Review: Moonstorm

Moonstorm by Yoon Ha Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first became aware of Yoon Ha Lee eight years ago, with the release of the first book in the Machineries of Empire trilogy, Ninefox Gambit. (And said trilogy is excellent and you should be reading it already.) This is his first young adult book, but this story has similar themes to Machineries. Mainly the conceit of an important part of the story's setting being maintained by the actions of the people in the universe: in the previous trilogy, the "high calendar" dictated the laws of physics in a given sector, and "calendrical rot" signaled the bending/warping of those laws. Here, gravity is generated by the faith of the people on a given planet, and the fervency with which they perform the specific rituals to create the gravity they need.

Hwajin, the young girl who is our narrator and protagonist, lives on Carnelian and is a Clanner. Carnelian is a moon in the Moonstorm, a section of space outside the boundaries of the New Joseon Empire, and wanders in an erratic orbit. The Imperials and the clanners have been fighting over the Moonstorm for hundreds of years:

According to her family, the Imperials worshipped their Empress and carried out strange, twisted rituals--too strange and twisted to be described in detail to a ten-year-old, which of course made them much more interesting. The Imperials' rituals summoned gravity, just like theirs did, but their gravity and the clanners' couldn't coexist, like oil refusing to mix with water. The Imperials had been fighting for generations to replace the clanners' rituals with their own, so they could take control of the entire Moonstorm.

In the very first chapter, Carnelian is destroyed, Hwajin's entire family is killed (or so she thinks) and she is rescued by a "lancer," one of the giant mecha robots that fight for the Empire against the clanners. The story picks up six years later, with Hwajin, now known as Hwa Young, attempting to be chosen as a lancer pilot. No one knows she is a clanner; outwardly she is a loyal subject of the Empire. Normally she would have two more years to wait before she could apply to be a pilot, but the war has not been going well for the Empire of late, and Hwa Young and her classmates are submitted to the lancers early. She ends up bonding with Winter's Axiom, a lancer with rare talents, and is drafted into the war against her former people.

This ethical conundrum--Hwa Young is working for the Empire, but cannot forget that she was once a clanner--is the heart of the story, along with themes of colonialism, the exploitation of child soldiers, and the terrible decisions that must be made in war. This universe is a bit simpler than the often mystifying Machineries of Empire, and the story is easier to follow. No doubt this is intentional, given the intended audience, but I appreciated it. (Although Machineries is more rewarding, once you finally figure out what's going on.) The point of gravity supported by human-performed rituals becomes incredibly important as the story progresses, as the Empress and her scientists have twisted it into a weapon: a particularly pious population of one planet is so fervent their worship is able to generate enough gravity to form a black hole, which the Empress is intending to use to eradicate the clanners. At the story's climax, Hwa Young and her lancer troupe destroy a colony ship full of people performing the ritual to generate the black hole, sacrificing a few thousand to save millions more.

The story ends with Hwa Young and her friends leaving the Empire behind, and taking their lancers and joining the rebel clanners. This being the first of a trilogy, obviously there is a lot more action to come. The book is well paced and the battle scenes in particular are excellent. I appreciated that there was no romance involving Hwa Young or any of the other characters (other than vague hints): not only wasn't there time for it, but it would have distracted from the story's progression. I don't think this is quite as good as Machineries of Empire, but it's well worth reading in its own right.

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