The Menace from Farside (Luna) by Ian McDonald
Publication: 11/12/2019 (Tor.com) Novella
(This review was originally published in the October 2019 Issue of SFRevu

Cariad Corcoran is the daughter in a group marriage on the Moon, and she’s definitely the alpha female to a pack of boys, which is just the way she likes it. Her world order is upset when a shift in the marriage brings with it a new sister, one that is much better equipped to turn the boys’ heads than she is.

Cariad doesn’t mind not being able to compete on attractiveness, but she really likes being in charge, so she comes up with a scheme that puts the new sister in a role that will show everyone who’s boss. Which is how they wind up exposed on the lunar surface receiving fatal doses of radiation and with no one to save them except themselves.

Readers of classic science fiction will recognize the title as an echo of Robert Heinlein’s classic short story, “The Menace from Earth (1959)”, and wonder if McDonald is going to follow up with a similar tale. He does indeed, and though it’s very much its own story, set in McDonald’s rich Lunar storyscape, the setup and a number of touchpoints clearly show this as an exercise in updating the original. If you’ve never read Heinlein’s story, this is a fun read on its own. If you have, it’s fun to see how Ian has worked the old bits in.

Told in retrospect by Cariad, we know she survives, but the author leaves you on the hook until the end. That she’s retelling it all to an AI Therapist should worry you a bit, which is no doubt the author’s intent.

Note: The Menace from Earth, originally published in Galaxy Magazine (1059) is availble online at https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743498747/0743498747___2.htm

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Publisher’s Blurb: In The Menace from Farside, Ian McDonald returns to his elegantly wound solar system of the twenty-second century, full of political intrigue and complicated families.

Remember: Lady Luna knows a thousand ways to kill you, but family is what you know. Family is what works.

Cariad Corcoran has a new sister who is everything she is not: tall, beautiful, confident. They’re unlikely allies and even unlikelier sisters, but they’re determined to find the moon’s first footprint, even if the lunar frontier is doing its best to kill them before they get there.