(First off, I'd like to again thank Warren Hammond, co-author of this Denver Moon:The Minds of Mars for his guest post. You rock Warren! Also, there is a review of the Denver Moon trade paperback coming, but I'm waiting until I get the third comic as I plan to review the whole thing at once. Also, the ARC of the novel that I received came with a copy of the short story that got turned into the TPB, I'm holding off on reviewing that until I can review the TPB itself.I did enjoy it. It's just not time to review it yet.)
I grew up on far-future science fiction. Humanity had colonized the stars. Whether it was (ironically) long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away or the final frontier, humanity had spread far beyond the limits of the Solar System and into the far reaches of space. What humanity found among the stars varied widely of course. Usually it was aliens but not always. Always though, we were outside of our Solar System and among the stars. It wasn't until I got older that I experienced SF and the struggle to make things much closer to home work. What I've found though, is that I've thoroughly enjoyed the battles that I first became aware of as a result of reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. It's not all that surprising that I thought of that either, given the fact that I'm reviewing Warren Hammond and Joshua Viola's Denver Moon: The Minds of Mars. This book has all of the fun of near future SF and some unique twists as well. I had fun with this one.
Denver Moon is our title character and she is a bit unusual. For one, she's a colorblind private eye. This makes things a bit unusual. I was skeptical that this would work when I first realized it, but as I was reading it didn't harm the story at all. As a matter of fact, Denver actually needed to be a monochrome because of some later parts of the story.
As befits a story about a detective, DM:TMOM is a mystery. The great thing about this being a mystery is that it's an EPIC mystery. I recently reviewed Ready Player One and this Denver Moon is out to solve a mystery that is every bit as big and as important as the mystery in RPO but even more important... even if our heroine doesn't realize that at first.
Probably the best part about this book is all of the twists and turns that it takes. Every time you think the mystery is solved it gets deeper. I've read mysteries since my days as a fan of the Hardy Boys and you don't see this in a lot of places. Lots of mysteries are murder mysteries (ala just about every police procedural on TV) and once you know whodunit the story is over. Not so much here. It actually reaches the point where the solution to the initial mystery just introduces the next one, which morphs into another one you didn't even know existed. This thing doesn't stop and it doesn't rest.
Things are not always as they appear here either. The people you think are your friends may not be. The people you believe are the villains might just be heroes. You'll know who is who by the end of the book (at least I think I do now) but it's not until the last few pages that everything sorts itself out... probably. I think. Unless I'm wrong. Which I may be, but there's a sequel coming and once I read that... Well, who knows. This thing has a bunch of twists and it's intended as a series so there could be a bunch more coming. I'm not making any guarantees here, except to buy the next one. Oh, and I also promise to stay
Speaking as a man who fired his first BB gun at the age of five and his first rifle at the age of eight, I have to give props to Hammond and Viola for placing Moon's person AI in his pistol. Smith, as the AI is known is a mix between a high powered computer, a best friend and a tactical advising/targeting system. Oh, and toss in a smartgun feature ala the first (and possible later) edition(s) of Shadowrun. Smith is freaking awesome. I want like six of these things. It doesn't get any better than this. Putting an AI in a private eye's gun makes every bit as much sense as giving Tony Stark access to Jarvis in his Iron Man suit. Both AIs are integral parts of the characters they partner with as well as being characters in their own right.
One of the key aspects of the mysteries that Moon tries to solve is "The Feve". The feve is a disease that effects the brain and causes extreme violence. No one is sure what causes it. Everyone knows that only monochromatic individuals are immune to it, but no one is sure why. It could be because so much of Mars is red or it may not be. All that they know for sure about the feve is that it comes randomly and without warning. People are scared and they should be.
Hammond and Viola manage to avoid two of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to mysteries: They don't bring in a solution out of nowhere that makes no sense. They didn't telegraph the eventual ending of the book in the first then pages. Those two facts combine to make this mystery worth reading. I want a mystery that keeps me wondering and DM:TMOM definitely does. I could read this all day long. Actually, I did read most of it during a slow shift at work. Thank God for cellphones and their lit up faces. I drive a cab on the midnight shift and this book gave me something to focus on and stay awake. It kept me interested when I got fatigued. That's about the biggest compliment I know how to give to a book.
Now, I don't do spoilers, so I'll just leave this here and let the reader figure out if they can figure out why I wrote it. Ready? I have a very strong and visceral dislike for cliffhanger endings, especially in books when you don't know when the sequel is coming. I get the fact that they're somewhat entertaining as well as a good business move. I just don't like them. That much being said, this is still a really good book. I can't wait to read the next one.
Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Martian Rocks
Denver Moon: The Minds of Mars
Warren Hammond and Joshua Viola
Hex Publishers, 2018
Denver Moon: The Minds of Mars is available for purchase at the link below:
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