Moonbound: A Novel

by Robin Sloan Narrated by Gabra Zackman

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A lot can happen in eleven thousand years. From the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore comes a novel with all the charm (and time-bending) of This Is How You Lose the Time War.

Robin Sloan expands the Penumbraverse to new reaches of time and space in a rollicking far-future adventure.

In Moonbound, Robin Sloan has written a novel with the full scope and ambitious imagination of the very books that lit the engines of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: an epic quest as only Sloan could conceive it, mixing science fiction, fantasy, good old-fashioned literary storytelling, and unrivaled enthusiasm for what's next.

It is eleven thousand years from now . . . A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a small town under a wizard's rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of unimaginable glories and challenges: unknown enemies, a mission to save the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel comes across an artifact from an earlier civilization, a sentient, record-keeping artificial intelligence that carries with it the perspective of the whole of human history-and becomes both Ariel's greatest ally and the narrator of our story.

Moonbound is an adventure into the richest depths of Story itself. It is a deeply satisfying epic of ancient scale, blasted through the imaginative prism one of our most forward-thinking writers. And this is only the beginning.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

04/01/2024

A young boy goes on a quirky quest through a postapocalyptic world in bestseller Sloan’s gentle yet thought-provoking adventure set 11,000 years after humanity lost a war to the genetically engineered “dragons” it had developed for space exploration. Now 12-year-old Ariel de la Sauvage is tasked by the Wizard Malory with pulling Excalibur from its stone. But Ariel angers the wizard when he returns with another sword, bucking his destiny. Fleeing Malory’s wrath, Ariel experiences life beyond his small village for the first time as he travels toward the city Rath Varia, helped along the way by talking beavers and amiable robots. Once there, he learns how wizards can reshape life and concocts a dangerous scheme to defeat Malory by activating humanity’s “Plan Z” in its fight against the dragons, a signal meant to summon a human army held in stasis in space. Unfortunately, the signal brings only Durga, a teen girl trained by humans in propaganda and kept in stasis for centuries. She agrees to help topple Malory if Ariel will help confront the dragons once and for all. Narrated by the fungal chronicler implant that attaches to Ariel, the story is full of wildly inventive and audacious worldbuilding delivered in a cozy tone reminiscent of Becky Chambers. With the flavor of a classic coming-of-age adventure or a complicated video game, this is a world readers will hope to come back to. Agent: Sarah Burnes, Gernert Co. (June)

Library Journal

04/01/2024

Sloan's (Sourdough) thought-provoking novel explores the limits of what it means to be human. The story begins in the distant future, when humanity takes its first halting steps into the void, only to find itself at the mercy of monsters. Humanity's foray into space is brief, bringing back terrible dragons that lock down Earth and devastate humanity. But all is not lost. The novel's main character is an artificial intelligence, a chronicler and counselor living in a small bit of cells that functions as a narrator for its host body. The chronicler sleeps for 11,000 years, then wakes to find a new host in the boy Ariel. The novel's plot is a predictable one, with Ariel's coming of age proving to be the twist of fate that allows humanity to return to the stars. However, Sloan's world is far from standard, being a captivating meld of fantasy and science fiction tropes that are both startling in scope and impressive in their concepts. VERDICT The depth of ideas in Sloan's excellent new book will entice readers who enjoyed James S.A. Corey's "Expanse" series.—Jeremiah Rood

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159558015
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	06/11/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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