Rich Man's Sky

By: Wil McCarthy

Narrated by: Catherine Ho

A new novel of real SF from Wil McCarthy

Space: a tycoon's playground. From a space station full of women to a monastery on the moon, from a Martian reality-TV contest to a solar shade large enough to cool the Earth, the dreams of a handful of trillionaires dictate the future of humanity. Outside the reach of Earthly law and with the vast resources of the inner solar system at their disposal, the “Four Horsemen” do exactly as they please.

The governments of Earth are not amused; an international team of elite military women, masquerading as space colonists, are set to infiltrate and neutralize the largest and most dangerous project in human history. But nothing is that simple when rich men control the sky, as everyone involved is about to discover.

©2021 Wil McCarthy (P)2021 Recorded Books Inc.

Space: the final tycoon frontier

Wil McCarthy’s Rich Man’s Sky is the first installment in a trilogy. Set in the near future, the world’s richest, trillionaires, have staked out outer space as their new playground. One such elite is building a giant shade to help cool the Earth and governments are concerned about its weapon potential. An all-girl squad of secret agents is sent to infiltrate and intervene.

McCarthy crafts a cliché set of sci-fi tropes with innocent altruistic rich elites falling prey to paranoid governments that are only interested in control, rather than progress. Interspersed is musings by a monk establishing a monastery on the moon that seems to be there simply to detail aspects of potential lunar habitats. There’s a golden age, 1950’s feel to the tale.

The narration is reasonable with decent character distinction. Pacing is smooth.