In 'Red Moon,' Too Much Information Eclipses The Story
Kim Stanley Robinson's new book kicks off with a murder on the moon — which sounds exciting, but Red Moon spends too much time wandering off on digressions about science, technology and politics.
After reading Kim Stanley Robinson's new novel, Red Moon, I now know more about the growth cycles of bamboo than I ever thought I would. I know how farming on the moon would work. I know about the mechanics of tidally locked orbital bodies, and so much about feng shui.
The story is about Fred Fredericks, a man sent to the moon to deliver a special kind of telephone — person-to-person, encrypted via quantum entanglement — to Chinese governor Chang Yazu. The moon, in Robinson's future, is
