Links for 2010-10-06

"At the heart of John M. Ford's Growing Up Weightless (1993) is a train trip by a group of teenaged roleplayers across the far side of the moon. It's also the story of how thirteen year old Matt Ronay discovers what growing up means, and how his father Albin writes a symphony about water on the moon. It's set four generations after Luna became independent--and that's Lunna, not Loonam, and absolutely never call it "the Moon," as if it were something Earth owned. This is a future with complex history that feels real. There's a story going on in the background about water and sacrifice and power politics. In fact there's a lot going on here--of course there is, it's a John M. Ford novel--but most of all it's about Matt Ronay and his roleplaying group making a trip from Copernicus to Tsiolkovsky Observatory on the train, two days there and two days back, without asking permission or telling their parents where they're going. It's wonderful."