James Nicoll Reviews

Donald Kingbury’s 1986 The Moon Goddess and the Son is a stand-alone near-future hard-SF CanLit novel.

When the rascally Russians put into orbit a lavish new space station and announce plans to build a moon base by 1990, the subtext is clear: the Soviets will soon be able to prevent the US from setting up its impenetrable ICBM defense system. America has no choice. The USA must recapitulate its space efforts of the early 1960s and make America great again¹!

For Byron McDougall, the US response offers an interesting career option. For young Diana Osborne, news about the new space program provides a welcome distraction from the endless beatings her father doles out.

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Donald Kingsbury’s 2001 Psychohistorical Crisis is a stand-alone space opera. Well, stand-alone-ish. More on that later.

Eron Osa, having committed an unspeakable crime, is functionally obliterated. Poor Eron. What is he to do with the rest of his life?

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Donald Kingsbury has been writing science fiction since the 1950s, but he has never been particularly prolific. In fact, over the seven decades of his career, he has published a mere five novels, five novellas, and an excerpt (so far as I know). 

Perhaps the most remarkable of his novels is 1982’s Courtship Rite (also published under the title Geta). I have a few scars thanks to this book ¹, but that is not the only reason it is remarkable. 

No sensible person would colonize a world like Geta, given a choice. It is arid, poor in many resources essential to advanced technology, and its native lifeforms cannot be digested by terrestrial life. It promises a short impoverished life and eventual starvation to anyone foolish enough to settle there. 

The first colonists — marooned? — came from a starfaring civilization, but even that did not save them. The survivors made some hard choices that let them prevail and persist, in the process losing most of their technology and most knowledge of their past. As far as the Getans know, they were placed on Geta by their god to test them. And their god is not grading on a curve. 

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