“Crater,” the first in a young adult science fiction series by Homer Hickam, is a coming of age story of one Crater Trueblood, an orphan and helium 3 miner living at lunar mining colony over a century hence.
The Moon where Crater lives has become a human frontier, dangerous as much for some of the people (and other beings) who live there as for its hostile environment. The various lunar colonies primarily live by extracting helium 3, an isotope not found in nature on Earth, and exporting it to the mother planet as a fuel for fusion reactors.
In a way Crater’s story is as familiar as that of Harry Potter, albeit in a different milieu. He is young, vulnerable, awkward, but with a destiny that neither he nor the people around him fully understand. There is also an annoying best friend, a pretty (and very tough) girl, and a mysterious father-figure benevolent dictator of the mining colony known to most as “the Colonel.”
Crater is taken from his comfortable life as a helium 3 miner to undertake a special mission for the Colonel, who has noted qualities in the boy that might allow him to succeed where others have failed. All he has to do is to travel with a helium 3 convoy to the capital city of the moon, take a space elevator to a cycler space ship, and retrieve a certain package to bring back to the Colonel.
The package, while it will serve as a catalyst to changing things on the moon, is not as important compared to what Crater experiences in his quest to retrieve it. Like many other quests, the journey is more important for Crater than the destination. Along the way he will find out what he is made of, what his origins are, and what his purpose is.
Homer Hickam’s 22nd century Moon is a fully realized world, with enough technology and future society to intrigue the futurist in any science fiction fan. Not since Robert Heinlein was alive and writing juveniles has there been the like.
“Crater” is the first of a trilogy. It is hoped that someone can see the movie potential of a boy space settler as has been realized for a boy wizard and a boy vampire. Highly recommended.
Source: Crater, Homer Hickam, Thomas Nelson, 2012
