Isabel Tyldesley's Reviews > The Moonday Letters
The Moonday Letters
by
by
4.25 stars!
Thanks to NetGalley for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Earth wakes and stones will speak, and darkness recedes over waters.
The Moonday Letters is a LGBTQIA+, futuristic sci-fi story told through letters, - written from our protagonist Lumi to her spouse Sol (they/them) - encrypted messages, and scientific/encyclopaedic entries. It's a tale of love, longing, grief, sacrifice, and memory. It's a conversation between the past and present.
You said once that writing is journeying beyond infinite distances; with these words I transport you across time and space.
The major theme of this book is environmentalism and the climate crisis. Humanity has expanded from Earth - which is now struggling to hold human life - to live on various moons and planets, predominantly Mars. Mars, however, is seen to be responsible for 'Earth's famine'. As humanity explores the universe, it leaves destruction in its wake. As Lumi travels between planets and moons for their job as a healer, they comment particularly on the corporation's mining activity that is hollowing out the Moon, and 'The idea that the world and universe exist for humans alone, and the the perusal of the natural resources of the Solar System is the exclusive right of our species, is both hopelessly outdates and staggeringly self-centred.'
We carry within us every home, including those that no longer exist, so we'd have somewhere to return to.
The worldbuilding is beautiful and phenomenal. Each civilisation feels unique, and carefully crafted by the author based upon the physical limitations of the space. Towns on Europa are built under a sheet of ice; the ice is both their shelter, and a potential catastrophe - the inhabitants remain as silent as possible so as to not crack it. On Mars, accommodation globes light up the colourless surface. One of my few complaints about this book is that whilst I adore travelling through so many incredible settings with Lumi, I wish that we got to remain in them a little longer. I crave to get to know this places in detail. I crave to know their people and their customs. Though, then perhaps we wouldn't get to see so many wonderful places, so I shouldn't complain.
The sky was entirely black, more so than ever on Earth, and the bright crystals of stars flared cold.
A comment needs to be made about the fantastic non-binary rep. Lumi's spouse, Sol, is non-binary, and their pronouns are used widely without fault. Only once does someone get confused about the word 'spouse', and tries to instead use 'husband' or 'wife'. As Lumi corrects them, it brings up an insightful conversation about how not everyone is purposefully ignorant, they may just be misinformed - as this person was - and should be given the chance to learn. It was a moment I greatly appreciated, and something we should all remember.
"The hard part is not learning new things. The hard part is unlearning some of the old."
The writing itself was highly personal and lusciously poetic. The only other thing that brought my rating of this book down was the more technical and scientific encyclopaedic sections - but this is just my own personal taste. I found myself skimming through them, as though they provided fantastic worldbuilding and background information, I wanted to get back to the letters! They were so beautifully emotive that, in comparison, I wanted to return to them as quickly as possible.
Grief is an animal you can never quite tame.
Overall, this is a heart-breaking, hopeful, disastrous, and longful read. This may just be my favourite sci-fi book. It's certainly the most thoughtful.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Earth wakes and stones will speak, and darkness recedes over waters.
The Moonday Letters is a LGBTQIA+, futuristic sci-fi story told through letters, - written from our protagonist Lumi to her spouse Sol (they/them) - encrypted messages, and scientific/encyclopaedic entries. It's a tale of love, longing, grief, sacrifice, and memory. It's a conversation between the past and present.
You said once that writing is journeying beyond infinite distances; with these words I transport you across time and space.
The major theme of this book is environmentalism and the climate crisis. Humanity has expanded from Earth - which is now struggling to hold human life - to live on various moons and planets, predominantly Mars. Mars, however, is seen to be responsible for 'Earth's famine'. As humanity explores the universe, it leaves destruction in its wake. As Lumi travels between planets and moons for their job as a healer, they comment particularly on the corporation's mining activity that is hollowing out the Moon, and 'The idea that the world and universe exist for humans alone, and the the perusal of the natural resources of the Solar System is the exclusive right of our species, is both hopelessly outdates and staggeringly self-centred.'
We carry within us every home, including those that no longer exist, so we'd have somewhere to return to.
The worldbuilding is beautiful and phenomenal. Each civilisation feels unique, and carefully crafted by the author based upon the physical limitations of the space. Towns on Europa are built under a sheet of ice; the ice is both their shelter, and a potential catastrophe - the inhabitants remain as silent as possible so as to not crack it. On Mars, accommodation globes light up the colourless surface. One of my few complaints about this book is that whilst I adore travelling through so many incredible settings with Lumi, I wish that we got to remain in them a little longer. I crave to get to know this places in detail. I crave to know their people and their customs. Though, then perhaps we wouldn't get to see so many wonderful places, so I shouldn't complain.
The sky was entirely black, more so than ever on Earth, and the bright crystals of stars flared cold.
A comment needs to be made about the fantastic non-binary rep. Lumi's spouse, Sol, is non-binary, and their pronouns are used widely without fault. Only once does someone get confused about the word 'spouse', and tries to instead use 'husband' or 'wife'. As Lumi corrects them, it brings up an insightful conversation about how not everyone is purposefully ignorant, they may just be misinformed - as this person was - and should be given the chance to learn. It was a moment I greatly appreciated, and something we should all remember.
"The hard part is not learning new things. The hard part is unlearning some of the old."
The writing itself was highly personal and lusciously poetic. The only other thing that brought my rating of this book down was the more technical and scientific encyclopaedic sections - but this is just my own personal taste. I found myself skimming through them, as though they provided fantastic worldbuilding and background information, I wanted to get back to the letters! They were so beautifully emotive that, in comparison, I wanted to return to them as quickly as possible.
Grief is an animal you can never quite tame.
Overall, this is a heart-breaking, hopeful, disastrous, and longful read. This may just be my favourite sci-fi book. It's certainly the most thoughtful.
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Reading Progress
June 13, 2022
– Shelved as:
to-read
June 13, 2022
– Shelved
July 18, 2022
–
Started Reading
August 2, 2022
–
Finished Reading