Crisis Moon
By: Michael McGruther
Narrated by: Jack Clancy
Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 06-01-20
Language: English
Publisher: Hosel & Ferrule Books
Book Blurb
Space shrapnel knocks a satellite repairman out of orbit. Power and communications go dark around the globe. Boot prints are discovered on the Moon where no human has ever set foot. There’s a crisis on the Moon, and the United States is about to uncover a nightmare scenario that could mean the end of the republic.
My Review
This story puts the fiction in science fiction. It’s a light read. I had fun with it. Some of the banter and slang makes it feel like it’s set in the 1980s instead of present day. And yet the premise of the story grabbed my attention and held it all the way through.
The US government is concerned that another country has put people on the moon – perhaps just for a visit or perhaps for longer. Now they need a discreet team to get their butts up there as soon as possible. So they bring in this somewhat eccentric guy, Jim, who has is own little company that has been focused on putting average people in space. They have their own little space shuttle. A small team of specialists is tossed together. Christine is a selenologist (moon specialist). Hector is a specialist in hand-to-hand fighting but doubles as the team’s emergency medic. There’s a few more as well but I don’t recall much of what they did. Perhaps they were just the Red Shirts.
Anyhoo, there’s roughly 3 months of training and prep. Admittedly, this middle part of the story was a little slow. Then they head off to the moon. The story had characters explaining simple, basic space flight things to other characters and I did scratch my head a bit. Like they just did 3 months of training. They covered this….. or they didn’t which means Jim’s company really isn’t great at mastering space flight for the average person.
When the team gets to the moon, things pick up again. Plenty of action scenes, some deaths, etc. The characters are a bit one-dimensional in these scenes, including the people they find up there. I would have liked more depth for all the characters but the illegal moon inhabitants were bad caricatures. They came off pretty flat.
The story had very few female characters. I really only recall Christine. The story would have benefited from more diversity over all. I also felt that Hector’s role was underutilized. He’s our best close quarters fighter and yet he doesn’t get to do what he’s good at. The story also had to turn Christine from a useful scientist into a romantic interest. Over all, 3/5 stars.
The Narration: Jack Clancy did an OK job. He had the good old boy voices down. His voice for Christine was good, it sounded feminine. I was not a fan of his Spanish accent for Hector. It sounded over done, a little like the cartoon Speedy Gonzalez. His Chinese accents were rough and could use some polishing. The pacing was good. There were 1 or 2 sentences that were repeated in this recording but otherwise, no tech issues. 3.5/5 stars.
I received a free copy of this book from Audiobooks Unleashed. My opinions are 100% my own.