Mutineers' Moon

I started reading this during the recent onset of rainy weather here in Virginia, starting with the hurricane last month. There's is something in my brain, a trigger, that associates cool, rainy weather with the trifecta of Saturday evenings, comic books, and pulpy science fiction/fantasy. It doesn't get much pulpier than Weber's Mutineer's Moon, book 1 of the Dahak trilogy. (I'm actually reading the omnibus edition, but thought it would be more fair to list the books individually as I finished them.)

Its a little startling to realize that this book is just shy of twenty years old - the politics and climate of international affairs in the book, while a bit simplistic in some ways, still manage to resonate as being right on cue for modern show more day to near future Earth. You know, except for the fact that the moon is really a giant, orbiting alien space craft set to look like a moon when the proto-human population on the ship faced a mutiny. Except for that, of course.

I called it pulpy, and I'll stand by that - don't pick this book (or series) up if you are looking for deep discussions on human nature, highly correct science and scientific conjecture, or really deep, introspective science fiction. This is big explosions and quick action scenes that don't necessarily always make sense in retrospect, but that work nicely in the context of the fast paced story that Weber has written.

If you've read the kind of books I review high, especially in the science fiction category, and agree with me, then this is probably a good fit. Its eye candy for the brain, in all the brain rotting sweetness our mother's used to warn us about. And keep an eye on the moon, because there might be something up there keeping an eye on us, too. show less

David Weber usually prefers telepathic tree cats to intelligent spacecraft, but Dahak is a machine with its own agenda. The book begins when Dahak, a really huge battleship hidden under the Moon’s surface, snags an astronaut on a training mission in lunar orbit. The plot that follows provides the whole military science fiction package—ancient astronauts, enemies among us, and action where the phasers are not on stun. It’s fun stuff, but don’t think too hard.

I will be terribly disappointed if we never find ancient alien tech on the Moon.

This book is great for ideas, less so for characters and battle (but ok for that, too). Totally predictable romance, but it worked ok and didn't ruin anything. I found some of the less major characters (the reformed mutineers and their allies) to be interesting as heroes. The main character as a hero is pretty stereotypical, but at least he did not get in the way of the story.

I've come back to this book several times, mostly because I think the ideas he had were fascinating enough to revisit, and also I liked some of the secondary heroes.

The sequels were ok, nothing too special. By that point, the ideas in this plot are used up and the new ideas were ok but not quite as good as the premise of this novel.

This was a fun read, with a fascinating premise. The moon's an ancient space ship? Cool!

I've been a big fan of Weber's military space novels for a while now, and this one doesn't disappoint. It's from the early stages of Weber's career, and every once in a while you can see ideas and scenes that get developed more fully and smoothly in his later novels.

The book was very hard to put down at the end, which is probably a good sign.

An exciting telling of the origin of human life on Earth mixed in with the story of a vast imperial society that replaced Earth's moon with a starship. It is the story of a mutiny by the crew off that starship and the eventual entry of the starship by an astronaut.
It is the story of the attempt to put down a millennia old mutiny mixed with a love story.

I think the best way to describe this series is what you'd get if E. E. "Doc" Smith was writing in the 1990s.

standard shoot-'em-up; still fun