I struggled with giving this four stars but am going to do it. This entry, in my view, is a better book than New Moon, especially as I started thinking about it in a larger social context. The Moon is what Texas and California, and now Nevada, are to America--chances to leave and start fresh. Except that the Moon is a full on corporate/family oligarchy (I am remembering last year, when it seemed like over half of the major award entries were for stories of family oligarchy). To me, the book is an unintentional indictment of the moon's premise (which is more clearly articulated here, near the end of the book by Luis Corta, than anywhere else)--that no one owes you anything and you live on what you earn, or not at all.
The book starts where it left off, with more profligate destruction. The incredible McKenzie smelter, the Crucible, is destroyed by sabotage. What follows is a fascinating tale of family intrigue and survival, with lots of interesting details--and a lot of bloody combat, with more large-scale sabotage and promises of even more to come. There are no grownups present--all egos are completely outsized and the result is destruction on the Game of Thrones scale.
There are a lot of really good elements to the book, enough to make me want to complete the series. The newness of the Moon means new social structures and sexual possibilities, enhanced by technology. Then again the rich are often kinky, they can afford to be. Wagner Corta is explained--he and others like him have found a unique way to manage their manic-depressive condition and turn it into an advantage. It's a very good story that mostly ends up highlighting personal failings, and the incredibly bad consequences of them, with some heroism thrown in.
