It’s the year 2033. Wildfires has intensified and the “heat block” moves through North America, cooking people live. The escape option chosen by the super-rich is an apartment on Parallaxis I, a luxury ring-shaped space station developed by a technology corporation called Sensus. But it is not yet open for business. Instead, a group of Pioneers – mostly scientists, with a few astronauts included, plus some family members – went to the station to conduct cutting-edge research. and prepare the station for the upcoming pampered guests.
Alex Welch-Peters, one of these scientists, is trying to synthesize ocean-cleaning super algae in his space station lab. His family, including estranged wife Meg, teenage daughter Mary Agnes and young son Shane, stayed in Michigan. Ashamed of his lousy husband and father because of his restless work schedule, Alex promises himself that his research will be so fruitful that he will win back his family by slowing down. climate change. Not presure! On Earth, a young social algorithm researcher named Tess is focused on her own business, ignoring her family and gobbling up junk food while staring at her computer screen. She dropped out of academia for a gig at Sensus, where she headed a project called Views. Unbeknownst to the Pioneers, Tess was tracking their every move, studying them as part of Sensus’s efforts to predict human behavior. In addition to surveying pioneers, Sensus founder Katherine Son also hired Tess to track down her sister and co-founder. The attractive younger sister Rachel Son is the face of the company, but it is Katherine, the shady eldest sister, who pulls the strings of all relationships. As the Earth’s climate crisis intensifies and billionaires call for the opening of Parallaxis I, Katherine sends Rachel to the space station with one goal — getting ready, or the other way around.
Name a prominent social issue and it could be by Rebecca Scherm House between Earth and Moon touch it. This is a Big Ideas book. In addition to climate change, space tourism, and Big Tech, plot points also revolve around deep-rooted scams, cyberbullying, screen addiction, abortion rights, and surveillance. Switching perspectives between Alex, Tess, Mary Agnes and Rachel, and from Earth into space, a less-than-quiet author might have ended up with a story that was too thin, told too shallowly. But each character is fully realized, as is the vast world they struggle to live in. Scherm’s prose isn’t particularly fancy – there’s a description of Mary Agnes curled up “like a shrimp” that really makes me wince – but it’s sturdy enough nonetheless to take the story halfway up the moon and fast paced. House between Earth and Moon, out this week, synthesizes genres to create something new. Part family drama, part coming of age story, part social fiction, part cli-fi, it is original and influential not in spite of its many big ideas but because of the way Scherm cleverly combined them together. It can be subtitled Everything happens a lot.
Mary Agnes, the character from the youngest point of view, is the bruised heart of the novel. A lonely bookworm, she is elated when her father’s space travel brings some of her school’s famous crew to the attention of her. Even in the future, though, crowds suck, and Mary Agnes’ love of charm turns out to have a brutal streak honed by technology. Empathetic, screen-addicted teenagers are reminiscent of MT Anderson’s horror team. Feeding, and Mary Agnes’ story reads like a particularly observant teen novel braided throughout the book. (Alas, her younger brother, Shane, doesn’t enjoy a similarly compelling storyline. His only personality trait seems to be “allergic to everything.”)
Mary Agnes worried that her chubby dad would be changed by the plush Parallax she saw in the promotional videos, but her fears were misplaced. Parallax I is depicted as pristine in advertising but hardly works in practice. Pioneers had to act as amateur space station builders as they scrambled for place and operations. Alex thinks of it as a “refrigerated warehouse, with no amenities.” It’s like a zero-gravity version of “luxury” skyscrapers. trouble with problems Like 432 Park, its exclusivity and high price tag obscured how fun it was.
Despite its puzzling problems, some of Alex’s teammates are planning to bring their families up, such as Lenore, the team’s 3D fabricator, who plans to bring her grandparents. . She shapes it as if they were simply space enthusiasts, but with a financial angle. On Earth, they were broken. In fact, some Pioneers are motivated by prudence. Meanwhile, even as Sensus’s guinea pigs sleep in makeshift dormitories as they try to make the space station work, the Sons still put Parallaxis I up for sale to investors for the sake of privacy. can really be guaranteed.
And the real concern of House between Earth and Moon is the value of privacy. In this imaginary future, the Supreme Court ruled that privacy is a commodity, not a right. It has become a luxury that only the elite can achieve, by “privatizing” to varying degrees, with the Z level being the most coveted. Katherine, who has achieved a degree of privatization beyond the alphabet, describes power as the ability to ignore visuals altogether — the status symbol is ultimately not perceived. Tess, a true follower of Katherine, does not regard privacy as something to be cherished. Instead, as she observes the Pioneers, she reminds herself of how removing privacy can do for an algorithm that can predict someone’s choices. For Tess, “all ‘privacy’ means the extent to which a person allows their choices, preferences, and emotions to be known and people trade their privacy for every day. privileges, goods and services.” As the avatar of Sensus’ future plans, she attracts almost everyone who meets her; Internalizing the company’s ideas about commodifying humanity fired her own Tess.
House between Earth and Moon mainly takes place in space, but it succeeds because of how Scherm richly portrays the inner lives of her characters. This is the kind of book that practically demands a sequel, one that has some tantalizingly loose endings. This is a house with more rooms to explore.
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