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A Moon Full Of Stars
All Rome ever wanted was to earn a place in the village as a hunter, so that he could explore beyond the safe confines of the village farm fields, but when monstrous slavers destroy his village he is forced to head west into the irradiated wastelands in search of anything that might give him the power to save his people. Accompanied by his chief rival, his journey takes him farther than he ever imagined.
178 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 23, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 28, 2021
There are a lot of different kinds of post-apocalyptic novels, from Fahrenheit 451 to Hiero’s Journey. Jon Mollison has graced us with a story much more in the spirit of Hiero’s Journey with A Moon Full of Stars.
Rome is a young apprentice hunter. Being a village hunter is all he wants to do, but he isn’t very good at it. He is very close to relegation to the fields. His fellow apprentice hunter Warsaw, on the other hand, is already one of the best hunters in the village, despite his age. Rome and Warsaw separately return from their most recent hunting trip bigger issues. Badger-faced men have sacked the village and marched the survivors off in bondage. Indomitable, Rome and Warsaw set out to rescue their friends and family against all odds.
A Moon Full of Star is clever in both its storytelling and worldbuilding, rotating among multiple (all very pulpy) subgenres. I will avoid details to avoid spoiling anything.
I love that stuff, but I won’t talk about it, I will laud Mollison’s characterization of Rome and Warsaw instead. Rome and Warsaw each have their own distinct character arc, both individual and in relation to each other. They are also very different characters: Rome a dreamer and Warsaw a man of action. Pulling off even two character arcs in under two hundred pages can be tough. Pulling off converging character arcs is tough. And it is particularly tough, in my experience, to pull off two characters so different and designed to contrast. The natural tendency of the reader is to like one more and to root for that character over the other. Mollison nudges the reader toward identifying with Rome by telling the beginning from his POV and giving us a window into Rome’s dim view of Warsaw. Warsaw easily could have been a character I never came to identify with or root for. An uber-competent character, he also could have easily have turned into a Mary Sue. But Rome’s abilities prove just as valuable. What Mollison does with those two characters shows tremendous craft, if subtly.
Mollison is also wonderfully subtle in seeding his story with political and philosophical themes. Mollison recognizes a light touch is more likely to enhance the story, rather than distract from it.
If I have a single complaint, it is that Mollison may be too subtle. There is some cool worldbuilding, with badger-faced men and literal horsemen (i.e., a sort of centaur) appearing in the first several pages. The later stuff is welcome, but it has precedent. A post-apocalyptic America—here, between the Rockies and Mississippi—is certainly not new ground. Mollison again takes a light touch hinting at the world before, presenting things as they would be seen by people with no cultural knowledge of their history we are living while still giving us enough clues to piece things together. It never gets cutesy, but maybe it should! The worldbuilding and the action could have stood to be a little more bonkers. I compared A Moon Full of Stars to Hiero’s Journey above, but it would be easy to take that comparison too far. Hiero’s Journey is a book that is completely bonkers, and I love it for it.
Rome is a young apprentice hunter. Being a village hunter is all he wants to do, but he isn’t very good at it. He is very close to relegation to the fields. His fellow apprentice hunter Warsaw, on the other hand, is already one of the best hunters in the village, despite his age. Rome and Warsaw separately return from their most recent hunting trip bigger issues. Badger-faced men have sacked the village and marched the survivors off in bondage. Indomitable, Rome and Warsaw set out to rescue their friends and family against all odds.
A Moon Full of Star is clever in both its storytelling and worldbuilding, rotating among multiple (all very pulpy) subgenres. I will avoid details to avoid spoiling anything.
I love that stuff, but I won’t talk about it, I will laud Mollison’s characterization of Rome and Warsaw instead. Rome and Warsaw each have their own distinct character arc, both individual and in relation to each other. They are also very different characters: Rome a dreamer and Warsaw a man of action. Pulling off even two character arcs in under two hundred pages can be tough. Pulling off converging character arcs is tough. And it is particularly tough, in my experience, to pull off two characters so different and designed to contrast. The natural tendency of the reader is to like one more and to root for that character over the other. Mollison nudges the reader toward identifying with Rome by telling the beginning from his POV and giving us a window into Rome’s dim view of Warsaw. Warsaw easily could have been a character I never came to identify with or root for. An uber-competent character, he also could have easily have turned into a Mary Sue. But Rome’s abilities prove just as valuable. What Mollison does with those two characters shows tremendous craft, if subtly.
Mollison is also wonderfully subtle in seeding his story with political and philosophical themes. Mollison recognizes a light touch is more likely to enhance the story, rather than distract from it.
If I have a single complaint, it is that Mollison may be too subtle. There is some cool worldbuilding, with badger-faced men and literal horsemen (i.e., a sort of centaur) appearing in the first several pages. The later stuff is welcome, but it has precedent. A post-apocalyptic America—here, between the Rockies and Mississippi—is certainly not new ground. Mollison again takes a light touch hinting at the world before, presenting things as they would be seen by people with no cultural knowledge of their history we are living while still giving us enough clues to piece things together. It never gets cutesy, but maybe it should! The worldbuilding and the action could have stood to be a little more bonkers. I compared A Moon Full of Stars to Hiero’s Journey above, but it would be easy to take that comparison too far. Hiero’s Journey is a book that is completely bonkers, and I love it for it.
March 31, 2023
I finished this novel in three days.
It was nothing really amazing, it was not awful. It serve its purpose.
Basically this is a post apocalpytic novel set in a time that villages are being built and mutants roam the land. Here we follow Rome & Warsaw (hmmm) as they are hunting and as they are returning they see fire and their own people being killed and taken prisoner by mutated beings. So, this two, not so friends go on a quest to save their village. The one thing I would say it's positive is the interaction between those two people, looking at each others flaws and strenghts and banding together to deal with new threat. We get to see a bit of the world, not that much, and then off to moon where they find a advanced civilization of surviving humans with psychic powers but everything else really lacking. Basically the human being was supplanted by society and individual needs supressed.
I thought that from this moment on was a bit lacking, sometimes really rushed and the conclusion even more rushed. The author really went overboard with the present putting he ribbon and everything else really tidy and neat. Basically deus ex-machina with new powers and kaput. The novel ended. This should have been more 50 or 100 pages explaining the trials, going as much as putting difficulties where there were barely none...
It was nothing really amazing, it was not awful. It serve its purpose.
Basically this is a post apocalpytic novel set in a time that villages are being built and mutants roam the land. Here we follow Rome & Warsaw (hmmm) as they are hunting and as they are returning they see fire and their own people being killed and taken prisoner by mutated beings. So, this two, not so friends go on a quest to save their village. The one thing I would say it's positive is the interaction between those two people, looking at each others flaws and strenghts and banding together to deal with new threat. We get to see a bit of the world, not that much, and then off to moon where they find a advanced civilization of surviving humans with psychic powers but everything else really lacking. Basically the human being was supplanted by society and individual needs supressed.
I thought that from this moment on was a bit lacking, sometimes really rushed and the conclusion even more rushed. The author really went overboard with the present putting he ribbon and everything else really tidy and neat. Basically deus ex-machina with new powers and kaput. The novel ended. This should have been more 50 or 100 pages explaining the trials, going as much as putting difficulties where there were barely none...
December 17, 2019
Author Jon Mollison has a purpose and he fulfills it completely. He really just wants to entertain his audience, and do it in the spirit of the old sci-fi pulps of 80 years ago. This book is laser-focused on its plot, and in its few words gives us a post-apocalyptic hellscape, wars with mutants, a cultish enclave, and two co-protagonists who come of age and assume the responsibilities of manhood before our eyes.
Maturity is the theme here. The two teens are called boys at the beginning. They return to their village from hunting trips to find it razed and their families kidnapped. When they vow to rescue them, the narrator responds by insistently calling them men from that point. Their transformation into rescuers and heroes follows anything but a straight path, literally and figuratively. The coming of age theme never gets old and Mollison is obviously enjoying himself.
If I were writing this, I would have provided more description, but I suspect there's an audience for this kind of slimmed down narrative that Mollison is serving. Certainly there's no lack of imagination on display as our heroes move quickly from one bizarre, exotic locale to the next. In the end, the promise of the title is fulfilled and readers will be eager for more from this author.
Maturity is the theme here. The two teens are called boys at the beginning. They return to their village from hunting trips to find it razed and their families kidnapped. When they vow to rescue them, the narrator responds by insistently calling them men from that point. Their transformation into rescuers and heroes follows anything but a straight path, literally and figuratively. The coming of age theme never gets old and Mollison is obviously enjoying himself.
If I were writing this, I would have provided more description, but I suspect there's an audience for this kind of slimmed down narrative that Mollison is serving. Certainly there's no lack of imagination on display as our heroes move quickly from one bizarre, exotic locale to the next. In the end, the promise of the title is fulfilled and readers will be eager for more from this author.
August 17, 2020
Really good sci-fi
This is a really good sci-fi tale. It is reminiscent of old school sci-fi stories. Good character development and a fascinating story line. Well worth the read!!
This is a really good sci-fi tale. It is reminiscent of old school sci-fi stories. Good character development and a fascinating story line. Well worth the read!!
February 3, 2018
Moon Full of Stars is an action-packed post-apocalyptic piece of insane pulp filled with pig-faced biker mutants, tribal hunters, rocket ships, artificial intelligence, low gravity warped psychic puritans, and some really weird centaurs.
It’s an adventure story about two young rival hunters forced to band together on a quest to rescue their people from the clutches of mutant slavers. In the tradition of radiation-pulp and roleplaying games like Gamma World, our heroes must work together to overcome difficult and monstrous obstacles and maybe find love along the way.
The short novella format, abandoned in the past decades, suits this style of fast and frantic action. Jon manages to build a fully developed world populated with compelling characters in the same amount of space that more celebrated fantasy writers would use to describe a meal or a character’s dress.
It’s an adventure story about two young rival hunters forced to band together on a quest to rescue their people from the clutches of mutant slavers. In the tradition of radiation-pulp and roleplaying games like Gamma World, our heroes must work together to overcome difficult and monstrous obstacles and maybe find love along the way.
The short novella format, abandoned in the past decades, suits this style of fast and frantic action. Jon manages to build a fully developed world populated with compelling characters in the same amount of space that more celebrated fantasy writers would use to describe a meal or a character’s dress.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews