Lunar Justice

Author: Charles Harness

If you want to see how much sf from the last quarter of the 20th century ignored the technical realities of the Moon, look no further than this sometimes absurd sometimes very moving often comic novel. Here the Moon is no more than a backdrop, the real focus is on a courtroom upon the Moon. An entrepreneur wants to turn Jupiter into a mini-Sun in order to terraform the moons and relieve the population pressure on Earth. But another corporation wants to stop him, so they have him charged before a blatantly corrupt lunar court. The question is: what can the psi-powered defence lawyer do to save the entrepreneur's life? Why it's on the list: Lunar Justice is hardly Harness at his best, but he can still write genuinely convincing and moving human relationships, moreover, it's not often you see the Moon as a setting for comic science fiction, which is an excellent reason why this is on the list.