Luna: Moon Rising, in which Ian McDonald brings the trilogy to an astounding, intricate, exciting and satisfying climax

Back in 2015, the incomparable Ian McDonald (previously) published Luna: New Moon, a kind of cross between Dallas and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, with warring clans scheme and fighting on a libertopian lunar colony where the only law is private contracts and you're charged for the very air you breathe; McDonald raised the stakes to impossible heights with the 2017 sequel Luna: Wolf Moon, and now, with the final volume, Luna: Moon Rising, McDonald proves that he despite the wild gyrations of his massive cast of characters and their intricate schemes, he never lost control.

Luna: Moon Rising is a practically perfect concluding volume, and not just because it ties off all the loose ends -- before it does that, it brings the characters to places that are both utterly unexpected (in the moment) but totally justifiable (in hindsight).

McDonald's richly imagined Lunar culture and interplanetary poleconomy make for a superb backdrop for literally dozens of richly realized human dramas, and it's hard to say which is more fascinating. McDonald's wildly imaginative worldbuilding (present since his debut novel, the utterly wonderful standout Out On Blue Six) and his ability to spin out intrigues are both in full flight in this final volume.

CBS has the rights to adapt the series, and no wonder. McDonald's got the zeitgeisty magic with an intergenerational space opera that turns on a plan to make humans obsolete and cover the surface of the Moon with solar-powered cryptocurrency mining rigs, with set pieces as grand as any that Bollywood or George Lucas ever imagined, from hand to hand combat in a ring to massed armies battling on the surface of the Moon. Read the rest