A little bit of Game of Thrones, a little bit of Green Bone saga, a dash of The Expanse. This had the makings to be the introduction of a really fantastic story and it did not disappoint. The story follows the Corta family, one of the five corporate ‘Dragons’ on the moon, which is a wild, dangerous frontier of business espionage, legal battles, corpo-political marriages, and violence. In this first installment of the trilogy, we learn about the various relationships between these mega powerful families, learn about the important players in each, and get an idea of the politics, business, and culture of the moon and her relationship to Earth.

This was a great introduction to this world. The writing was accessible, not overly complicated with jargon, and the world building was well integrated with the story - avoiding too many blocks of exposition that interrupted the flow of the plot. The characters were extremely well written, dynamic, and fascinating. With the massive cast, it would be easy to have many of the characters blur together, but the author did their due diligence in making each one intriguing in their own way. There were moments where the pacing dragged on a bit. While this book did have a self contained story, the overarching plot was not clear until the very end; it sometimes felt like it just aimlessly following the lives of these family members. However the characters were so well written that I didn’t mind the weak plot for the majority of the book.

While I really liked the unique setting and the story that was told, be warned that this is sci fi that was… very much written by a man. There’s an EXTENDED scene that goes into EXTREME detail about a woman’s masturbation habits. There are quotes from women acknowledging how misogynistic and sexist men are, but loving how good they are in bed. There were several eye roll moments like this.

Otherwise, I really appreciate the extremely diverse representation here. Queerness of all kinds is normalized, with main characters that are openly bisexual, gay, and aromantic, with those queer terms actually being used on page (looking at you fantasy writers..) And I appreciate how these characters are allowed to be flawed and morally gray without leading too far one way or another.

I enjoyed this book a lot, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen more discussion around it in sci-fi book spaces. The explosive, anxiety inducing ending made me want to pick the next one up immediately!