The Moon and the Other: a sci-fi novel about how we undermine our best intentions
Science fiction is a genre that’s uniquely suited for making the internal into the external. Authors can take an intangible issue, whether it’s a relationship problem, a philosophical belief, or a scientific quandary, and make it material. John Kessel’s new novel The Moon and the Other does just that, playing out a complex, but relevant story about politics, gender identity, and social conflict through a series of characters living on Earth’s inhabited Moon. A wonderful, complicated, and beautiful novel, it asks what responsibilities people have to the societies they inhabit.
Set in 2149, The Moon and the Other takes a look at a lunar society full of social experiments. Some 3.2 million people inhabit a network of 27 distinct colonies,…
