Steph Bennion

I was disappointed in this book. The protagonist, Ravana, is presented as a girl who is in training to be an engineer. Yet, after a fairly strong start in the introductory scene in which she saves the day, she rarely acts like one: for the most part, the alien implant inside her head functions as if it is magic , allowing her control machinery by just thinking about what she wants it to do. I was looking for a strong protagonist: but she is routinely rescued by the younger boy who actually acts like an engineer, always pulling a new invention out of his pocket or inventing something new. At several key points in the story, Ravana falls apart in an emotional heap and relies on this boy or her father to decide what to do and do it.

Although the adult women characters are more active, they're also rather caricatured; although they are competent in some ways, they are thoroughly incompetent in others.. hm, with the possible exception of Ganesa, one of the mercenaries. (I was also a bit uneasy about the characters named after Hindu deities: it is not my impression that this is a common Hindu practice, which made me wonder about cultural appropriation here.)

It's possible that some of what I'm reading as annoying caricature was meant simply to be amusing caricature; this book definitely intends to be amusing in a number of ways, and it frequently succeeds - I particularly enjoyed some of the pop culture references. But I was sufficiently disappointed by Ravana that I was not disposed to appreciate this humor in the women around her.

This is a first novel, though, so I may check out more by this author in future. I did enjoy the "hollow moon" itself, the gadgets and technology. It's a creative setting that has promise.… (més)

Spunky kids, political intrigue, a kidnapping, spaceships, surprises, a twisted villain, clever AI, mysterious aliens... What more could you want? In this case, not much. The setting is the future a couple centuries from now. Humanity has discovered a means to get from one place to another faster than light, and people from Earth have colonized space. They’ve accomplished much, but they are far from enlightened. They still have greed, fanaticism, war, corruption, and reality shows.

Hollow Moon is an imaginative and well-told tale centering on Ravana, the daughter of a space freighter captain living in a hollow moon orbiting a distant star. When she witnesses the kidnapping of the young Raja, the heir apparent of her small, inside out world, she becomes involved in far more than she expected. What she does not know is that she was already involved.

Hollow Moon is a refreshing alternative to the bulk of Young Adult speculative fiction I’ve seen in the last several years. The story is engaging. It has well-defined and well-developed characters, a fairly intricate but easily comprehensible plot, a few smiles, and, most appreciated of all, it’s NOT fantasy! It’s science fiction, and most of the science is reasonable. Okay, there was one scene with an unbelievably strong rope and a serendipitously placed wagon, and a girl who can resist a force that several tons of stone elephant cannot but, well, that’s just details. Actually, I doubt many readers would even question something like this. And then there was the school band that played Alpha Centauri by Tangerine Dream. Um, well, yeah, that’s not a violation of the laws of physics, and it’s cool, but I can’t see a school band attempting it. It’s 22 minutes long and sounds like some kind of ethereal improvised jazz bit done on flute and synthesizer. I know; details, and this one, despite being unlikely, made me smile, so it gets a pass on credibility for the sake of subtle humor. Actually, there are several gems such as this—allusions to contemporary culture scattered about and in chapter titles.

The story is written from an omniscient point of view with numerous characters sharing the spotlight. I did not find this at all confusing because the characters are sufficiently distinct. It is clear who the camera is on at any point. There were a few places where the adults seemed slightly too juvenile, but this is a YA novel and this seems to be common for those. This book does a better job with this, in fact, than I have seen in other YA stories, and in Hollow Moon, sometimes the adults actually act and sound like adults. The pace is fast enough to keep the plot moving, but it’s not frantic.

On the more technical side, the editing is more than adequate, although comma usage may not be exactly according the Chicago Manual of Style for fiction writing. I’ve noticed this is also true of science fiction and fantasy novels from bigger publishers, which may follow their own style guides for punctuation.

I normally comment on formatting in my reviews only when it is dreadful. In this case, I’m commenting on it because it was exceptional. It is obvious that a great deal of attention was paid to formatting Hollow Moon as an eBook. I see so many digital editions, especially from older, traditional publishers where the formatting is dreadful with double spacing, no paragraph indents, or no breaks between chapters. I don’t know if this is because they regard digital books as an afterthought or if they simply aren’t good at it, but Hollow Moon had none of these flaws. It even included embedded links for previous and subsequent chapters at the start of each new chapter (unnecessary but thoughtful).

Hollow Moon has charm, intelligence, and wit, and it is one of the most enjoyable YA stories I’ve read in a while. I highly recommend it for readers of YA science fiction.
… (més)

Ravana O'Brien resumes her role as an intrepid teenage heroine in this sequel to Hollow Moon, which ends with… well, to avoid spoilers, let’s just say you should not count your dead villains until you see their desiccated corpses. In this story, the residents of her home inside a recently crippled hollowed-out asteroid have become refuges on Ascension, a nearby planet orbiting Barnard’s Star. They are not entirely welcome. In fact, they are not at all welcome. Ravana, now a student at Newbrum University, is not there, though. Her father believes she is on an archeological dig on the distant and inhospitable planet of Falsafah in the Tau Ceti system, but when the story opens, she finds herself in a hospital with very unlikely nurses, and she has no idea how or why she is there. Thus begins a well-told tale of mysteries, escapes, cyberclones, aliens, spies, spaceships, and giant spiders. It is a hard-to-put-down book.

I found the prose, editing, and formatting for the digital edition above average. Pacing is also good. Although some of the science is highly speculative, it is not outlandish within the context of the story. A little suspension of disbelief is required, but this is YA science fiction, so you expect that. The story is written with an omniscient point of view from the perspective of several characters, although primarily from that of Ravana. I had no trouble following it, and it was clear who was on center stage at all times. I found the characters quite believable, and I would put Ravana ahead of most teenage heroines I’ve seen in recent fiction. She is brave, intelligent, resourceful, and kind to short grey aliens and rude little boys.

YA science fiction has become something of a rarity these days, and it was delightful for me to find some that was so well done. I highly recommend Paw-Prints of the Gods for YA science fiction readers, but I suggest reading Hollow Moon first.

Full Disclosure: I received a promotional digital copy of this book through Awesome Indies.
… (més)

Ravena O'Brien lives on a worldship called the Dandridge Cole which was carved out of the center of a small moon-sized asteroid and then transported over many generations to it's new home orbiting a planet in an adjacent solar system. One hundred years past the original exodus, a small contingent of eccentric free-thinkers still calls the hollow moon its home and lives peacefully, away from the influence and intrigues of the now-corporatized other settled planets.

Ravena is a resourceful, but otherwise ordinary girl who studies engineering, sometimes helps her father pilot his independently-owned spaceship, and has a free-thinking electronic cat named 'Jones' who gets into mischief, and gets her into mischief along with it.

Then Ravena witnesses one of the residents of the hollow moon get kidnapped, the young heir to one of the corporatized planets whose mother fled with him to the hollow moon to evade those who would use the young Raj. Ravena and her father go in search of the missing Raj, and in the process meet some new friends, fellow 15-year-olds on their way to a music competition, some bad guys, and some unlikely allies, along with ... aliens?

This is a nice space-hopping adventure which blends a love of science fiction with a good old-fashioned coming of age adventure story. Ravena is naturally resourceful and uses her head, but it's not overly-done or unrealistic (for the most part ... we ARE talking science fiction here!). The science seemed, to me, to be relatively sound, with occasional hints of real-life scientific principals, just enough to pepper the story, not so much as to make the pacing slow down.

One nice detail is Ravena's mother was of India descent, while some of the colonized worlds carry either a heavy Chinese or Indian colonization influence, so this wasn't your usual 'white girl in space' story, but neither was the influence overdone (think Firefly and Serenity ... it's a nice, subtle addition to the worldbuilding).

I read this, and now it's off to my 13-year-old to read as well. A fun, planet-hopping read to whet a Young Adult's appetite for something besides sparkly vampires!… (més)