The Moonday Letters in SpecFic Buddy Reads

Dec 28, 2022 Lindsay rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, science-fiction, lgbtqia

The solar system has been colonised and Earth is a polluted backwater that locals are rarely allowed to leave, and when they do, are often used for undesirable work. Our narrator is Lumi, born on Earth, but one of the lucky ones to make it to space because of her skill as a healer (basically an animist shaman who uses a spirit animal). Her spouse is Sol, but Sol has gone missing. The story is Lumi's letters to her spouse that she writes in a journal for Sol to be read later when they're found. L ...more

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Feb 02, 2023 Lata rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sf-f-h, auth-f, x2023-read

There is always something a little odd and artificial about epistolary novels, as I doubt most people would write so beautifully in their journals as this author's main character does, but I was prepared to accept this from this author. With richly detailed and evocative language, Emmi Itäranta uses journal entries, news stories, scientific reports, and emails to tell Lumi’s story of her search for her spouse Sol through the solar system, with a cat in tow.

Lumi is a healer who travels all over There is always something a little odd and artificial about epistolary novels, as I doubt most people would write so beautifully in their journals as this author's main character does, but I was prepared to accept this from this author. With richly detailed and evocative language, Emmi Itäranta uses journal entries, news stories, scientific reports, and emails to tell Lumi’s story of her search for her spouse Sol through the solar system, with a cat in tow.

Lumi is a healer who travels all over the colonized solar system to treat people. Her method, taught to her by her now dead teacher, involves the use of a soul animal to find the ailing or damaged part of a person’s soul and return it to them, which heals their bodies.

Lumi is originally from Earth, which is ravaged by climate disasters, illness, poverty, lack of opportunities, and little hope of migration to Mars or various floating cities. She and Sol make their home on Mars, where Sol and their family live.

Lumi is returning from healing sessions when Sol disappears after attending a conference. Lumi travels to different locations after receiving messages from Sol, only to find that they are no longer there. Lumi begins, with the help of a journalist, and using her memories of her time with Sol, to try to find them and understand what is going on with her spouse. As she investigates, she begins realizing that Sol was doing much more than just research on fungi and algae, and was in fact involved with an environmental activist group. An accident at a research facility, followed by a massive terrorist attack on Earth by this group, casts a very different light on Sol and their activities, and just how much they had been concealing from Lumi.

There are passages of stunningly beautiful prose in this book, which I remember to be the case with an earlier work by this author. I was, however, a little surprised by how little scrutiny Lumi came under by authorities once it was revealed that Sol was affiliated with a group, who, for all their lofty goals, were prepared to harm millions or billions, and were classified as terrorists. Also, travel to or out of Earth is interdicted, and no one knows if the terrorist act will have a future positive effect on Earth’s climate, but the author conveys this as less of a massive tragedy and horror than I would have expected it to be. But, perhaps because this author tends to write of terrible situations from a remove, that’s how she chose to depict the situation. This is still a gorgeously written book, despite my quibbles. ...more

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