Publisher - Flame Tree Press

Published - Out Now

Price - £2.49 Kindle eBook

Fifth episode in the Fractal mini-series, building on the heavily-praised worlds of Fearless and Resilientset in 2118AD, now accompanied by an awesome soundtrack.

Retired Fleet Admiral, James Langsley, is called out of retirement to a secret meeting at the Moon colony. He is reunited with an old friend and a new enemy. Who will he choose to side with?

It is always interesting when a format is created because that allows you to start experimenting with it. If a series does a, b and c then a sudden move to z wrongfoots us and makes us pay attention. With now four previous episodes Alen Stroud’s Fractal series of novellas has established a glance across the 22nd century as Humanity slowly colonises the solar system. Danger though is not simply from space travel but a web of corporate greed and intrigue. In the latest novella Luna, we come back to Earth’s closest satellite but get into a tale that dangles answers but wrongfoots us on next steps.

The Moon is in some ways the forgotten relation of space travel now. The sights are now on asteroids, planets, and moons further out from earth. Now in a small underground base a dual run group of earth powers manages the way stations to the wider points of exploration. Marcus Taylor is a former soldier now hired hand and bodyguard. He is asked to accompany retired Rear Admiral James Langsley on a mission to meet someone for an undisclosed reason. Things quickly do not go to plan. Marcus becomes a suspect. Chun is a senior scientist in the Chinese part of the colony. She is aware of the admiral and when trouble comes has to decide whose side to take.

We have been so used to the novellas following the same character or occasionally getting their opponent’s view point its quite strange when we get Marcus and Chun’s storylines, and they don’t seem to be in each other’s stories. With Marcus we get to witness his early life, the army injury that led him to be an amputee and how the Moon is a change for a second life doing what he loves (and takes him away from his troubles on earth). Stroud explores nimbly and subtly how low gravity works with someone with a limb replacement. Chun in contrast feels much more focused on science and administration pushing the rules on what can be done and seeking new alliances. Impressively neither tale is quite so simple, and we end up liking both characters for their determination and hoping both can survive.

I also really liked the sense of the Moon – colonised at last but more down market, almost like an admin post. How life survives is fascinating but also it’s a key point for the whole solar system, which makes it feel more like a place where great powers skulk until needed giving this more of a noir spy vibe than I was expecting. It’s the down at heel once great city now tawdry and home to many a backroom deal for the major powers – life can be cheap. A really unusual representation of the moon I’d not seen before.

When things start going wrong, we get a lot of familiar long-term series plotlines re-emerging and also some clues as to other characters roles and histories. We are now at the stage in the series where we have the advantage of our Lunar characters and can guess what is going on the more interesting question is why. Our two main characters have their own missions and Marcus has the more physical storyline while for Chun its working out what the right thing should be. This is more a tale of intrigue, counterattacks and possibly the decisions of the past coming back to haunt people. We get rightly the feeling things can soon go wrong and it’s a darker tale that emerges. Survival is the best they can hope for. While their storylines do get resolved there is a feeling that Stroud is setting up future storylines (be that for the final novella or the next novel in the series).

Unsurprisingly I really enjoyed this tale – not a place for newcomers but certainly feels like a conclusion is nearing for this series. This is a testament to how enjoyable Stroud’s writing has been in making such an interesting way of exploring a wider series has been. As always highly recommended for science fiction fans!