Ian Sales

Interesting fictionalisation of the Apollo Program from the POV of the wife of an Apollo-15 crewmember (irl Jim Irwin) who publishes science fiction tales under a pen name. Not knowing much about SF or its female exponents, it took me a while to cotton on that in this version of history, it's a female-centric genre, written and consumed mostly by women.

Sales doesn't so much break the fourth wall as methodically grind it into micron-thick particles of moondust. His intrusions into the text subvert the narrative to the extent that it ends up being more like an essay than a story. The lack of an ending — or maybe the historical story arc — have a similar effect. It's painstakingly researched, but sometimes the research shows through gaudily:

"This is no science fiction spaceship launch, this is the real thing. There are very few examples she can recall from movies, Hollywood has yet to embrace science fiction, despite such 1920s classics as Metropolis and Frau im Mond".

This excerpt covers my other gripe too, which is Sales' terminal addiction to the comma splice. A sentence without one comes as a shock, like an underdog suddenly landing a counterpunch. Still, I enjoyed this short novel for its fresh perspective and real-feeling period atmosphere. From other reviews it sounds like a familiarity with the first three books in the Quartet would increase my enjoyment of it.… (meer)

Ok, this is just getting ridiculous. What was the point of this book? Or rather - what was the point of putting these THREE separate stories into a single book? The first part - with the 2 disparate stories intermingled together in alternating chapters. I was waiting for them to come together at the end, and when they did come together, uhhh... well, turns out that they didn't fit. And then a summary of the real life story behind it all at the end? or was that all fiction, too? Hard to tell, and so disorienting that I have to give this just 1 star.… (meer)