sci-fi – The Constellation of Moon

Moon Reads: The Principle of Moments

Posted on March 21, 2025

The Principle of Moments by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson

Rating:

Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.

Disclaimer: Receiving a review copy from the publisher does not affect my opinion of the book. If you think I review it highly it is due to me knowing my taste well and therefore not requesting books I won’t enjoy. And I am not obligated to review the book if I do not like it, so you may not see bad reviews due to me preferring not to hype down a particular book. I only do reviews of books I disagreed with if I think it is worth bringing a topic or warning to light.

I actually can’t remember how I came to have a proof copy for this book, since I know it was not one I requested, so it either came freely from publisher or through BlackCrow (who are awesome with proofs).

As you may have seen from the previous post, I also have a hardcover copy of it but I read it on the proof copy.

Now, this si one of my lowest-rated book reviews in a while, and the main reason for it is that this book needed more editing and more work. It is a book written during school by the author and then reworked, and it shows as you read through it. The characters are wishy-washy and feel shoehorned into making the prophecy work (the prophecy parts were probably the most interesting). They just seem to be carried forever by the plot to make the plot happen while trying to figure themselves out, and not in a good way.

The format of it, with the prophecy, the time travel, and the trying to make reason of the side plots, was interesting and had a lot of potential, but for me, it falls flat. I did not care for most of the characters except George, who felt like he had just been dragged into this nonsense and had no choice (see? Everything is very much an “I have no choice but to do this” all over the book), so our two main characters in themselves are flat and boring, plot puppets overall to fulfil a prophecy and you could swap them for other characters and still get the same story.

The premise is that there is this prophecy about 3 parts of a story, and you are having that slowly told (the people talking of the prophecy talk about the person who made it, and make notes on it and therefore this was the most interesting part and you could read just the bits of the prophecy and get a decent story, skipping more than half the book, way more enjoyable) but you also get several points of view by a variety of characters on how they are going to save the world, or maybe just themselves because they are selfish and want to live and yet they are cowards and nothing like what they are supposed to be.

The overall summary is that this had potential, had an interesting idea, and formatting and the “prophecy” part was pretty decent, but the execution fell flat and steamrolled through the characters just to fit the prophecy and “plot”, and it could have been done better. They deserved better.

Subscription Boxes

Moon Hauls: In The Stars Illumicrate

Posted on March 14, 2025

Subscription box: Illumicrate

Theme/Month: In the Stars, December 2023

Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing an Illumicrate subscription, you can do it on their website.

Illumicrate is a book subscription box, it usually features fantasy and sci-fi but not exclusively young adult, sometimes it features adult too. It usually contains a new release, a pin and several bookish goodies.

A box to end the year with a lot of items for the new year. Starting at the top left corner and going clockwise:

Theme leaflet
A money jar (or ideas) inspired by a quote from Addie LaRue.
A calendar with art for each month based on books, usually pretty nice.
Weekly planner with a habit tracker and space for each day. It is currently on my fridge and used somewhat for meal planning and notes.
The featured book which is The Pricniple of Moments by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, and surprisingly I’ve actually read the book (review coming soon!).
Finally, underneath all of it, a tea towel for space, quite nice design but the fabric is not particularly good at drying which is one of my biggest issues with it. It’s cool but useless.

Nice box to end the year, and I have used most of it except the towel which I tried to use, found it unusable and gave it away. I have this problem a lot with Illumicrate towels and tea-towels, they never dry enough and are pretty much useless for their intended purpose despite being very pretty which frustrates me because I would like to use them and have awesome towels. But the rest was cool!

Book Review

Moon Reads: Red River Seven

Posted on October 4, 2024

Red River Seven by A. J. Ryan

Rating:

So, you like Resident Evil? It doesn’t matter if it is the games, or the films or both. This book fits right in with that type of story about a mystery, about experiments, and the feeling of the story makes you think that you may be in a similar world to it.

However, outside of the similar feeling of the story, everything else is different. When they wake up in a ship with no memories and a mission that is slowly revealed to them in parts as they achieve each new part, our characters have to try to figure out who they are, what is actually happening and why were they selected to join this unnerving mission.

The mist is out to get them, and they will have to fight it.

Our story focuses mostly on a man, who thinks he may be a type of detective. At least, it seems the people who make this odd group have their skillset intact, but their identity is a mystery. And they have to work together to achieve getting through what is coming for them, but also, puzzle out who is giving them their instructions, why they won’t tell them anything more but the bare minimum and sometimes in very cryptic ways. And why the mist is heavy and seems to carry screams and maybe hide something more beyond it.

It was interesting to try to puzzle together the mystery as we learn more about each character and what they slowly piece together of their past and identity, but the cost of finding out about themselves is high. There is always a feeling of urgency, like maybe if you stand still and try to keep digging at the many mysteries (the mist, why they specifically where chosen, why are their memories erased, what are the sounds and screams they hear, and the dreams?) the many secrets kept will come charging at you and destroy you or cause something worse to happen.

It was an intense read I did not want to stop reading and I ended up staying awake late to finish it because I needed to know all the whys and whats, and I also, I wanted them to get to their destination, to complete their mission, and to figure things out.

The ending is good even if maybe I wish for more, more story, but still, very worthwhile and it felt to me like a relatively quick read. I can see a videogame set for it, or a film and both would be pretty good.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Service Model

Posted on June 7, 2024

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Rating:

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Service Model. If you know nothing of me, I work in tech as an engineer, so this was right up my street.

I am sure by now you know a little about the plot. But if not, stay with me, we follow Charles as he accidentally (?) kills his master due to a fault, in a world that has made the most of robots and has them everywhere possible, even where you didn’t think it might be possible. What comes next is his journey as he tries to understand why he made that mistake and as he encounters different personalities and robots who start to show him a side of him that he didn’t expect to find.

Even before you start to read the story, the dedication and thanks had me ready for it. Including the fact it talks about the book “You look like a thing and I love you” by Janelle Shane which if you want to understand robotics and AI better, is a worthy read with an amusing way to learn.

But as soon as I saw that, I knew this was a book that would be a delight and obviously a mastery in worldbuilding and in philosophically trying to understand what makes us human (which is to me part of the core of what Adrian does through his writing by exploring everything that is NOT human). And the book did not disappoint.

I could tell you all about Charles adventures, but the thing that stuck to me from the beginning is that this is about about identity, about routine and classifying things into flows and boxes, and also about grief. It is an incredibly human book in topic even if it doesn’t seem to be as you read the story and encounter mostly non human characters. And yet… Charles is trying to understand why he is feeling the way he is feeling about his master, and about the world overall. But there is also the fact that there are things he is struggling to compute, and what do you do when you can’t easily “compute” something? When things don’t fit in a box or a neat process or flow? And how Charles approaches these challenges is utterly fascinating, including the fact that he talks about efficiency and resources, and again, shines a light on how we feel and make decisions as humans, but also about what we expect from robots and the limitations machine learning and AI have and how the unexpected can wreak havoc and chaos.

It is, as usual a masterpiece in thought, but it is also incredibly amusing and it made me laugh a few times. References to things we do or culture are there, and it pokes fun at things we may consider normal but that aren’t for a robot. And funnily enough it made me think of the books “A Psalm for the Wild Built” and it’s companion, because it hits on those questions of humanity and non humanity.

A must read for anyone who grapples with the idea of AI going too fast or taking over jobs, and also if you want a different sci-fi than the utopia of living in space and robots being perfect.

Announcements, Books

Moon Shouts: The Red Scholar’s Wake Cover Reveal

Posted on August 31, 2022

The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard

Coming out from Gollancz on November 24th, hardcover and ebook
Cover artist: Alyssa Winans

‘So romantic I may simply perish’ Tasha Suri, award-winning author of THE JASMINE THRONE
‘LESBIAN SPACE PIRATES. Enough said.’ Katee Robert, NYT bestselling author of NEON GODS

Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates’ enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.

Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si’s help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si’s technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it.

But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together…

An exciting space opera and a beautiful romance, from an exceptional SF author.

Book Review

Moon Reads: August Kitko and the Mechas from Space

Posted on July 15, 2022

August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White

Rating:

Read before: No

Ownership: Review copy provided by the publisher

If you like mechas, epic battles, music and music theory, chaos and the end of the world, then this is the book for you! The best way I can summarise it is if you took Evangelion, tossed it with music and music theory, a pinch of today’s world and then fast-forwarded it a 1000 years, you might get this book.

August is having a mini pity party at the end of the world because mechas are coming to destroy humanity and he messed up his big plans for the end of the world. So when he starts hearing the mechas battle it out and it sounds like music to him so he plays a Magnus opus kinda piece, he is playing for himself not to save the world, and yet that is kinda what he does!

OK that is super summarised, but this is a story about how being the hero doesn’t always involve glamour, and there’s a LOT going on with the mechas, the world, August and his plans and music. For me, the music twist was one of my absolute favourite things to add to the idea of mechas and end-of-the-world epic battles, it made me look forward more to the battles than in other books of this style. I do admit I like music and it was just fascinating to have August’s process described and how he would communicate with the mechas and be a “pilot”. Very different to Evangelion but still cool and with in a way similar vibes.

Oh and there is a romance going on, a slight heist, a lot of government officials being themselves, and a lot more about music and people. Honestly, it was a fun chaotic read.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Stoker (Blog Tour)

Posted on July 12, 2022

Stoker by Jenny Brigalow

As part of the blog tour, I will present you with an excerpt from the book, as sometimes it is interesting to read a little bit to get the right feel for it!

In the candle’s flickering light, Oddie could see stone walls and a patch of dark floor.
Beyond that he could see an old door, its green-painted surface mottled with rust
and mildew.
The siren blasted. Oddie put his hands to his ears to block it out. He sat up and
smacked his head. He cursed emphatically. Then fell silent as a warm trickle of
blood rolled between his eyes. He reached up and encountered a cold, hard metal
beam. That wasn’t right. What the hell was going on?
On the verge of panic, Oddie wiggled awkwardly towards the open space on his left.
He pulled his torso to the edge and then shifted his left leg. For some reason his
right leg refused to follow. Fragments of his dream played in his mind and Oddie felt
a stab of fear. A fear fuelled by exhaustion. His eyes closed as he braced himself.
Really, more than anything, he wanted to go back to sleep. Instead, Oddie
scrunched himself up and reached down to grab a hold of his trouser leg. But his
fingers wiggled into empty space.
He lay still, too confused for thought or action. Then, straining even sinew, he inched
his hand down a little more. He crept his hand sideways and encountered the coarse
cloth of his trousers. His hand swept back to the right. Nothing. His breath came in
shallow pants. He groped around until his fingers encountered something alien. A
thick wad of cloth. He prodded the lump. Big mistake. Pain engulfed him. It wasn’t
agony. There was no word to describe it. It felt like someone was sawing his leg off.
Then the dream died and coalesced into reality. And Oddie screamed.
Stoker by Jenny Brigalow, Chapter 42 p146

And now the mini-review (I admit that my favourite excerpt is probably one where there is a discussion of elements and balance, but that includes a bunch of spoilers so I can’t share that with you lot!).

I enjoyed Stoker, the chapters are relatively short, so it is easy to divide into smaller chunks if you do not have the energy for reading a lot (as I did while being ill, this helped because it was easy to do just one chapter at a time). There are a lot of Frankenstein vibes (but not a comparison or a retelling, more of the same type of gothic feel) with a bit of steampunk and gothic in it, and I have to admit it gives me a little of Charles Dickens vibes without being that wordy or dry, like a much lighter modern approach to that ambience.

The story focuses on two main characters that are from almost opposite sides of the action and at first, you wonder what is making them come together but the story is working on a lot of “science” and magic and this turns into an interesting kind of romance story with elements, magic, experiments and other parts of the adventure. It has a tiny bit of everything, even if it overall has a slightly sad vibe. It is the kind of book to read in fall while cosy with a cup of your favourite hot drink and under a blanket while it rains outside.

Overall an interesting little book that surprised me a lot!

Books

Moon Reads: Cytonic giveaway

Posted on December 1, 2021

Welcome to my stop on the Cytonic blog tour, if you are here to check on Spin, I mean Spensa, then you are in the right place.

Today I have a little treat for you, a giveaway. If you follow Gollancz account and me on Twitter then retweet the giveaway tweet, you’re in for a chance to win a copy of Cytonic, and complete your set!

https://twitter.com/themoonkestrel/status/1466029564484747268

So what are we finding out about the story after all the amazing stuff Spensa has already managed to do? Here is a quick summary of what to expect in the book.

Spensa’s life as a Defiant Defense Force pilot has been far from ordinary. She proved herself one of the best starfighters in the human enclave of Detritus and she saved her people from extermination at the hands of the Krell—the enigmatic alien species that has been holding them captive for decades. What’s more, she traveled light-years from home as an undercover spy to infiltrate the Superiority, where she learned of the galaxy beyond her small, desolate planet home.

Now, the Superiority—the governing galactic alliance bent on dominating all human life—has started a galaxy-wide war. And Spensa’s seen the weapons they plan to use to end it: the Delvers. Ancient, mysterious alien forces that can wipe out entire planetary systems in an instant. Spensa knows that no matter how many pilots the DDF has, there is no defeating this predator.

Except that Spensa is Cytonic. She faced down a Delver and saw something eerily familiar about it. And maybe, if she’s able to figure out what she is, she could be more than just another pilot in this unfolding war. She could save the galaxy.

The only way she can discover what she really is, though, is to leave behind all she knows and enter the Nowhere. A place from which few ever return.

To have courage means facing fear. And this mission is terrifying.

Subscription Boxes

Moon Hauls: We Are the Resistance Illumicrate

Posted on September 2, 2020

The latest Illumicrate had a very scifi feel to it and the contents were as follows:

Seven Devils, just look at the gorgeous cover change!
A promotional bookmark for Sweet Black Waves.
Star Wars sunglasses (these were a bit meh, they feel like a filler item as they have nothing beyond a logo, and it’s not that amazing, plus I can’t use sunglasses).
A cute keyring, this will definitely be used soon.
Theme leaflet.
Another book planter, probably my favourite of the set.
A Bone Season notebook.
And some character cards.

To be fair, this definitely wasn’t their strongest box, and I wish it had been but it seems to be common that they’re not as strong for Scifi boxes than they are in fantasy boxes. There’s a lot of fun that could’ve been done here, so hopefully the scifi side gets stronger.

Subscription Boxes

Moon Hauls: Date with Destiny Owlcrate

Posted on August 21, 2020

You have a date with destiny in the form of an unboxing!

Ok, maybe not, maybe you do? Let’s see what was int he box, starting from the top left and going clockwise:

Harry Potter mug. I think it is meant to be the last one and well, it is to my own tastes, not Cara’s best work. Not that it is bad, it just doesn’t compare to the others in the care put into making it and it kinda shows.
Simon’s Sour Cherry Scones tea blend, which I am intrigued to try, mostly because it has cherry and because Riddle’s Tea Shop is usually good at their blends.
The monthly pin, which looks interesting.
A bookmark with one side Rey, the other Kylo, so one light, one dark, it is quite clever.
An apron for The Raven Boys, which I like since it is a nice item, and it is big enough now that my husband steals my tiny one every now and then.
On top of the apron, trying to be artful, are a tin of arrow shaped paperclips, which have turned out to be super handy as somehow I never need paperclips and suddenly I do. Plus I have a soft spot for shaped paperclips.
The theme card, I tend to really enjoy the artowkr in those and this isn’t bad at all.
The main book, Goddess in the Machine which sounds intriguing, so much I started reading it after unboxing it, so so far so good and I like the colours of it!

As an overall feel, I like the contents of the box, not too much paper or “useless” items. There’s consumables and the papercips are useful beyond just looking cute. Kitchen items are usually good. And even if I am not keen on themug, there was someone who wanted it so it was easy to pass it on and not feel to bad about it (I do love that type of “camping” mug so just sad it wasn’t a design for me). It may not be their best box of the year but it is a strong box with a good assortment of items.