Take the good bits of Game of Thrones, put it on the Moon, add Ian McDonald’s incredible eye for detail and brilliantly evocative writing - and you’ve got an absolute banger of a book. Definitely one of my favourite SF books I’ve read in the last few years, and I am shamefully writing this review 5 years after I first read this exceptional space jaunt....

This was a great read. In todays world of references, people will make an automatic link to Game of Thrones, but it is a lot less complicated and much easier to understand. It is a tale of powerful families set on the future moon, where each family has its own area of expertise and money making - travel, mining etc. Each family is linked back to an original area on earth, but the author has chosen interesting geographical areas, not necessarily the obvious ones. Inter family marriages have been arranged to stop conflict, but with extended families that doesn't seem to work. This particular book follows the fall of one such family, but before we start that, the author follows one person who is not linked into any of the ruling families and this shows us how brutal and unforgiving this new moon is. I thought this a very good book, and will read the sequel.

Proper space-opera with all the adventure you might expect. Complex relationships and multifarious shenanigans all set in the compact, tight, powder-keg of the moon.Maybe a little too long and too complex for my taste - but I know plenty out there who would eat this up (think Dune, or Babylon 5 with real characters!)

Ian McDonald is one of my favourite authors, so, I had high hopes of “Luna New Moon”. I was not disappointed.
As usual, Ian McDonald has created an environment set in the not so distant future, that is not too far removed from Earth society today. His creations are always recognisable – on the surface – but have tweaks that make you re-evaluate your own way of living and the current world around you. This is a vision of a possible future – dystopian or not depends on your politics (and bank balance).
This book is set on the moon about 60 – 100 years after the moon is first colonised. Its society is a plutocracy run by 5 family corporations, or Dragons, each originating from a different corner of Earth: Mackenzie Metals from Australia; Corta Helio from Brazil; Taiyang (Sun) from China; VTO (Vorontsov) from Central Asia/Russia; and AKA (Asamoah) from Ghana. So, Ghanaian but no USA or EU Dragons! The widespread origins of the families are reflected in the polyglot nature of Lune society.
On the moon, everything has a price. Things such as breathable air, which we take for granted, costs. If you have no money, you cannot breathe, and die. No money – no water, no food, no safe accommodation. The cheapest accommodation is on the surface, where dangerous radiation levels are highest. The rich live well below. Each human has an eye implant registering their available wealth, which ticks down as they breathe, drink, eat, live. On the upside (!), you can sell your urine for money. In death, your body is recycled – no waste.
There is no welfare state. The rich lead charmed lives, and the poor are wretched: “Poverty stretches time. And poverty is an avalanche. One tiny slippage knocks on another, knocks loose yet others and everything is sliding, rushing away”, “The might and magic of money is not what it allows you to own; it is what it allows you to be. Money is freedom”. Money doesn’t just buy comestibles, it buys protection and justice. Everything is determined by negotiation and contracts. There are no laws, no morals.
The book revolves around the Corta family, and the poor Jo Moonbeam (recent arrival from Earth), Marina, whose life becomes entangled with the Cortas. The history of the Cortas is told through the confession of their matriarch, Adriana, as she prepares for death. Her descendants are in a continual battle for supremacy with the other Dragons. Outright war is only kept in check by marriages of state between the families, and their binding Nikahs (marriage contracts). However, a marriage contract does not guarantee allegiance. Where the marriage is tactical rather than a love match, both parties remain suspicious of each other, and children become bargaining chips. It appears a society heading for disaster – but the reasons behind the eventual meltdown are not quite what they appear to be.
Because the book focusses on the Corta family, you see them as the good guys, and the Mackenzies as the bad: “The Mackenzies scorn their affectations. They are the dwellers in endless light. Light bathes them, soaks them, enriches them; leaches and bleaches them. Born without shadows, the Mackenzies have taken darkness inside them”. But, each character exhibits positive and negative traits, making them real, believable and developing with the story line.
The lunar society and its customs are so vividly and intricately drawn, that it almost ceases to feel like fiction. Everything is perfectly thought through – take an Earth custom and extend it, shrink it, change it. There is the full spectrum of sexuality, and people do not define themselves by their birth gender or preferred sexuality. Relationships need not be monogamous, nor exclusive. Fashions come and go rapidly, nothing is static. The gravity of the moon alters the human physique through a lifetime, through generations. Spend too long on the moon and you can never return to Earth.
The language of the book is wonderful and the imagery gifted: “The riding lights of drones and pedicopters, the sparkle of fliers, the jewelled abacus of the elevator cars and cable gondolas: she is immersed in light, breathing it as a fish breathes water. Bubbles of exhaled light”; “The changes fell like micrometeors, like hundreds of tiny impacts”.
I cannot recommend this book – and anything of Ian McDonald – highly enough. Read this and become a fan forever.

In the future the Moon is a place of opportunity with its rich mineral deposits. But it is also a place where ruthless family corporations vie for power.
Were Luna set on Earth, it would be a book about a group of mobsters vying for control of mineral rights in a remote country. The environment of the Moon creates both a distance from the Earth and a sense of battling against a world that’s relentlessly trying to kill you, never mind your corporate rivals. It is this lethal environment and the constant need to keep it at bay which adds an extra layer to the story.
Beneath the surface of the Moon, and sheltered from the hostile world where no human can live for more than a few seconds, is a vibrant but many tiered ecosystem of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. The very rich live in luxurious artificial biomes making money off the poor working for them for a pittance and struggling to buy enough oxygen to breathe, let alone the food and water needed to sustain them.
The children of the rich live in such luxury they only become aware of the perils of living on an airless rock when they take part in a sport which involves them racing across the surface of the Moon without a suit.
This is a frontier territory where people from Earth come to make their fortune. Few do, but those who have are locked in a perpetual power struggle. Marriages tend to be arranged and with a view to consolidations and shifts in power. The matriarchy of the Cortez's is seen as the usurper in all this and is the family that has to work the hardest to maintain their position in the scheme of things.
What makes this novel particularly interesting is the degree of sophistication of the man-made environments and their fragility. Earth does not appear to be the easy hop, skip and jump away of most science fiction novels, making a refreshing change and adding to the tension.
There is a great deal of sexual content in this novel, something that is never easy to write well or use appropriately within a storyline. Ian McDonald handles this really well, dovetailing it into the plot to give a real sense of the personalities involved in this complex world.
As a thriller Luna delivers on all levels with the plot ramping up as the book goes on. Luna is the start of what looks to be an intriguing series worth following.

Ian McDonald's new series, Luna (review copies from Gollancz), has all the red-in-tooth-and-claw politics and excitement of I Claudius, the Borgias and the Medicis rolled into one glorious bundle of politics, wealth and violence.  Both of the first two books, Luna: New Moon, and Luna: Wolf Moon (just published) are fabulous. 
In McDonald's world, the Moon has been colonised, and it is controlled by five powerful families, known as the Dragons.  These families control resources that an increasingly fragile Earth is dependent on, but they are bitter rivals, jockeying for position.  Many of those families are now on their third generation, with the physical changes wrought by the Moon meaning that individuals are trapped within its environment.  After two years someone from Earth is no longer able to return, but those born there are unable to survive elsewhere.  The Dragons are fabulously wealthy, but the gap between rich and poor is wide, with other individuals eking out an existence, competing for contracts to make a life.  This is a place run by contract, where there is no other civil or criminal law and disputes can be settled by trial by combat. 
Both books follow the fortunes of the Corta family.  Founded by Brazilian matriarch Adriana Corta, the family has a monopoly on the production of helium, essential to power a failing Earth's fusion reactors.  But the Corta family are seen as upstarts by their chief rivals, the Mackenzie family, which dominates the mining of rare metals, but is jealous of the more profitable helium industry.  The rivalries between the five Dragons are kept in careful balance by the Eagle, the representative of the Lunar Development Corporation, the governing entity in charge of the Moon, but the collapse of a planned dynastic marriage between Corta and Mackenzie triggers a chain reaction of events and reprisals that threatens to destroy the fragile lunar society.  It's difficult to say more without spoiling a complex plot that is a roller-coaster ride of violence, destruction, adventure and heroism.
In McDonald's hands, the Luna books are a powerful exploration of frontier life.  There are chances for great wealth and opportunity for those with the wisdom and determination to spot an opportunity and take advantage of it.  But existence is fragile, and small events can wreak drastic changes in the circumstances of an individual.  The Moon does not discriminate in who it offers opportunities to, or how it punishes them for their missteps. 
McDonald's Moon is a real melting pot of Earth culture and nations, all interwoven and viewed through a lunar lens.  The five Dragons represent Australia, Russia, Ghana and China as well as the Cortas' native Brazil.  Sexuality is free and fluid within lunar society, and diversity is embedded in society.  That leads to a broad range of fantastic characters, from powerful matriarchs, to playboy heirs straight from Made In Chelsea, to roughnecks out on the lunar surface.
Chief among that cast of characters is the fabulous Ariel Corta.  High-flying divorce lawyer and society darling, she is charismatic, arrogant, vain and an alcoholic with a Martini habit.  From her vintage Dior to her vertiginous heels she exudes sophistication, but underneath she is fragile.  Her attention-grabbing professional persona conceals emotional neediness underneath it all.  It's wonderful to see such a fully-realised and flawed character taking such a leading role in a novel. 
Goodreads rating: 5*

So, this was the first book I have ever had to claim a DNF on.

After the first 30 pages or so I convinced myself to carry on reading in the hope that I would look back on the book once I finished and think to myself 'so glad I stuck through the first 50 pages as my perseverance paid dividends and the book ended up being a very absorbing read'

Alas. I actually ended up reading 65% of the book, so I definitely gave it a good go. But I hate to admit it, but none of that 65% was very enjoyable. Not sure how this could have been likened to Game of Thrones. The writing in Game of Thrones is brilliant, character building is crucial to the narrative and you find yourself feeling something (weather love or hate for every character). In Luna I didn’t feel much of anything.

On the positive, the premise was brilliant; it was purely the delivery that was not great.
Maybe if the story was written across a trilogy the author could have spent more time on world building and character development, but this just felt disjointed and lacking depth.

Luna is a book that's slightly out of my comfort zone. I've read sci-fi before, but nothing quite in this genre of "hard sci-fi" or "space opera". A simple way of describing it would be a games of thrones set on the moon. The warring elitist families each fighting for control, the abundance of characters - although the glossary at the start is a good idea, on a kindle it's not as simple to flick back and forth - so reading this book as a proper physical book, is probably a good idea. The jumping between characters, some of whom have very similar sounding names, which can be confusing at times. The sex and violence. Definitely more than a few parallels with George R. R. Martins Game of Thrones.

In the future, the moon has been opened up to industry. With water and oxygen being the most valuable commodities, there are vast amounts of money to be made for the most successful. After a few generations the inevitable fighting between the five ruling families/corporations begin. One of the heads of the five families has grown old and frail, and she is concerned about the in fighting among her family that looks likely to take place. Another family has already attempted to assassinate one of her children, so it looks like the fighting to become the head of the company is going to spread. The book doesn't just remain with the elites perspective though, we also learn about how difficult and harsh life is for the lowliest workers.

I had thought this was a stand alone book when i requested it on NetGalley. It appears this is the first book in a series, so maybe the Luna books will become an ongoing series like the G.O.T books. I enjoy experiencing new genres and am thankful for the opportunity to have read this book. I'm not sure if I'll read the second one as yet, but that's not because it's not a great read, that's just down to my own personal preferences and I still have so many other books on my to read shelf.

Thanks to NetGalley, Orion Publishing Group, and the author for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

There is only one word for this - wonderful - despite all the names, the author helps us each and every time abt family affiliations and stance to each other - and although i read the long list of relationships at opening, in the end, it is clear enough where lines are drawn - internecine family loyalties and temperaments (like Luna's father rage) and cause damage to children and familial relations already drifting apart with nannies(hated by some) who take over a child early on - Luna is exceptional and the novel includes her nearly always. It drags sometimes - but it's in aid of drawing the complete futuristic off-world places, and the rules of those places. People are wrenched apart but are inured (somewhat) to it - a successful moon dancer is an arrogant sloppy fellow but he is feted - and Luna watches all this as she grows up and wonders. One to read again and again to remind yourself what's important.

DNF at 31%

I gave it a shot but boy did I not get along with this book. From the off I had no idea of what was happening up to about 10%. Then things sort of slotted into place and I was with it, but by about 25% I lost all interest. I read what could only be a handful of pages last night before deciding to listen to my audiobook in bed which never happens. This was a sign that I wasn’t into this book whatsoever and made me realise that it was time to call it quits.

There are some good ideas here from what I could grasp, I like the idea of feuding families on the moon but it was told in such a way that I didn’t get who was who or what was what. Probably not the books fault and more my own, a number of highly rated reviews are out there for this.

I feel bad for not finishing as NetGalley gave me a copy as I “wished” for this and it’s been out for a little while now. But time is precious, why waste more time on something you don’t like when there are so many things out there that will appeal so much more?