It's 2090: the last outpost of freedom is the moon, the best defense against technology is magic, and the only hope for humankind rests in the hands of the Star Children.
-Goodreads

Title: Moon Deeds

Series: Star Children Saga #1

Author: Palmer Pickering

Page Count: 598

Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy

Rating: 4.5/5.0

Date Read: July 21st, 2022

Opening

As usual I will begin with how I came across this read in the first place. I wrapped up all of my standing ARC reads early this month so I hopped on NetGalley to see if anything looked interesting. Just browsing through I noticed Moon Deeds and its sequel by an author whose name sounded familiar. Turned out Palmer was part of the Discord community that I spend a lot of time in. I figured let me grab these and give them a shot. Originally I didn't plant to get to them until August & September but I got ahead of schedule with my July TBR so decided to dive right in!

From the beginning one of my favorite aspects of this story was the great combination between Science Fiction and Fantasy elements. We have alien races on Earth, space travel and yet at the same time more traditional magic and shamanism. I thought this was a really interesting blend and Palmer put them together really well.

Pacing

This turned into a very consistent and solid read for me. It's written well and allowed me to just tear through the pages but rarely did I find myself in that blank space that happens in some reads for me where I don't recall what I'm actually reading or where we are in the story. This means for me the pacing was very well done. Along those lines I mentioned to Palmer that I really thought there was a lot of thriller or suspense vibes throughout the story. There is just an almost constant sense of urgency from our characters from the very beginning.

Worldbuilding

The world development is progressing well through the first book. You definitely get a very good feel of things early in book one on the state of things on Earth but then things open up way more once things transition off world. So much so we have only been teased at several other locations still. I'm hoping we get to explore some of the worlds mentioned in book one when we venture onto book two!

Character Development

The character development was also done well. I definitely found myself relating and pulling for a lot of the characters yet finding myself frustrated or angry with some of an antagonists. I even found the emotions that Torr is going through from an early incident in the book and he is dealing with it the entire first book. And I'm sure he will continue that into the second as well. The supporting case is very diverse and I find myself wanting to learning more about many of them.

Closing

I'll wrap things up with a couple of thoughts. First of all I definitely plan to continue onto book two which I already have a copy of. I'll also reiterate my opinion on the mashup this book made me feel of Science Fiction, Fantasy and either Thriller or Suspense. Palmer mentioned either from a quote on Goodreads or in our talks (I can't quite remember) she often refers to the Star Children Saga as an Epic Fantasy wrapped in Science Fiction and I think that is a very good description.

One last thing to mention that I only found out last night since I didn't know the history of Moon Deeds was this was a semi-finalist up against Sword of Kaigen in the SPFBO competition and that was some really stiff competition to go up against win or lose!

Scoring

Pacing 4.5 / 5.0

Worldbuilding 5.0 / 5.0

Character Development 5.0 / 5.0

Moon Deeds