Moonstroke

Moonstroke is the tale of a platinum mining colony that was thrown into chaos after an event called “The Blast” kills off most of the adult population, leaving four adults to take care of a group of orphaned children. Set twelve years after the initial blast, those same children had now taken over the jobs that their parents had died performing. The Nexgens are led by Van, who acts as the intermediary of sorts between Management and the rest of the teenage workforce, helping to make sure that the kids are okay and taken care of. Everything starts to change as he realizes that the management is keeping information from him and the rest of the crew, and, with the help of Kaitlin, the daughter of the head of Management, seek out a better understanding of life in the colony. But then, with a single radio broadcast, everything changed, leading to worries of survival and of the unknown potentially closing in on them and opening up the eyes of the Nexgens to a brave new world.

Blaine C. Readler’s story of an abandoned mining colony is great–full of suspense, drama, and intrigue. The story follows Van and Kaitlin, alternating from view to view, giving us both sides of life inside the colony, for Nexgens and for Management. I enjoyed the pacing and the story, but I felt that there could have been more descriptions of the characters, colony, and surface. Another detail that is worth mentioning is that, throughout the story, you find slang terms, which created a misunderstanding what would be considered common knowledge terms and sayings. Overall, it was a great story, and although I went in worried it was going to turn into some teenage love story, it carried well and gave us a great story of survival when the odds of that are minuscule, and well worth a read.