Building Harlequin's Moon

May 16, 2005
Fans of both hard and softer, psychological SF will welcome veteran Niven and newcomer Cooper's well-written tale of a 60,000-year layover in space, in which physical challenges of world building are matched by social challenges of collaboration among disparate groups. After arriving in an inhospitable solar system, the Earth Born, colonists on an interstellar journey, need to refuel their ship, John Glenn
, with antimatter. Since they lack laborers, the Earth Born construct a moon where they can build a particle collider and raise a work force, the Moon Born. Destined to be abandoned, the Moon Born struggle to gain as much knowledge and technology as they can before the Earth Born depart. Some of the technology includes artificial intelligences, whose unrestricted use caused the Earth Born to flee Earth in the first place. Niven and Cooper provide complicated characters, particularly the AI, which struggle with realistic moral dilemmas. If the novel loses a bit of its emotional credibility in a compressed climax, it errs on the side of telling a rich story completely in a single volume. Agent, Eleanor Wood
.

June 15, 2005
The colonists and crew of the spaceship "John Glenn" have left an Earth glutted with technology for the untouched planet Ymir, which they intend to terraform as a new Earth. When they mistakenly land on the moon Selene, which is orbiting the gas giant Harlequin, their mission changes to one of terraforming the moon and generating enough antimatter to fuel the ship for its trip to Ymir. The colonists' children become laborers in the process of molding Selene, but their fate is in doubt when their work is done, and the space ship is able to reassume its voyage. Collaborators Niven (Beowulf's Children; "Ringworld" series) and short story writer Cooper deliver a tale that explores the questions of expediency and responsibility while telling of survival in the depths of space. A good choice for most sf collections.

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2005
The " John Glenn" is marooned due to a massive design flaw. Passengers and crew want to get to Ymir, where fellow colony ships should await, but need antimatter for power. So they spend 60,000 years terraforming Harlequin's hundreds of moons into just one, Selene. Since they need more workers, they start a colony. But they forget their responsibility to their children, the Moon Born, and come to regard them as, basically, slaves. Moon-Born Rachel, trained in terraforming by Selene's designer, Gabriel, has spent her life in awe of the Council of John Glenn. After Gabriel convinces the other Earth Born to let her come to the ship to further her training, she finally realizes that the Earth Born are blind to everything but leaving Selene--including the fate of the Moon Born. As relations between Earth Born and Moon Born deteriorate, Rachel becomes a bridge between them. Exploiting Niven's classic flare for world building, he and Cooper craft an entertaining epic with subtexts concerning cultural obsessiveness and the fear and worship of science.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)