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A Grey Moon over China
"A Grey Moon Over China" is the story of a disillusioned company of Army engineers languishing in the Pacific during the energy wars between the United States on one side, and Japan and California on the other. They steal the plans for an energy device that could end the wars and the world's slide into environmental disaster. Instead, they extort from the world the price of their own freedom from it the resurrection of an abandoned space colonization effort that will take them far from the dying planet. They flee blindly and with terrible losses, for the drones sent to scout the way have never returned, and they can delay no longer. Armed colonists follow, and with them, the wars. "A Grey Moon Over China" features characters that engage our sympathy and challenge our understanding of human drives and motivation. There is Eduardo Torres, once an orphaned beggar, now a man driven to destroy everything in his path in his desire to escape his past; Sergeant Polaski, a warrior without a soul; Tuyet Pham, a young woman who arrives from nowhere but seems to know Torres better than he knows himself, and is herself a merciless but charismatic warrior; Anne Miller, the secretive high priestess of manufactured intelligence who programmed the missing drones; and Madhu Patel, their beloved father figure and philosopher who makes the mistake of trying to stand in their way.
465 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2006
About the author
Thomas A. Day
2 books7 followersThomas A. Day was born in Bremen, Germany and raised on diplomatic posts around the world, including in Berlin, Chile, and the Middle East. Educated in the sciences, technology and business, he has worked as a senior manager in the aerospace industry, a now-and-again nighttime cargo pilot, and a freelance software developer in the artificial intelligence field. He currently works as a forensic software analyst and intellectual property consultant, serving as an expert witness in high-stakes technology litigation. He lives with his wife and two sons in Portland, Oregon, and is currently completing a second novel, Ivory Gull.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
January 4, 2013
This is the way the world ends.
There’re bad end-of-world books (*cough*The Stand*cough*), and there’re good ones. And then there’s A Grey Moon over China. If you want a plausible description of the geopolitical machinations if we were ever to discover an inexhaustible source of energy and a way to the nearest habitable planet, this book is it.
It takes very seriously the simple geopolitical truth that countries and leaders are not evil, are not good. They are often simply people, frightened and desperate, strong-willed and communitarian, doing their best to achieve what they hope will be the best outcome for their people. Some will be more ruthless and ambitious than others, but the last thing anyone who wants to lead effectively can be is innocent, good-hearted, and naive.
You can tell that of the geopolitical schools of thought that there are, the one I belong in is the realist camp.
This really is not, “Oh happy day, we found another planet.” When they get there, it’s a mundane hardscrabble of building towns, dealing with higher gravity, dealing with ambitious warlord wanna-be’s. In other words, it’s that whole glorious messy business of being human.
So, total shout out to Ian who introduced this book to me. Thanks, guy!
There’re bad end-of-world books (*cough*The Stand*cough*), and there’re good ones. And then there’s A Grey Moon over China. If you want a plausible description of the geopolitical machinations if we were ever to discover an inexhaustible source of energy and a way to the nearest habitable planet, this book is it.
It takes very seriously the simple geopolitical truth that countries and leaders are not evil, are not good. They are often simply people, frightened and desperate, strong-willed and communitarian, doing their best to achieve what they hope will be the best outcome for their people. Some will be more ruthless and ambitious than others, but the last thing anyone who wants to lead effectively can be is innocent, good-hearted, and naive.
You can tell that of the geopolitical schools of thought that there are, the one I belong in is the realist camp.
This really is not, “Oh happy day, we found another planet.” When they get there, it’s a mundane hardscrabble of building towns, dealing with higher gravity, dealing with ambitious warlord wanna-be’s. In other words, it’s that whole glorious messy business of being human.
So, total shout out to Ian who introduced this book to me. Thanks, guy!
February 23, 2011
When I read A Grey Moon Over China I believed it had the potential to become the most important and/or influential sci-fi book in a generation. I know our society is littered with the trash of ubiquitous hyperbole but I wasn't trying to exaggerage; I really believed this book had that kind of potential. It's the sort of book that can leave the reader a little jacked up for months afterward, and indeed it took me several months to put into words my thoughts and feelings on what I found to be a rather profound first attempt at a novel by a new writer. I knew I couldn't do justice to this book with a review. All I could do was try to explain, almost certainly inadequately, why A Grey Moon Over China connected with me, and to encourage others to give it a fair shake. So, here's what I wrote in the summer of 2009--at the bottom I have a quick update.
Original Review:
I have sleep apnea. I also have a hard-to-pin-down neurological problem that affects my brain’s ability to achieve and attain deep sleep. I’m now using a CPAP for my airways and a pill for my brain chemistry so most nights I sleep fine. But, for much of my life, sleep for me was something both feared and desired; a journey that I knew I desperately needed to take each night but one which took me into a dark tunnel of incoherence and uncertainty.
Eduardo Torres, the protagonist in A Grey Moon Over China, has a recurring dream about being in a dark tunnel of incoherence and uncertainty. As you might imagine, that dream is a cryptic metaphor for his journey through life. Ed takes his friends, colleagues, and lover with him on that journey, and they both lose and gain their humanity along the way.
This is not a happy book. If you want happy, go to Disneyland. I have no problem with Disneyland, mind you. I freaking love Disneyland. I take my kids their 2 or 3 times each year. But I’m not always looking for Disneyland. Sometimes I’m looking for a dose of truth, no matter how bad it might taste. An elixir to stop my utopian dreams from running amuck, so that I might remember how far we yet have to go and how much work is yet to be done. A foul reminder not to take anyone’s goodness, particularly my own goodness, for granted. The author drives home with gut-wrenching exuberance the point that what’s necessary and what’s right are not always the same thing, and that sooner or later we all have to make a choice. We cannot have it both ways and we cannot pass blame, judgment, or condemnation on others.
Thankfully, however, the people living in Thomas A. Day’s vision of the near future are not irreparable or irredeemable. He may force upon us the desperate truth that, if humanity is to create a better life for our children here and amongst the stars, it will take better people than we are ... but he also leaves us with the assurance that it will not take better people than we are capable of being ... for that, ultimately, is the message of hope behind and beyond the unhappy plight of the characters in A Grey Moon Over China.
Update:
Now, 18 months later, I'm flabbergasted that A Grey Moon Over China hasn't garnered more attention. I've read dozens of books since, many of them quite good and some downright elegant and profound, but I still put A Grey Moon Over China on the short-list of my all-time favorites. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but this book is really fucking awesome. And I don't mean it's awesome like Indiana Jones is awesome; I mean awesome like Dan Simmons and Iain Banks and Ursula K. LeGuin—or pick your own favorite award-winner if you don't like those—kind of awesome. Is it possible that A Grey Moon Over China has merely been elevated in my own imagination and, were I to read it again today, I wouldn't be so impressed? I suppose the only way to find out is to read it again, and I'm committed to doing so this year. Yet isn't it also possible that a truly great book got passed over? It must happen from time to time.
A Grey Moon Over China has just 35 ratings on GR, with only 9 reviews and a paltry three-and-a-half-star average. So I'm not talking here about a mere lack of popularity and commercial success; I'm talking about something that pretty much nobody has read. I would be happy to see A Grey Moon Over China read by an average number of people, or even below average. Twilight has nearly a half million ratings on GR. I'm not looking for that kind of success (indeed I tend to think a book has to be pretty awful to attain that kind of commercial success). Hyperion, a fairly popular, critically acclaimed work of sci-fi, has 8,262 ratings. A cool new writer produce an original work of alt history, Bitter Seeds, and has 437 ratings. So would it be too much to ask for A Grey Moon Over China to get, let's say, two hundred people on GR to read it? I mean, only thirty-fucking-five people have read this thing? It seems like an astoundingly, even farcically small number on a reading site with millions of subscribers.
Perhaps I should be happy. Maybe A Grey Moon Over China will be recognized decades from now for the great work it is, and my two first editions (one from each publisher, and one of them signed) will be worth big bucks due to the small numbers printed. Or maybe I should be happy that I get to have this book all to myself and not have to share it with anybody … but no, that doesn't seem right. Half the reason I read so much is that I love sharing the experience with other people.
I suppose the best thing for me to do is not worry about it. I can walk by my bookshelf and touch the spine of A Grey Moon Over China, appreciate the connection I have with the book, be thankful for what the author gave me, and leave it at that.
Original Review:
I have sleep apnea. I also have a hard-to-pin-down neurological problem that affects my brain’s ability to achieve and attain deep sleep. I’m now using a CPAP for my airways and a pill for my brain chemistry so most nights I sleep fine. But, for much of my life, sleep for me was something both feared and desired; a journey that I knew I desperately needed to take each night but one which took me into a dark tunnel of incoherence and uncertainty.
Eduardo Torres, the protagonist in A Grey Moon Over China, has a recurring dream about being in a dark tunnel of incoherence and uncertainty. As you might imagine, that dream is a cryptic metaphor for his journey through life. Ed takes his friends, colleagues, and lover with him on that journey, and they both lose and gain their humanity along the way.
This is not a happy book. If you want happy, go to Disneyland. I have no problem with Disneyland, mind you. I freaking love Disneyland. I take my kids their 2 or 3 times each year. But I’m not always looking for Disneyland. Sometimes I’m looking for a dose of truth, no matter how bad it might taste. An elixir to stop my utopian dreams from running amuck, so that I might remember how far we yet have to go and how much work is yet to be done. A foul reminder not to take anyone’s goodness, particularly my own goodness, for granted. The author drives home with gut-wrenching exuberance the point that what’s necessary and what’s right are not always the same thing, and that sooner or later we all have to make a choice. We cannot have it both ways and we cannot pass blame, judgment, or condemnation on others.
Thankfully, however, the people living in Thomas A. Day’s vision of the near future are not irreparable or irredeemable. He may force upon us the desperate truth that, if humanity is to create a better life for our children here and amongst the stars, it will take better people than we are ... but he also leaves us with the assurance that it will not take better people than we are capable of being ... for that, ultimately, is the message of hope behind and beyond the unhappy plight of the characters in A Grey Moon Over China.
Update:
Now, 18 months later, I'm flabbergasted that A Grey Moon Over China hasn't garnered more attention. I've read dozens of books since, many of them quite good and some downright elegant and profound, but I still put A Grey Moon Over China on the short-list of my all-time favorites. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but this book is really fucking awesome. And I don't mean it's awesome like Indiana Jones is awesome; I mean awesome like Dan Simmons and Iain Banks and Ursula K. LeGuin—or pick your own favorite award-winner if you don't like those—kind of awesome. Is it possible that A Grey Moon Over China has merely been elevated in my own imagination and, were I to read it again today, I wouldn't be so impressed? I suppose the only way to find out is to read it again, and I'm committed to doing so this year. Yet isn't it also possible that a truly great book got passed over? It must happen from time to time.
A Grey Moon Over China has just 35 ratings on GR, with only 9 reviews and a paltry three-and-a-half-star average. So I'm not talking here about a mere lack of popularity and commercial success; I'm talking about something that pretty much nobody has read. I would be happy to see A Grey Moon Over China read by an average number of people, or even below average. Twilight has nearly a half million ratings on GR. I'm not looking for that kind of success (indeed I tend to think a book has to be pretty awful to attain that kind of commercial success). Hyperion, a fairly popular, critically acclaimed work of sci-fi, has 8,262 ratings. A cool new writer produce an original work of alt history, Bitter Seeds, and has 437 ratings. So would it be too much to ask for A Grey Moon Over China to get, let's say, two hundred people on GR to read it? I mean, only thirty-fucking-five people have read this thing? It seems like an astoundingly, even farcically small number on a reading site with millions of subscribers.
Perhaps I should be happy. Maybe A Grey Moon Over China will be recognized decades from now for the great work it is, and my two first editions (one from each publisher, and one of them signed) will be worth big bucks due to the small numbers printed. Or maybe I should be happy that I get to have this book all to myself and not have to share it with anybody … but no, that doesn't seem right. Half the reason I read so much is that I love sharing the experience with other people.
I suppose the best thing for me to do is not worry about it. I can walk by my bookshelf and touch the spine of A Grey Moon Over China, appreciate the connection I have with the book, be thankful for what the author gave me, and leave it at that.
September 4, 2010
It's a shame this book did not get more buzz. It will, I believe, become a classic of science fiction in the future. It's almost an old-school SF tale of epic wars and interstellar colonization and space battles and a frightening inhuman adversary, but the grim near-future setting resonates with the anxieties we feel today. Oil wars and environmental catastrophes are what drive the main characters to flee Earth, but they bring all of Earth's troubles with them, and find space is no more hospitable than the hell they left behind. All of the characters are complex and difficult and hard-edged, they all do what think is necessary and sometimes they screw up in epic fashion, and there are always consequences.
It's not a fun read, as most of the novel consists of the struggling colonists experiencing one failure after another, death after death, and their situation continuously going from bad to worse. There's lots of action, but very little victory. If grim and depressing SF isn't your thing, you'll want to skip this book. But the human conflicts are realistic, and it's easy to see humans expanding into space and behaving in just this way. There is a glimmer of hope at the very end, but it's almost buried under the weight of destruction and loss that has preceded it. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this for fans of hard-edged contemporary science fiction.
It's not a fun read, as most of the novel consists of the struggling colonists experiencing one failure after another, death after death, and their situation continuously going from bad to worse. There's lots of action, but very little victory. If grim and depressing SF isn't your thing, you'll want to skip this book. But the human conflicts are realistic, and it's easy to see humans expanding into space and behaving in just this way. There is a glimmer of hope at the very end, but it's almost buried under the weight of destruction and loss that has preceded it. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this for fans of hard-edged contemporary science fiction.
June 17, 2009
"A Grey Moon Over China" is a solid and well-executed debut novel. Main character and narrator Ed Torres is a soldier in the ongoing oil and energy wars of the early 21st century on Earth. During an amazing military maneuver (which you have to read to believe), he accidentally gets access to a scientific secret that can solve all of the planet's energy problems, but rather than share it with the world, he uses it to fund and launch a space exploration and colonization effort.
The set-up and execution of the launch are nothing short of stunning. From the initial arrival at the launch site through the eventual start of the mission, I simply couldn't put the book down. Actually, one of the novel's biggest strengths is its relentless pace. From the initial military maneuver until more than halfway through the story, the exciting developments and action just don't let up. The writing is so dense it almost feels rushed, which results in an exciting read that occasionally could use some more development.
Especially in terms of characterization, I felt a bit let down at times. It takes a long time for several of the characters to become more than agents that drive the action along. One explanation for this could be that the narrator, Ed Torres, is so focused on his mission that he doesn't always pay attention to the human beings around him. He also describes some of the most tragic events with a painful, toneless clarity. Unfortunately the result of this is that some of the characters take a long time to develop from cyphers or stereotypes to real people.
I had trouble deciding on a rating for this book. On the one hand, it's a great page-turner filled with innovative ideas and memorable scenes. On the other, I can't get over the fact that it felt a bit rushed and uneven. As much as I am a fan of brevity, especially in this age of doorstop tomes, I would have preferred a novel that's a few hundred pages longer, taking the time to fill in some of the gaps. Still, it's a very strong debut, and Thomas A. Day is an author to keep an eye on.
The set-up and execution of the launch are nothing short of stunning. From the initial arrival at the launch site through the eventual start of the mission, I simply couldn't put the book down. Actually, one of the novel's biggest strengths is its relentless pace. From the initial military maneuver until more than halfway through the story, the exciting developments and action just don't let up. The writing is so dense it almost feels rushed, which results in an exciting read that occasionally could use some more development.
Especially in terms of characterization, I felt a bit let down at times. It takes a long time for several of the characters to become more than agents that drive the action along. One explanation for this could be that the narrator, Ed Torres, is so focused on his mission that he doesn't always pay attention to the human beings around him. He also describes some of the most tragic events with a painful, toneless clarity. Unfortunately the result of this is that some of the characters take a long time to develop from cyphers or stereotypes to real people.
I had trouble deciding on a rating for this book. On the one hand, it's a great page-turner filled with innovative ideas and memorable scenes. On the other, I can't get over the fact that it felt a bit rushed and uneven. As much as I am a fan of brevity, especially in this age of doorstop tomes, I would have preferred a novel that's a few hundred pages longer, taking the time to fill in some of the gaps. Still, it's a very strong debut, and Thomas A. Day is an author to keep an eye on.
December 31, 2017
I realize I have a problem with a lot of modern science fiction, which may be why I don’t read a whole lot of it. So many authors throw you into this world they’ve created, no explanation, no description of the technology they’ve invented or the acronyms characters use. Would it hurt them to have a couple paragraphs of explication? Take this novel. It’s some time in the future, there’s a war going on, not sure between who or over what, but it seems to be about oil. All kinds of technology being used that isn’t explained at all. It’s all very off-putting. I kept with this book, mainly because I was curious. I can’t say I’d recommend it highly. I think it’s value is in illustrating the unfortunate fact that we carry all our bad traits with us, wherever we go. Nationalism, suspicion, the need to be number one, might makes right..
April 17, 2015
This book had some really interesting premises. But the writing was just ... off. There was never any sense of urgency, so much so that when something actually did happen, there was no build-up, and I found myself re-reading the paragraph just to make sure I'd really read what happened. There is only one character that has any range of emotion at all, and "she's crazy". The two main male characters - one is the narrator, one the antagonist - are also flat characters. The narrator is the supposed voice of reason, in opposition to the "bad guy" who is sociopathic? wrongheadedly idealistic? nihilistic? bored and cranky? You just don't know. So while the basis of the book was interesting, the ball was really dropped by the author's lack of skill in dialog and characterization.
April 20, 2011
I've read this book twice now and loved it even more the second time through. For now, I'll leave my review of my first reading intact on the other hardcover edition. I'm thinking of writing another review soon to put here. Is it bad to have two reviews floating around? It's just that everything I wrote in the prior review is still true as far as it goes, but my experience reading the book the second time is sufficiently different to warrant a new perspective.
September 23, 2009
A Grey Moon Over China is near future sci-fi epic with a surprisingly intimate touch that constantly wars with broader scope. It is a struggle that at times makes for an engrossing read and at other times makes for a difficult read. In the near future of this novel Earth is shattered by wars and environment ruin. While people go on about their daily lives the endless war and violence takes its toll. One soldier, Edward Torres, tired of war and violence and look for a peaceful life and quiet place his own, makes a startling discovery on a tiny island: a cheap, near limitless, portable energy source. His discovery creates a domino effect of change as he and his companions restart a failed space program in order strike out and start fresh amongst the stars.
Full review here/
Full review here/
February 9, 2015
This is not a badly written book, but this author is on a diametrically opposing wavelength to me. He goes into long detail about military logistics and procedure and his big picture world building is cursory and fragile. His characters are differentiated only by how many points they score on the scale for socio-paths. Dialogue mostly amounts to status meeting jargon and deteriorates into pissing contests. War is ugly, humans are stupid and we are all going to die slowly. The world ends with a whimper.
He may well be right - but for me at least, this made for repugnant reading.
I can certainly enjoy a well constructed dystopian tale of end times or the nastiness of war (Iain Banks' "Use of weapons" does the tale of a soldier's decent into hell with panache - and Cormac McCarthy is the prince of black) but Thomas Day succeeds only in showing me material that disinterests me.
He may well be right - but for me at least, this made for repugnant reading.
I can certainly enjoy a well constructed dystopian tale of end times or the nastiness of war (Iain Banks' "Use of weapons" does the tale of a soldier's decent into hell with panache - and Cormac McCarthy is the prince of black) but Thomas Day succeeds only in showing me material that disinterests me.
December 31, 2017
Two very good parts: the one about human failings and the one on the science of exoplanets, space-faring and artificial intelligence (so all the sci-fi).
The book is creaky on the consistency of the story, with characters sketched in out of nowhere and then lingering on without further development. There are also important steps in moving the plot forward (like the hacking of army servers) which the author did not bother to expand - sometimes the feeling is that of reading an unfinished draft. Finally, the political machinations are never explained - there is no clear view of hierarchy or of the dynamic between factions later on.
What's left in the end are the moral points on never losing sight of what is really important (love), the courage to take responsibility and karma, God's irony.
The book is creaky on the consistency of the story, with characters sketched in out of nowhere and then lingering on without further development. There are also important steps in moving the plot forward (like the hacking of army servers) which the author did not bother to expand - sometimes the feeling is that of reading an unfinished draft. Finally, the political machinations are never explained - there is no clear view of hierarchy or of the dynamic between factions later on.
What's left in the end are the moral points on never losing sight of what is really important (love), the courage to take responsibility and karma, God's irony.
December 17, 2012
A lot of effort has been given to the realistic description of future technology - too much effort to my taste, actually. A Grey Moon Over China is the typical example of how science can overwhelm fiction. The result is undeniably clever and well read, but through these detailed explanations the plot looses strength, tension and drive. I expect Thomas A. Day to improve in his subsequent novels.
September 9, 2009
The action in this book was pretty much non-existent. The pace was incredibly slow. It skipped huge periods of time with barely a mention of their passing. Not the worst book I've read this year, but I certainly didn't like it.
October 28, 2009
The most sobering sci-fi I've read in a long time. Bleak, cold, and mean. Made New Caprica seem like Cancun. I cannot wait for Day's next novel.
June 27, 2012
A slow, dreary trudge to a gloomy and unsatisfying ending.
February 12, 2021
Rarely have I been this frustrated with a novel. I kept feeling like I hate the book, but "hate" is not exactly the right word; the story/premise was valuable and compelling, it's just everything else about it that was godawful.
The story is that people on a dying, warring Earth develop the miraculous technology to travel to another solar system, which itself is one hop to a system that is a virtual paradise. Extremely advanced A.I. drones are required for these jaunts, and what happens with the drones and the geopolitics touches on fascinating metaphysical themes: human nature, civilization, and species survival among them. This was all really impressive!
Unfortunately, the writing was simply horrendous. About halfway through I thought to look up Day's author bio and my hunch was confirmed: he's not a writer, he's a tech/aerospace professional. And the writing is as bad as you could possibly expect from such a person, flaunting his tech descriptions at the expense of everything else, in ways that are not only baffling to a lay reader but also irrelevant to the story.
For a hard sci-fi novel with convoluted technology and complex plot-points, Day's world-building was astoundingly deficient. He failed to teach me the rules of his technology or his society. The character development was similarly absent: we had no idea about their motivations for many of their perplexing actions. Instead, as you might expect from an engineer attempting to write a novel, we got a mystifing emphasis on procedural minutiae and (fictional) tech specifications. But even this emphasis was very poorly explained, leaving me only marginally more enlightened about goings-on.
Day was clearly attempting to craft high-stakes, tense action scenes, yet he filled them up with such incomprehensible technical jargon that I had no idea what was happening. Very early on I began simply skimming to the end of action sequences to get to the outcome. He also had a bizarre fixation on G-forces, without ever actually doing the legwork to explain how they work or why we should care.
There was also artificial stakes-building with Day's irritating habit of having characters cryptically hint at things or almost remember them, but get somehow interrupted until 10-20 pages later when he resolved the mystery. At times during the "tense" action scenes there would be 2-3 such mysteries that our protagonist would have to circle back to. A 460 page novel simply doesn't need that much padding.
All of these defects made me basically give up, a very bizarre experience as a reader given that I was still invested in learning the outcome. By halfway through I was skimming everything except for the expository dialogue. Even the dialogue was bad, with an 80s action movie feel, but at least it moved the plot forward. Except when it made inane religious/mystical assertions or otherwise attempted to create some emotional stakes with its cardboard characters.
I don't know what possessed Day to think that he could lay no foundation for any of these characters and then later expect the reader to care about their relationships when he spent painfully long passages on them. In probably the most egregious example, Day subjects us to many scenes of one of the protagonists getting horribly abused by her partner, with little to no explanation as to why either of them behaved that way. I literally did a double-take during one of these scenes, not believing what I had just read because it was so out of the blue. I have little doubt Day himself understands why his characters did those things, but he utterly failed to communicate those motivations to the reader.
Oh, and of course one of the unexplained "rules" of Day's 21st century world (which we can only deduce from the characters' indifferent reactions to domestic violence taking place directly in front of them (!)) appears to be that it's completely acceptable to beat the ever-loving shit out of women, or at least the emotionally damaged ones.
And of course I wouldn't have read even the dialogue -- I would have put the book down and almost did a few times -- except that I was really intrigued by the central premise and plot. That's what makes the entire experience so frustrating and disappointing. Day had a pretty great vision for a story, he just had none of the literary tools required to execute it. Even his plotting was off -- he could have started the novel about halfway through where he actually did, when they had established colonies on a new system and were dealing with the geopolitics they dragged with them from Earth.
Overall I can't recommend this book to anyone. Better to just read a synopsis somewhere, cause you'll get everything valuable about the book right there. If Day continues writing I sincerely hope he will hook up with a co-author, or at the very least a much better editor. It's frankly astonishing that an editor approved the book in this form, and almost as surprising that a publisher green-lit it.
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
The story is that people on a dying, warring Earth develop the miraculous technology to travel to another solar system, which itself is one hop to a system that is a virtual paradise. Extremely advanced A.I. drones are required for these jaunts, and what happens with the drones and the geopolitics touches on fascinating metaphysical themes: human nature, civilization, and species survival among them. This was all really impressive!
Unfortunately, the writing was simply horrendous. About halfway through I thought to look up Day's author bio and my hunch was confirmed: he's not a writer, he's a tech/aerospace professional. And the writing is as bad as you could possibly expect from such a person, flaunting his tech descriptions at the expense of everything else, in ways that are not only baffling to a lay reader but also irrelevant to the story.
For a hard sci-fi novel with convoluted technology and complex plot-points, Day's world-building was astoundingly deficient. He failed to teach me the rules of his technology or his society. The character development was similarly absent: we had no idea about their motivations for many of their perplexing actions. Instead, as you might expect from an engineer attempting to write a novel, we got a mystifing emphasis on procedural minutiae and (fictional) tech specifications. But even this emphasis was very poorly explained, leaving me only marginally more enlightened about goings-on.
Day was clearly attempting to craft high-stakes, tense action scenes, yet he filled them up with such incomprehensible technical jargon that I had no idea what was happening. Very early on I began simply skimming to the end of action sequences to get to the outcome. He also had a bizarre fixation on G-forces, without ever actually doing the legwork to explain how they work or why we should care.
There was also artificial stakes-building with Day's irritating habit of having characters cryptically hint at things or almost remember them, but get somehow interrupted until 10-20 pages later when he resolved the mystery. At times during the "tense" action scenes there would be 2-3 such mysteries that our protagonist would have to circle back to. A 460 page novel simply doesn't need that much padding.
All of these defects made me basically give up, a very bizarre experience as a reader given that I was still invested in learning the outcome. By halfway through I was skimming everything except for the expository dialogue. Even the dialogue was bad, with an 80s action movie feel, but at least it moved the plot forward. Except when it made inane religious/mystical assertions or otherwise attempted to create some emotional stakes with its cardboard characters.
I don't know what possessed Day to think that he could lay no foundation for any of these characters and then later expect the reader to care about their relationships when he spent painfully long passages on them. In probably the most egregious example, Day subjects us to many scenes of one of the protagonists getting horribly abused by her partner, with little to no explanation as to why either of them behaved that way. I literally did a double-take during one of these scenes, not believing what I had just read because it was so out of the blue. I have little doubt Day himself understands why his characters did those things, but he utterly failed to communicate those motivations to the reader.
Oh, and of course one of the unexplained "rules" of Day's 21st century world (which we can only deduce from the characters' indifferent reactions to domestic violence taking place directly in front of them (!)) appears to be that it's completely acceptable to beat the ever-loving shit out of women, or at least the emotionally damaged ones.
And of course I wouldn't have read even the dialogue -- I would have put the book down and almost did a few times -- except that I was really intrigued by the central premise and plot. That's what makes the entire experience so frustrating and disappointing. Day had a pretty great vision for a story, he just had none of the literary tools required to execute it. Even his plotting was off -- he could have started the novel about halfway through where he actually did, when they had established colonies on a new system and were dealing with the geopolitics they dragged with them from Earth.
Overall I can't recommend this book to anyone. Better to just read a synopsis somewhere, cause you'll get everything valuable about the book right there. If Day continues writing I sincerely hope he will hook up with a co-author, or at the very least a much better editor. It's frankly astonishing that an editor approved the book in this form, and almost as surprising that a publisher green-lit it.
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
July 1, 2017
I've been trying to track down this book again after picking it up at the library some years back. It was a satisfying and powerful read, but I couldn't recall the freaking title. The reality created, agreeably dark, didn't seem like an impossible future for us as a global society. I enjoyed the dive into such a world if for nothing else to be cautioned of how important it is to be mindful of our impact on the planet. Glad to stumble across it again on GR, will definitely be adding it to my collection.
December 11, 2025
A dark sci fi that feels a bit too possible for our future at some points. I enjoyed the realistic look at what it would really look like to be a space colonizer. I appreciated the discussion on human nature and violent tendencies. I struggled to connect with the characters and understand their motives/relationships. I did think the recurring theme of “when does stepping aside and allowing bad things to happen blur into you being the one causing the bad things” was very appropriately depicted.
December 31, 2019
Great plot and interesting tech. Character development is hit and miss.
July 16, 2016
Wow, what a book! I can't believe this book didn't win big awards and sell millions of copies, it's so good. Not perfect--some troubling logic problems--but great nevertheless. It really makes you think about who we are as a species, and what it means to be human. Other reviewers have said they found it depressing or overly dark, but I didn't find it that way at all. It's realistic. This ain't no disco, no foolin' around, no Hollywood movie ending. And it's no clean-shaven spit and polish NASA moon shot, either. It's very messy and ad hoc, and seems destined to fail at every turn, which makes for compelling reading. The most troubling thing I found was the time the book is set in. The story begins in 2017, which is next year, from where I'm sitting, and the technology present in the book is a LOOONG way off (the stargate, or torus, especially). You may, after reading the blurbs and summaries, wonder why the protagonist, Torres, doesn't just sell his super-batteries to the world and help save the Earth. That was my question, going in. Let me just say it becomes pretty clear, and will make perfect sense. And the world of 2017 in the book is in MUCH worse shape than (I hope) ours will be next year. This book has some important things to say about our fears and reaching for safety (and power) via weapons. But it's not heavy-handed. Very much a thinking person's SF book, and highly recommended. I look forward to more from this author.
September 27, 2011
This should've been a better book than it was. The the setting, a bleak vision of the future, was consistent and interesting, and the characters were mostly well-developed. The plot, on the other hand, needed serious work. A lot of the plot developments were jarring and unbelievable, and the central conceit of the book's first third was so unrealistic as to be utterly laughable. I'd read Day's next book, but I wouldn't recommend this one to anybody.
July 9, 2008
This is the best science fiction book I've read in a long time. Day starts right in at the action and brings you in with it. There is everything you want in sci-fi--space, drones, war, girls in cat suits, allegorical comments on society and an impossible twist at the end that makes you desperate to talk to someone about. So someone read this and we'll talk.
August 7, 2013
A Grey moon over China is overwhelming. read this book in almost one sitting. I couldn't stop reading it. Although most of the characters aren't extremely likable, they are real people whoo grow and change for the most part. A couple characters didn't. Polaski most of all. But that may have just been his schizo ways.
I can't add more without spoilers so I'll leave it at that.
I can't add more without spoilers so I'll leave it at that.
August 2, 2007
INCREDIBLY technical, which is not something i always look for, but given the author's background i thought it was a real asset.
I was most impressed with how far into the future the scope of the story moved. An incredibly realistic (however distant) vision of the future.
I was most impressed with how far into the future the scope of the story moved. An incredibly realistic (however distant) vision of the future.
October 5, 2015
Meeeeeeeeh...
I was into the book overall and I think I might have even come out liking it had
I was into the book overall and I think I might have even come out liking it had
March 15, 2011
Interesting but had to follow.
September 16, 2012
This is a great read. I am looking forward to more by this author.
June 5, 2013
Interesting take on sci fi colonization. The drones part was more interesting than the rest though.
September 1, 2009
Please go to http://www.myshelf.com/scifi_fantasy/...
to read my review.
to read my review.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews