About Riebeckite (Bruised Moon Sequence Book 1)
Dangerous spores gather on Earth after an asteroid strikes the moon. Humanity watches the skies…but the real danger is at their feet.
After an asteroid strike on the moon, a strange blue dust began to flow down through Earth’s atmosphere. It’s harmful to breathe, but at least the microscopic creatures within the dust are dormant. Or so we thought.
Tahira made a childhood promise to a friend that the crisis would bring their people together… before a violent riot tore their lives apart. Now, as an adult, Tahira works as a biologist for a corporation constructing experimental towers to force the spores—known as riebeckites—to germinate into harmless colonies.
Except they’re about to learn everything they think they know about the dust is wrong. The real threat isn’t the asteroid that struck the moon and by the time humanity figures it out, it might be too late.
Riebeckite combines suspense and conspiracy with heart-in-mouth action sequences and nightmarish encounters, all in an immersive near-future setting and, at its core, a heartwarming story of friendship against the odds.
My Thoughts
On the surface, this sci-fi novel is a remake of a familiar story – think Ridley Scott’s Alien. There is a strange off-earth creature with a curious life-cycle. It is potentially terribly dangerous to life on earth. Dark military powers are secretly working to weaponise it. They are playing with fire. So far so familiar. But this compellingly written drama offers a refreshing reboot of the genre. It is firmly based on earth, and built around a realistic understanding of geo-politics. It explores the likely response to a global ecological threat, in a way that has a poignant resonance in a world that faces several of these. Its central characters are intelligent, competent, principled middle-eastern women. All of the characters are three dimensional.
This is sci-fi for readers who are ready to grapple with our own world as well as escape into fiction. It is billed as the first of a three part series, and it will doubtless be worth reading the sequels. At the same time, however, it works perfectly well as a standalone. All in all, a terrific achievement. A well-earned 5-stars!
Isobel Blackthorn 