reflections on what goes on.

But the background to the book is one of political intrigue and turmoil as the leaders of China meet to decide on a new President. This is what drives events, and this is why Qi, in particular, is being hunted. So perhaps it's right that Fred is kept in his place as very much a pawn in the game, and giving him more space could upset the balance. That's especially so when the political dimension - the issues being struggled over - is important but can't be given too much of an airing without turning the book into a manifesto. Instead the focus needs to be on Qi and her aspirations (although she too has missing episodes: her presence of the Moon, already in trouble, is presented as already given when she and Fred initially meet up).

To summarise, this is an action packed and thoughtful take on the future, a great read, with some of the most beautiful writing I've ever seen about the Moon as the Moon (the concept of rocks being not weather-beaten but sun-beaten by "billions of years of photon rain", a description of the Moonscape as "...something like the colour of a red sunset on earth, but darker and more intense, a subtly shifting array of dim blackish reds, all coated by a dusty copper sheen. the previously pastel patches of rare earths were now shifted to purples and forest greens and rusty browns..."). It's also not afraid to pause for some truly mind-boggling scenes which aren't strictly germane to the plot, as when a couple of the Americans join in an impromptu 3D ballet in a lunar cavern threaded by wires and nets. (Overall, I felt the American characters - having been firmly established - were used less than I'd have thought. Perhaps they will play a greater part in subsequent books, and downplaying them is obviously appropriate in a book that attempts - as far as a Western author can - to break out of a Western-centric view of things.)

Anyway, the portrayal of the Moon here has a feel of truth, and in terms of lunar colonisation I won't be in the least surprised if in the 2040s, China has a presence something like this up there (if I live to see that).

Whether Robinson's suggestions about the politics of the time are equally accurate... well, who really knows?

Definitely recommended.

You might also be interested in Kate's take on the book over at For Winter Nights.