The Hard Side of the Moon
By Hugh A. D. Spencer
Sure, a lot of genre fiction can start to sound the same after a while. There are conventions to respect and boxes to check. But SF is probably the biggest tent of them all, and a book like The Hard Side of the Moon by Toronto author Hugh A. D. Spencer stretches the old familiar fabric in so many new and original ways it’s a treat that leaves you not only wondering where it’s going at every turn, but where you’ve been at the end.
Matthew Bishop is a young man slowly going nowhere in 1970s Alberta – making robot mannequins, working as a campus radio DJ, falling in and out of relationships – when destiny comes calling in the shape of his mother’s new boyfriend. It turns out he’s an employee of Progressive Apparatus, a mysterious organization that readers familiar with Spencers’s other work will recognize (most recently in his story collection The Progressive Apparatus). Before long Matthew is working as an “intern” in a slave labour camp on the moon, doing work related to a plan involving aliens harnessing human brain power.
A loving satire not only of SF but its fan culture as well, Spencer has written a novel that’s both lighthearted and, in its final pages, profound.
Alex on SF 
Putting this one on the list!
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It’s something quite different from the usual run of SF, but I thought he really pulled it off, and he’s a fun writer.
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Glad you enjoyed another book by this author.
SF does seem to be the go-to tent these days. Throw in a spaceship then write whatever the feth you want and ‘sf fans’ will read it.
I’m not bitter, but I guess I like most of my SF to be short stories or to feel like it was written between 1950-1990
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Spencer likes to play with retro SF tropes. I think you might like Extreme Dentistry.
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I’ll have to see if I have access to that.
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