'It is a hopeless future. Forced to flee a toxic earth, humanity has found a new life among the stars. Some hold out hope that a new home can be found—a planet called Eden Star—but that dream is mostly forgotten.
'While travelling between space ports, an old laborer with nothing to live for saves two young children when their transport ship is destroyed. Set adrift in a cramped escape pod, they begin to lose hope of rescue until a strange alien moon reveals itself to them. Together, the castaways learn to adapt and survive on the mysterious alien landscape. But what seems like paradise at first, hides many dangers and dark secrets. And as they grow into adulthood, they must confront forces they can barely understand: life, death, and a deep natural love.'
Having previously read Chrtistopher Webster's other work, the YA book New Horizons, I was interested to see what he would be like in the sci-fi genre. The Blue Moon starts off like a lot of sci-fi stories, set in a distant future, aboard a spaceship traversing the endless expanse of space. However, things quickly take a turn when the ship suffers a disaster and the three central characters, an old mechanic called Pin, and two young children Adam and Emma, are forced to escape together.
This shift is a great moment within the narrative. Whilst the future that Webster has crafted here is interesting in itself, the shift to a smaller story focusing on these three characters makes for a much better narrative. Webster is clearly very good at writing smaller, personal stories, and does so to great results here.
New Horizons had a fairly small cast of characters, yet dealt with big concepts and a story that was left unresolved for future books, and as such I never felt completely connected to the characters of that world, yet here I quickly came to care for Pin, Emma, and Adam.
The dangerous situations that the three of them are put into over the course of the book test not only the resolve of the characters, especially the young children, but really put the reader on edge. Whilst I knew that there was no way the three of them were going to suffocate in space with two thirds of the book left it didn't mean that I wasn't worried for them. One of them could still perish and leave the others to continue on without them, or they could suffer some kind of wound or injury that would stay with them.
This sense of danger is never really gone during the course of the story, even when the characters seem to be in moments of relative peace. The Blue Moon they find themselves upon is a wondrous, beautiful place, yet seems to constantly be hiding a layer of danger, no matter where they move to.
The moon itself becomes as much a character as Pin and the children, and we learn more and more about it as the story unfolds, discovering it's strange and mysterious secrets along with the humans who must now call it home. Whenever you think that you've got an understanding of what might be going on, or what will come next something new and amazing, and often terrifying, is revealed.
A book about humanity, of the drive and desire to survive in a world that hides its dangers under a layer of beauty. It's a story of survival, and love. The characters grow and develop over their years together, and whilst unable to develop and mature in certain ways due to their isolation, their changes are believable and realistic. A great read that is sure to keep the reader entertained from start to finish.
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