Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780765312662
ISBN number: 0765312662
Label: Tor Books
Manufacturer: Tor Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 400
Printing Date: June 01, 2005
Publishing house: Tor Books
Release Date: May 19, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 727055
Studio: Tor Books
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The very first interstellar starship, John Glenn, fled a Solar System populated by rogue AIs and machine/human hybrids, threatened by too much nanotechnology, and rife with political dangers. The John Glenn's crew intended to terraform the nearly pristine planet Ymir, in hopes of creating a utopian society that would limit intelligent technology. But by some miscalculation they have landed in another solar system and must shape the gas giant planet Harlequin's moon, Selene, into a new, temporary home. Their only hope of ever reaching Ymir is to rebuild their store of antimatter by terraforming the moon. Gabriel, the head terraformer, must lead this nearly impossible task, with all the wrong materials: the wrong ships and tools, and too few resources. His primary tools are the uneducated and nearly-illiterate children of the original colonists, born and bred to build Harlequin's moon into an antimatter factory. Rachel Vanowen is one of these children. Basically a slave girl, she must do whatever the terraforming Council tells her. She knows that Council monitors her actions from a circling vessel above Selene's atmosphere, and is responsible for everything Rachel and her people know, as well as all the skills, food, and knowledge they have ever received. With no concept of the future and a life defined with duty, how will the children of Selene ever survive once the Council is through terraforming and have abandoned Selene for its ultimate goal of Ymir?
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Rated by buyers -
Plowing (pun intended) through the gardening in the very first third of the book was tedious. I can identify cacti, don't be giving me gruesome details on trees and flowers and fertilizer.
I'm a major Niven fan, but this was just dull, dull, dull at first.
Then, we have characters introduced in the last half of the book that just kind of pop in and out. No real character development or background (Shane and Star just come and go?), but at least the gardening gets left behind, pretty mu(l)ch.
Some short sections of the book were really good, but I'm not sure they outweighted the gardening part.
Not enough Niven and I think Brenda needs some more practice.
Rated by buyers -
Building Harlequin's Moon is a novel built around the premise that in the future technology gets out of control and a segment of the population decides to get out and colonize another planet where they will live more naturally. The catch of course is that they have to use technology to get to that new planet. In the process of traveling to the new world their starship breaks down in a system devoid of habitable worlds and they come up with the grand idea of building a world where they can develop a population that will build the equipment necessary to refuel their starship and get them to their original destination. Unfortunately in the process of creating this world of people they focus on the goal more than the process and end up creating an underclass that resents them and their motives.
The attraction to Building Harlequin's Moon is based on the name Larry Niven, but this is a collaboration and while Niven's voice finds its way into the novel Brenda Cooper's is quite evident as well. The problem with having Niven's name on the book is that there are some high expectations that come with that. Having read a lot of different Niven solo novels as well as collaborative efforts of his with Pournelle and Barnes it's easy to see the differences between his solo work and his collaborative work. Often his collaborators fill out various character details that Niven leaves by the wayside as he explores the ideas that drive the plot. In this book the central character is a young girl, which one would assume is written by Cooper primarily.
While Building Harlequin's Moon entertained me it certainly didn't awe me with big ideas like in some of Niven's Known Space novels or keep me on the edge of my seat as in some of his collaborations with Pournelle. It's not really a hard sci-fi novel, which for the average reader is a good thing as often hard sci-fi has less character depth.
Overall, the book was a bit predictable in plotting and the ending felt abrupt, but in general the pacing was good and I found myself interested in the main characters of Rachael and Gabriel. I could see recommending this to my wife who isn't usually a sci-fi buff. It's not an overly complicated story or weighed down by science geek stuff, but the science that is in there is interesting and serves the story well.
Rated by buyers -
Building Harlequin's Moon is a decent very first novelistic outing for Brenda Cooper. She, along with Larry Niven, describes the creation of a new world which is to serve only one purpose: produce anti-matter fuel so that a wayward ship of humans can refuel and journey on to their original destination - Ymir - another terraformed planet where humans will live without an overwhelming presence of artificial intelligence driven technologies.
The book is a quick read and enjoyable. I can't fault Cooper for the general story or even for the development of most of the characters. What was somewhat disconcerting was that a number of story lines seemed unfulfilled by the end of the novel. There was a generally satisfying resolution to the main problems outlined in the book, but several things strongly hinted at in the text just go nowhere. I expected, for instance, much more to happen between the AI called Astronaut and the human characters, but really there was little evolution there. You would think that there would have been more firewoks with Astronaut because these humans were running away from an Earth overwhelmed by AI machines. Nope.
I have not read the works of Brenda Cooper, but am inclined to look into them because this was an imaginative work in which Cooper clearly tried to be fair to all of her characters - even those who were clearly in the wrong. Interesting.
Rated by buyers 
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Let me start by saying I think Larry Niven is one of the greatest science fiction writers out there.
He is my Pantheon subsequent to Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Zelazny and co.
If you are looking for a Known Space book, this is not it.
If you are looking for a hard science fiction book, this is not it.
The story is not convincing, not the plot nor the characters.
There is no riddle, no twist, no exploring like I'm so used to find in Larry Niven books.
I want a refund.
BTW, before reading this book I've read "The Draco Tavern". I've read in the past most of the stories in the book (it's a collection), but it was a joy reading it. And now I've started reading "Fleet of Worlds". I'm only on page 24 and from here I'm going right back to reading it.
Rated by buyers 
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I didn't recognize much of Niven's writing style in this novel. That said, I found the writing to be dull, uninspiring and just plain bad. The characters are poorly developed and the science secondary to poorly played out human drama.
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