In this gripping sci-fi noir for fans of The Martian and Quentin Tarantino, when an anarchic android begins wreaking havoc on a moon-based penal colony and bodies start turning up, an exiled detective must decide who he can trust in a city of criminals. Never bang your head against a wall. Bang someone else’s. Purgatory is the lawless moon colony of eccentric billionaire, Fletcher Brass and … billionaire, Fletcher Brass and mecca for war criminals, murderers, and curious tourists alike. You can’t find better drugs, cheaper plastic surgery, or a more ominous travel advisory anywhere in the universe. But trouble is brewing in Brass’s black-market heaven. When an exiled cop comes to enact law and order in this wild new frontier, he finds himself the lead investigator in a series of high-profile murders that puts him toe to toe with the city’s charismatic founder and his equally ambitious daughter.
Meanwhile, 2000 km away a memory-wiped android, Leonardo Black rampages across the lunar surface. Programmed with only the notorious “Brass Code”–a compendium of corporate laws that would make Ayn Rand blush–he journeys across the dark side of the moon with only one goal in mind: find Purgatory and conquer it.
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“The envy of others is a self-replenishing feast.”
I picked up this book for a couple of reasons. First, I was looking for fun, and this seemed to have it all, sci-fi noir, hard-boiled crime, and an exotic setting. Second, I had recently read Artemis, by Andy Weir and I thought it might be an interesting comparison. So, let me cut to the chase, it delivers on its promise; a masculine, suspenseful, jaunt across the moon, with interesting characters and regular gory action.
“Find Oz. And be the Wizard.”
The book has three storylines. The first is the backstory of the setting itself, a future, colonized Moon. Anthony O’Neill has clearly put in the requisite research to make this a believable description full of technical details about a future life on the harsh moon. The acknowledgments at the end contain a long list of books that O’Neill leveraged for his work. But he’s also imaged a rich history inspired by Pitcairn Island as well as the penal colonies in Australia. Basically, the idea is that only people crazy enough to establish a foot hold on the moon are lunatics, in a very literal sense. This backstory worked for me and O’Neil does a fine job of unfolding it throughout the novel. At the heart of the backstory is Fletcher Brass, a larger than life, patriarch of the seedy underworld culture that has developed on the moon. His philosophy on life is described by his “Brass Code”, of which I have include excerpts throughout this review.
“Lose your temper often. And well.”
The second follows Damien Justus (his name being an intentional cliché), a broken man and a detective who’s been effectively banished from earth. He’s brought in to provide a fresh perspective on a series of brutal assassinations that have been occurring on the Moon’s most infamous city, “Purgatory”. It’s through Justus’ naïve eyes (at least as far as the moon), that we largely see the crime drama revealed. O’Neill creates several interesting characters with believable pasts and its entertaining to watch their lively interactions.
“Shake hands in public. Decapitate in private.”
The third storyline concerns a manic, homicide android, who starts on a remote lunar location, but begins a gory rampage that continuously brings him every closer to Purgatory. The robot has no memory, only a dark purpose, which provides fantastic mystery and imagery. O’Neil alternates these three storylines until they come together seamlessly at the end. Speaking of the ending, it felt a bit rushed to me, and there were a few plot items that felt odd, but nothing big enough to spoil my enjoyment of the story and its climax. My other knock on this book is that the technology capabilities of Androids seems to be far more advanced than the rest of technology described in the story.
“It’s merciful to go for the jugular.”
This isn’t the type of book or genre to have deep thematic messages, but O’Neil manages to still bring a few to the surface. The primary and shrewdest is the play on the title itself. The primary moon city in the story is Purgatory, which lies on the dark side of the moon. However, by the end of the novel, you question if the title refers to that, or more so a commentary on the shadier aspects of several key characters or even humanity itself.
“It’s good to have a rival. It’s even better to crack his skull.”
Returning to my point on Artemis by Andy Weir, these two works are very comparable. They both have very believable technical details of life on a lunar colony. They are both suspenseful and picture a seedy underbelly on a dangerous lunar colony. O’Neill’s setting is a bit farther into the future. The Dark Side is also a bit grittier and darker, not surprising. In the end, while I gave them both four stars, I enjoyed “The Dark Side” more. It had more interesting characters and backstory and was just as well researched. Weir may have a leg up on the physics and scientific details, but that’s not necessarily a strength in a crime noir setting.
“See El Dorado. Take El Dorado. Find another El Dorado.”
This book is dark and grisly noir, but not so much that it affected my ability to enjoy the eccentric settings and colorful characters. We find while everyone has a dark side, some are able to find redemption.