MERCURY RISING by R.W.W. Greene – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Mercury Rising by R.W.W. Greene
Published by Angry Robot on May 10 2022
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Pages: 400
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Low-tech and futuristic space travel combine in surprising ways in this entertaining series opener.

Last year I thoroughly enjoyed R.W.W. Greene’s Twenty-Five to Life, and so I jumped at the chance to read his latest book from Angry Robot. Mercury Rising is just as compelling but in a different way. Where Twenty-Five to Life focuses on characters who still live on Earth, Mercury Rising is set mostly in space and takes place in the past—the 1970s—although this is not our past, but rather a world where Kennedy wasn’t shot and space travel has made great strides as early as the 1950s. I absolutely loved the unusual mix of retro-technology, space travel and alien invasion, and the casual “hippie” lifestyle of the characters made for an interesting contrast.

In this alternate version of the U.S., the invention of the Oppenheimer Nuclear Engine in 1945 has allowed for an accelerated space program. Decades later in 1961, a crew of U.S. and Russian astronauts die trying to stop an alien invasion. From this first encounter, other disastrous attacks have happened on U.S. soil, including the destruction of the city of Cleveland in 1972 by an asteroid. These events have had a catastrophic effect on the economy, and many people have left Earth for colonies on the Moon and Mars.

The story begins in New York and follows a man named Brooklyn Lamontagne, who is drifting through life without much purpose. That is until he agrees to help a friend steal some 8-track tapes and things go horribly wrong. Brooklyn’s friend David winds up dead, and Brooklyn is arrested as a suspect. Even though he didn’t commit the murder, things don’t look good for him, so to avoid going to prison, Brooklyn agrees to join the EOF—the Extra-Orbital Forces—for a ten year term of service.

And so Brooklyn’s adventures in space begin, first with a “boot camp” in Texas followed by a rigorous and dangerous training stint in the Arctic. To his surprise, Brooklyn passes everything with flying colors and is sent to the Moon to work as a computer expert, but later a new assignment takes him deeper into space, where he learns some shocking truths about the aliens. When a new threat emerges, Brooklyn is called upon to help stop it—the most important assignment of his life.

If you’re looking for a fast-paced, plot driven story, you might want to look elsewhere, but don’t let that stop you from reading this book. Yes, the pace is a bit meandering, and Brooklyn’s journey has many stops along the way. But I was so engrossed in each part of that journey and fascinated by Greene’s unique world-building that the slow pace didn’t bother me at all. Brooklyn is front and center throughout, and along the way he meets new people who add lots of nice layers to the story. He mostly takes things in stride, agreeing to new assignments without complaint, making friends wherever he goes, willing to jump into dangerous situations at the drop of a hat. I enjoyed his casual view of the world and his optimistic attitude. To be honest, it was refreshing to run into a character who isn’t dark and angsty.

Greene’s world-building was refreshing as well. At first I didn’t know what to make of the odd combination of 1970s technology and futuristic space travel. You have people living on the moon and space ships traveling to Mars and Venus, but computers are stuck in the 60s and 70s and people still listen to music on 8-track tapes. But this combo really worked, and it was one of my favorite parts of the book. And I loved the references to music. Brooklyn and his friends listen to K.C. & the Sunshine Band and other bands and musicians from the era, and I could almost hear a soundtrack playing along as I was reading. Greene captures the political sensibility of the 1970s with real life people from history, and even imagines a world where conspiracy theories are alive and well, including one where Nixon instigated the attack on Cleveland in order to be reelected. It was all a lot of fun, and Greene gives his readers plenty of food for thought.

And while the story takes its time getting to wherever it’s going, at about the sixty-percent mark Greene throws in a very cool twist and the pace and tension pick up considerably. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say that Brooklyn finds himself in yet another new location and meets one of my favorite characters in the story, a woman named Andy. Andy is the key to everything that follows, and I absolutely loved the relationship that develops between the two. This won’t make sense unless you read the book, but they were pretty adorable together! Greene even ties up some loose ends by circling back to the stolen tapes and the murder at the beginning of the story. It’s at this point that the author introduces some fascinating concepts about the origins of the human race and how we ended up on Earth—and who may have been there before us. Some of his ideas were simply mind boggling, and days after finishing the book, those ideas are still rattling around in my head.

The satisfying ending harkens back to an earlier plot point where Brooklyn meets a rather sketchy doctor aboard one of his ships, a doctor with a nefarious agenda, and I thought it was a great way to wrap things up. This is never explained, but I suspect it will be in the sequel. Because yes, I was thrilled to discover that Mercury Rising is the first book in a trilogy.

R.W.W. Green continues to surprise me, and he’s undoubtedly one of the most unique writers working in the SFF field today, at least in my humble opinion. Readers looking for something different in science fiction need look no further. Grab this book as soon as you can!

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

**Check back next week for my interview with the author!