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    Gunpowder Moon
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    Gunpowder Moon
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    Gunpowder Moon
    Ebook308 pages5 hours

    Gunpowder Moon

    By David Pedreira

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    • An Amazon Best Books of the Year selection
    • BookBub Breakout Debut Novels of Winter 2018
    • The Verge―18 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books to Read in February
    • Barnes & Noble—One of 25 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Debuts to Watch for in 2018
    • Nerdmuch—Best New Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books of 2018
    • Bookish—Winter 2018’s Hottest Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books
    • Library Journal: Spring/Summer Best Debut Novels

    “Interesting quirks and divided loyalties flesh out this first novel in which sf and mystery intersect in a well-crafted plot...Pedreira’s science thriller powerfully highlights the human politics and economics from the seemingly desolate expanse of the moon. It will attract readers who enjoyed Andy Weir’s lunar crime caper Artemis.” -- Library Journal, starred review

    A realistic and chilling vision of life on the Moon, where dust kills as easily as the vacuum of space…but murder is even quicker—a fast-paced, cinematic science fiction thriller, this debut novel combines the inventiveness of The Martian, the intrigue of The Expanse, and the thrills of Red Rising.

    The Moon smells like gunpowder. Every lunar walker since Apollo 11 has noticed it: a burnt-metal scent that reminds them of war. Caden Dechert, the chief of the U.S. mining operation on the edge of the Sea of Serenity, thinks the smell is just a trick of the mind—a reminder of his harrowing days as a Marine in the war-torn Middle East back on Earth.

    It’s 2072, and lunar helium-3 mining is powering the fusion reactors that are bringing Earth back from environmental disaster. But competing for the richest prize in the history of the world has destroyed the oldest rule in space: Safety for All. When a bomb kills one of Dechert’s diggers on Mare Serenitatis, the haunted veteran goes on the hunt to expose the culprit before more blood is spilled.

    But as Dechert races to solve the first murder in the history of the Moon, he gets caught in the crosshairs of two global powers spoiling for a fight. Reluctant to be the match that lights this powder-keg, Dechert knows his life and those of his crew are meaningless to the politicians. Even worse, he knows the killer is still out there, hunting.

    In his desperate attempts to save his crew and prevent the catastrophe he sees coming, the former Marine uncovers a dangerous conspiracy that, with one spark, can ignite a full lunar war, wipe out his team . . . and perhaps plunge the Earth back into darkness.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 13, 2018
    ISBN9780062676092
    Author

    David Pedreira

    A former reporter for newspapers including the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times, David Pedreira has won awards for his writing from the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He lives in Tampa, Florida.

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    Reviews for Gunpowder Moon

    4/5

    56 ratings8 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This seems to be Pedreira's first novel after a successful career as a journalist. Pretty good first effort.After the Thermal Max (global warming gone wild) caused much destruction on Earth, civilization is again making progress. The key to the future is fusion power which needs a source of helium 3. Wikipedia claims that the moon should be a good source of helium 3. The story mainly take place in an American mining base on the moon. The other main presence on the moon is the Chinese. A few other countries are trying to gain a foothold. Since the moon is a harsh mistress (or so Robert Heinlein said), there is peace on the moon even though tensions between the US and China are increasing on Earth. But then one of the American miners dies in what at first appears to be an accident but the investigation reveals that it was murder.The story is mainly about the US station commanger, Dechert, trying to figure out what happened to his man (plus other random acts of sabotage) while tension between the US and China rises. The story was told well. A good blend of technical stuff with interpersonal relations in the small station. A pretty good read even if there were things that bugged me. First off, I'll say I was real happy that the story got resolved. Not that Pedreira didn't leave room for a sequel (Jupiter, anyone?) but at least he did wrap up the story. I'm not giving this book any higher than a 3 because although it was a good read, I thought it ended a bit too abruptly. I'm not sure that Dechert's actions in the last 10-15 pages would have the effect they did in real life.From a technical side, several things bugged me. First, the author refers to the surface of the moon as having micro-gravity. Not just once, but a number of times throughout the first half of the book. Later he refers to low gravity and even 1/6th gravity once. An effective eidtor whold have helped here. Micro-gravity is weightlessness you'd get in orbit, not on the surface of the moon. I'll give him a pass on the flaming meteor as he makes an attempt on how that might be possible (although I don't really buy it).One other point. The miners are digging for helium 3 (adequately explained as to why), water (also explained and perhaps self evident) and something called ilmenite. This ore was mentioned numerous times with no explaination of what is was or why it was important. It is a titanium and iron containing ore (thanks again Wikipedia) which presumably would be useful in building on the moon.
    • 4/5
      ** Full disclosure: I received this book in exchange for an honest review**After the first murder on the moon the crew of a U.S. led mining operation races to prevent even deadlier events from happening. This was a fun read, a good blend of thriller and hard SF with excellent pacing and characters I grew to like and be invested in quite quickly. The author did a great job invoking the isolated atmosphere, the combination of living in tight quarters and the huge expanse of space, the mundanity and constant risk that I imagine living on the moon would be like. I can’t speak for the full accuracy of the science but it felt right, and added to the overall realistic feeling of the story and the location. I became attached to the characters pretty much right off the bat, so much so that when new characters were introduced that I felt could be a threat to the main ones I found myself resenting them and rooting against them. I found myself picking sides and judging accordingly. One slight weak point, while I found the politics of this world pretty much believable, things were a bit black and white and I can’t say as I found the overall plot much of a surprise. And the ending felt a bit telegraphed but overall that didn’t really bother me since I didn’t get the feeling that this was supposed to be a mystery we had to solve so much as the experience of watching the crew get from Point A to Point B. The characters were engaging if a bit clichéd and standard for this type of story, the pacing was tight, the science was believable and I had a fun time reading it. I’m looking forward to reading more from this author.
    • 4/5
      Review of Uncorrected ProofCaden Dechert, chief of mining operations on the lunar Sea of Serenity, loses one of his crewmen in a deliberate act of murder, a first on the moon where, until now, the primary rule had been safety for all. Desperate to prevent a catastrophe, he sets out to solve the mystery of the murder and uncovers a conspiracy that holds the potential to bring all-out war to the lunar surface, wipe out his team, and perhaps even send Earth back into darkness. Can Caden find the murderer and avert the catastrophe that threatens to destroy Man’s lunar settlements?An all-too-believable political maelstrom creates a sense of dread in this credible near-future narrative. Well-developed characters, grounded in believable technology, populate the desolate lunar surface and a camaraderie between the various mining groups is far more civilized than the political machinations that continue to plague the nations of Earth. Realism elevates the tale and pulls the reader into the story as the unfolding events build the tension and keep the pages turning.Recommended.
    • 5/5
      I was provided a galley of the book by the publisher.A murder mystery on the moon. It's as simple as that, and as awesome as that. Dechert is the chief of a lunar mining operation. He's not young. He's had substantial military experience. He's on the moon to get away from that past and to be the gruff father to his eccentric crew of misfits. But when incidents of sabotage crop up and one of his miners is killed in an explosion, the higher echelons of American forces blame a rival Chinese mining operation without genuine evidence, drawing the two nations to the brink of war--a war both sides seem to want. Dechert investigates a murder that could be the first of millions.This book is everything that I hoped Andy Weir's Artemis would be. It's smart and savvy, based solidly in real science but still totally approachable to laymen. Dechert is easy to relate to as a protagonist, and you can't help but love his strong bonds with his quirky crew. His experience makes him a fantastic investigator like the greats of the genre. The book is a fast read, too. It hooked me from the start and I had to read through in about a day.
    • 5/5
      Impressive novel about mining He-3 on the moon. Credible on many levels: Technology for life underground on the moon, military, bureaucratic politics, people, moon travel, eco disaster on Earth. Not a false note on any of them.
      The plot is a murder mystery, with events continuing to unfold as the cynical detective tries to figure things out.
    • 3/5
      I used to like Asimov as a kid but grew out of him. All of his characters sound the same ('Now see here') with the worst example being his later "Foundation" books where Asimov-as-he-is and Asimov-as-he-wishes-he-was fly around the universe searching for Earth and meet a shared-consciousness lass with a nice bottom. All of his books are detective novels and end with the hero spending three chapters explaining how he cleverly worked out the mystery to an incredulous antagonist who then throws an extra twist in there ('Ah but we are the Second Foundation/Mule/mind controlling robots'). Fun for a while but silly. Ask any SF fan why they like the genre and you often get the pat and crappy answers about wanting to expand the mind or explore new frontiers but Asimov's a good example of the kind of cosy SF which seems the antithesis of this.I admire Pedreira though (in Portuguese it means "Quarry"; does Pedreira have Portuguese roots?) for the balance he's bought to an old SF prop. And he really seems to stick to the "What's possible" law whereby you push vintage props, models and sets to the absolute limit of what you can get away with visually without having to bring in the "CGI" (aka more literary SF devices). Pedreira's Moon's self-consciously-retro vistas felt a teensy bit like a safe gambit to me, one which barely worked but... I guess I like it better when SF pushes a look, even if it's cheesy or dates quickly - that's part of the joy. If you are capable of having an imagination and a sense of disbelief, you can have it either way. It all depends on how much you're willing to lose yourself in the story. It's true that some technologies haven't gone as far as the Golden Age authors thought they would (the way Pedreira writes I think of him as an Golden Age SF author), but others have advanced further than almost anyone imagined - look at the way that computers permeate everyday life now. The thing that dates a lot of classic SF isn't the space travel, it's the computers (or lack of them). In James Blish's 'Earthman Come Home', the characters spend months working out complicated equations with slide rules, before feeding the results into the city's computer (which consists of vacuum tubes). I think that's one reason why Jack Vance still seems so fresh - although his stories are often set on alien worlds, his stories typically concern societies, language and personality, rather than specific technologies. On the other hand, while I admire the gumption of writing stuff that resembles Vintage SF, the result seem quite stale. It's already done before a zillion times.Bottom-line: 3 stars because I’m a sucker for SF novels set on the moon.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Gunpowder is how the moon smells. This was an excellent novel written along the same lines as Andy Weir's Artemis and Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. All three take place in a time and universe where the Moon has been colonized and mining operations have begun by the worlds superpowers. In this case the United States and China.

      The human race has not improved in these times. There are wars on Earth The nations of Earth are recovering from an ecological disaster known as the Thermal Max. The United States has been slow to recover compared to China. There are tensions between these two competitors on Earth and on the Moon. The peace is delicate and the murder of an American Astronaut sets the two powers on the course to a war that could wipe out humanity. All that can stop the impending war is the true answer to the question who killed the astronaut and why.

      I had fun reading this book. The puzzle of who killed the astronaut is well written and not obvious. The political consequences of the murder seem like they could happen. The action sequences are riveting.

    • 4/5
      I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA GOODREADS GIVEAWAY. THANK YOU.My Review: First, read this:“I didn't realize our government considered altruism one of its core competencies," Dechert finally replied. "Is that why we're dropping a treaty that provides free helium-3 for the New Third World?" He started to unstrap his restraints. "I thought it was so we could prove to the orbital executives that we can keep up with their production demands.”–and–“Isn't that how most conflicts start? With a gross miscalculation of the possibilities of escalation? A village first, then a peninsula, and then a continent? It is cold up here, commander. Cold and distant. Just a point in space from their viewpoint - valuable but aesthetically detached.”If we're not just meeting each other, you'll recall my oft-expressed fondness for a pacey, pleasingly noir thriller. That is indeed what we have here. It's 2072; the Moon is split between US and Chinese control; the energy extraction of Humanity's dreams has begun. Caden Dechert is a combat veteran, a polymath and a politically astute loner in charge of the mining operations on US sector of the Moon. After a gigantic disaster more than thirty years ago (Asteroid collisions you can prepare for, carbon emissions you can legislate against, but who expected a subsea methane eruption would plunge us back into the Dark Ages for more than a decade?, asks Caden rhetorically), lunar helium-3 is now the (limited; do we never learn?) resource we need to power the planet.The thing about using the resources of another world is that it's complicated, requires humans to do complex and still-risky tasks, and exist in an environment that hates you and will kill you in a flash. Caden's job is, in part, to make sure that doesn't happen absent cataclysm...and to head off cataclysm whenever possible. To date he's been a success. Only now the Moon's a crime scene because person(s) unknown have decided to rid Humanity of an innocent waif called Specialist Cole Benson. (Unimportant detail, honestly; how often, in a thriller, does the deady really matter? That's how one knows it's not a mystery, where it matters a lot.)What happens from there is an astonishingly fast-paced series of ripples, enacted in meeting rooms and over long, long-distance conference calls. The bureaucracy, the meetings in the face of death, all that's so completely real, so calculatedly cool. No better way to bleed off righteous anger than to have a meeting with the brass. And Dechert, despite his rage and outrage, has caught a scent he really, really doesn't like, a corruption that not even the gunpowder smell of the Moon will hide.What a truly well-made thriller does best is direct you through misdirection. Keep that in mind, readers. Very firmly in mind.The dead settle in our mind like cooling embers. After a time they diminish, snuffed out by the immediate, and then a puff of memory rekindles them and for a moment they are hot and near once again.In discovering the actual intent of the event that killed poor young Specialist Benson, Dechert grows extremely determined to bring true Justice, wearing her Nemesis hat, to the perpetrators of what he regards as appalling immoral acts in service of an unconscionable aim. You've read noir thrillers before. You know this means "badness up the food chain." And that's a discovery Dechert isn't going to let lie, quietly festering. He is, thankfully for his health, talked down off the ledge of taking immediate action. There's a new post awaiting him, one that makes the Moon look like West Virginia: He's shipped out to Europa!The whys and the wherefores aren't utterly convincing, but I don't care, he's going to EUROPA!! A moon of Jupiter with a huge, huge ocean of liquid brine! Talk about coolness...and talk about remoteness, too, the speed of light takes just over forty minutes to get to Earth from there. That is one hell of a push-off assignment. (I'd take it in a heartbeat.)So why am I not awarding it all five stars? Because, as much as it pains me to say it, while the tone of the book is right in that indefinable way you feel in your sinews, it's also a message that really, really concerns me at this juncture: Don't trust The Man is an evergreen trope for a reason...The Man's done a lot to earn mistrust over the millennia...but we're facing two severe crises that only The Man can fight effectively, climate change's acceleration and COVID's move from pandemic to endemic and the behavioral changes that NEED to follow on both those things. The noir-lone-wolf-iness of this tale, the one extraordinary man who can put it to rights, is not believable and not timely. That's why the other star fell off my review.