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    Building Harlequin's Moon
    Building Harlequin's Moon
    Building Harlequin's Moon
    Ebook606 pages9 hours

    Building Harlequin's Moon

    By Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The first interstellar starship, John Glenn, fled a Solar System populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids, threatened by too much nanotechnology, and rife with political dangers. The John Glenn's crew intended to terraform the nearly pristine planet Ymir, in hopes of creating a utopian society that would limit intelligent technology.
    But by some miscalculation they have landed in another solar system and must shape the gas giant planet Harlequin's moon, Selene, into a new, temporary home. Their only hope of ever reaching Ymir is to rebuild their store of antimatter by terraforming the moon.
    Gabriel, the head terraformer, must lead this nearly impossible task, with all the wrong materials: the wrong ships and tools, and too few resources. His primary tools are the uneducated and nearly-illiterate children of the original colonists, born and bred to build Harlequin's moon into an antimatter factory.
    Rachel Vanowen is one of these children. Basically a slave girl, she must do whatever the terraforming Council tells her. She knows that Council monitors her actions from a circling vessel above Selene's atmosphere, and is responsible for everything Rachel and her people know, as well as all the skills, food, and knowledge they have ever received. With no concept of the future and a life defined with duty, how will the children of Selene ever survive once the Council is through terraforming and have abandoned Selene for its ultimate goal of Ymir?



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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2007
    ISBN9781429914093
    Building Harlequin's Moon
    Author

    Larry Niven

    Larry Niven (left) is the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of such classics as Ringworld, The Integral Trees, and Destiny's Road. He has also collaborated with both Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes on The Legacy of Heorot, Beowulf's Children, and the bestselling Dream Park series. He lives in Chatsworth, California. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle were the joint winners of the 2005 Robert A. Heinlein Award.

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    Reviews for Building Harlequin's Moon

    3.5/5

    109 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This was my first scifi novel featuring terraforming and thousands of years of time. (Although the main plot is shorter, the idea of more-time-than-a-normal-lifespan is throughout.) I found the idea stimulating and enjoyed watching the moon slowly come to life. Even more, the characters, especially Rachel, come to life over the course of the book. Rachel is a well-developed protagonist and grows to become a capable leader. She slowly realizes that the earth-born's plan to create antimatter and leave the moon will effectively be a death sentence to the moon-born, and has to figure out how to reconcile everyone's needs. I definitely found myself rooting for the main characters' success, while also understanding the earth-born characters' need to finish their mission and leave for their destination planet. The tension between the two parties is logical and well-developed, and the results were reasonable, without giving them away. I quite enjoyed this book.
    • 3/5
      Smart, with original ideas, but somehow not all that memorable (it took me most of the prologue to realize I'd already read it last year). Fans of epic & classic adventure sf should enjoy it.
    • 2/5
      Did not finish this book: stopped after reaching about halfway through. Too hard to get involved with the story. Hard to believe that future humans would behave they way they do in this book.
    • 3/5
      Novels that consciously advocate non-violence are rare, in science fiction or any other genre. This one does just that, offering in its narrative a recap of successful nonviolent social movements, despite some climactic violence.
    • 4/5
      This is everything you'd come to expect from Larry Niven. A unique setting, great scientific speculation and interesting characters. I thought this was very well done.
    • 3/5
      Larry Niven is one of my favorite sci-fi authors and has been ever since I read the wonderful “Ringworld” as a child. I still haven’t read all of his books, however, so I enjoy the rare opportunity to read one I haven’t read before.“Building Harlequin’s Moon” is yet another collaboration book from Niven. Niven is a prolific collaborator and has written many books with other authors. This book was his first time writing with Brenda Cooper.The story of “Building Harlequin’s Moon” is almost a classic kind of science fiction story. It is the future and a group of humans have boarded the first intersteller starship, John Glenn, and fled Earth’s solar system which is now populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids. The use of nanotechnology is rampant and has made Earth dangerous for humans. The John Glenn’s crew intended to terraform the nearby pristine planet of Ymir in hopes of creating a utopian society that would limit intelligent technology.Unfortunately, some sort of miscalculation has landed the John Glenn in a different solar system and extremely low on the antimatter they need to fuel their ship and continue their journey to Ymir. They decide they will shape Selene, the moon of the nearby planet Harlequin, into a new and temporary home where they will spend decades going in and out of cryogenic sleep while they terraform the moon and rebuild their store of antimatter.Gabriel, the head terraformer, must lead this nearly impossible task, with all the wrong materials: the wrong ships and tools, and too few resources. His primary tools are the uneducated and nearly illiterate children of the original colonists, born and bred to build Harlequin’s moon into a virtual antimatter factory.Rachel Vanowen is one of these children. Basically a slave girl, she must do whatever the terraforming Council tells her. She knows that the Council monitors her actions from a circling vessel above Selene’s atmosphere and is responsible for everything Rachel and her people know, as well as for the food and any training they receive. It’s only when Rachel starts wondering what will happen to the people on Selene when the John Glenn leaves that things start changing for everyone.Although the book is certainly a science fiction story, it is also a story about people. The real beauty of the storytelling here isn’t in the description of the scientific elements or the future technologies, it’s in the questions the authors ask through the characters about what it means to be human.How do the people of the John Glenn justify creating a slave race of their own offspring just to help them build the antimatter that will eventually help them leave the children of Selene to an almost certain, eventual doom? At what point does the reluctance to use technology become an obsession rather than a choice? How does a person’s perspective of time change when you’ve been alive over 60,000 years?The book is full of tantalizing questions about the human condition. Rachel is one of the few Moon Born (as the people who are born on Selene are called) who is allowed to fully interact with the Earth Born and the High Council (people from the John Glenn). The High Council see in Rachel someone who could one day be a leader for the Moon Born, and, thus, someone who could help them achieve their goals. However, it is the leadership qualities in Rachel that cause her to begin asking the questions about what is to become of the Moon Born when the John Glenn leaves. As she gains more and more knowledge through the help of some of the council themselves, Rachel begins to see that the Moon Born will have to force a change if they want to survive.Adding to the complexities of the character interactions is Rachel’s mother who is an Earth Born who decided to abandon Rachel and her father and go back into suspended animation on the ship. There is also the fact that the people who go into suspended animation are rejuvenated by nanobites every time they freeze so they can live for hundreds of years awake and have lived for thousands of years in suspended animation.The authors convincingly portray the many sides to the issues and leave the reader with a full understanding and empathy for everyone’s point of view - something that’s hard to accomplish most of the time. While the taunt story tends to fall apart a bit towards the end, it’s easy to forgive because by then we have become emotionally invested in the characters enough to want to see a satisfying ending. The authors do not let us down.
    • 5/5
      Humans flee Earth in three interstellar starships to escape the nanotechnology and rogue artificial intelligence that have taken control of the planet. The starships are all heading to a very distance planet, Ymir. Building Harlequin's Moon is the story of the first starship to flee, John Glen.An error results in John Glen having to stop along the way to collect additional antimatter. This requires the construction of a ring collider in a habitable environment. No such planet exists within reach.A John Glen scientist pushes several moons and comets together while his fellow travelers sleep in a deep regenerating freeze. Eventually, Harlequin Moon stabilizes enough for human life.The Moon is terraformed with the help of limited nanotechnology and then populated with humans from John Glen who give birth to "Moon Born". The sole purpose of the Moon Born is to build a collider to collect antimatter so that the John Glen can continue onto its goal, Ymir.Unfortunately, the John Glen can not take any more passengers and the Moon is not stable enough to perpetually be the home of humans. Building Harlequin's Moon is a story of fear, dreams, relationships, decisions and death. It ends well, but I did not want it to end at all.I look forward to a prequel or sequel.

    Book preview

    Building Harlequin's Moon - Larry Niven

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