Lunar Braceros

by Rosaura Sánchez, Beatrice Pita

This book is published by Floricanto Press. www.floricantopress.comwww.LatinoBook... century Cholos living on Cali-Texas Reservations have few options. One of them is signing up as Moon Tecos, technicians disposing of Earth’s waste on Lunar sites. After discovering that their Teco contracts are one-way tickets, the Lunar Braceros are forced to take matters into their own hands.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever read. Lunar Braceros delivers. It’s a powerful social narrative that creates an alternative imaginative reality and explores the dynamics of space travel in relation to the Américas.” Angie Chabram, UC Davis

I’ve been waiting for this kind of novel for most of my life, a work of science fiction from below, focused on people of color, that takes on big ideas about history, politics, capitalism, philosophy, and science.” Curtis Márez, UC San Diego

Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita teach in the Literature Department at the University of California, San Diego.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Latinx

122 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 22, 2009

Reviews

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe I would have liked this better if I hadn’t been forced to read it for class. The three stars I gave are all for the premise. It’s such a great social commentary. However, it feels like about 50% of the book is just an infodump. So much page time is spent getting the reader up to speed in a history lesson of what happens between now and the year 2125 and it’s incredibly hard to get through. I feel like some of this could have been cut or even replaced with more character development for the braceros.

[spoon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok here's the thing--this book is clearly written by a bunch of academics and really does feel like it's for academics. For me, it's not really a novel or a story, or if it is a novel I don't like it. I just get kinda bored that there's this constant profusion of terminology and Big Academic Words that stand in for any actions or interesting fictional engagement that I love in books. A world is sketched out, explained in terms of intentional capitalism/nationalism/waning biodiversity/etc etc., but this world is more stated than shown and explored; the characters serve to illustrate the forgone conclusions (of course they'll kill people instead of shipping them back to earth--you could ship mined metals back to earth and make more money that way! #capitalism), and the plot points don't punch for me--there's a way to write this that the major revelation of the book (that they're killing people) feels like a surprise, a betrayal, a sneaking suspicion confirmed, but they way it's presented is just like: oh yes; the racist colonialist capitalism strikes again. This is all not to disparage the book for its ideas but to recognize it as a collection of ideas, a sort of academic essay meets fiction and not the fun novel I wanted it to be. There's a critique somewhere about how academic papers trying to pass as fiction lead to unimaginative novels, but at least part of this is on me I guess, because clearly this is not trying to be the novel I wanted it to be.

One other thing--this quote on the back is so freaking annoying. Someone reviewed the book as as "I've been waiting for this kind of novel for most of my life, a work of science fiction from below, focused on people of color, that takes on big ideas about history, politics, capitalism, philosophy, and science" and ~*ok*~ if this book touches you and gives you something what you want I'm not going to yuck your yum. But what I will come for is the idea that what makes this book exemplary is that is like the first book or something to come "from below, focu[s] on people of color, that takes on big ideas about history, politics, capitalism, philosophy, and science." Like are you freaking kidding me? This is the review of someone who thinks SF is sexy now or something. Maybe try reading Parable of the Sower! That checks every single box mentioned and was published 26 yrs before this. Or like Babel-17? I just read that earlier this week, and that also checks every single box here, and was published 53 yrs before this book. Or like just pick a random book by Octavia Butler or Samuel R. Delany or any of the bunch of other SF authors who write about these things. Oh yeah--and they can write about them with out spewing academic jargon every couple paragraphs. Fun! Fact! I get this is a blurb and I get this review might be getting a more specific things that aren't fodder for a blurb (maybe) but this just reads like "SF doesn't normally do these things--but now in this book it does!!! #HighCulture #Academia" Get a grip.

One more thing--this quote form p34: "I got involved with a small group at the university, but as time went one I found the group to be more academic and theoretical than involved in praxis." Real question: does anyone but academics talk like this? And does anyone but academics think this is super relevant and relatable language? In this book there are so many freaking grad students and people writing dissertations (I know--only a few dissertations but that's a few too many) and I'm just.... *sigh* this is a book for people who are invested in grad school and academica on multiple levels (the institution, the language, the production) and this is just not me at all. I cannot with this book.

[Sachi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was assigned this for my Atomic Bomb and Feminism class, but it's a great speculative fiction read that asks the question, "What happens when we try to deal with nuclear waste by sending it to the moon?" Don't waste the chance to discover the answer!

[sdw · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short science fiction novel offers an incisive political critique of the past, the present, and the future.

[Jack O’Connor · Rating 1 out of 5]

This must be what reading science fiction feels like for people who hate science fiction. This is a highly derivative story told in the most unengaging way possible. Composed almost entirely of various characters lecturing about the history of this spacefaring civilization and how it is built on the backs of the disenfranchised. Now I say "various characters" but it's incredibly hard to tell when we have switched narrators as they all SPEAK. THE. SAME. WAY.
There is no personality, nuance, or memorable characteristics; it's all lectures. What little plot there actually is moves at a glacial pace and it was impossible for me to be invested in this surface-level world-building because writers Pita and Sanchez put minimal work into effectively populating this universe. The intentions behind this book are very good, and I appreciate the message that it's trying to convey, but this crap is so dry and dead on arrival, I look forward to it leaving my memory so I don't have to seethe any further. Had this not been assigned to me, I'd have tossed it ages ago. This is the sort of book that makes me question why I'm an English major.

[Ramona Cantaragiu · Rating 2 out of 5]

At 120 pages you would expect to fly through this, but it is actually a very tedious read. It is a combination of a history book with some sort of speculative elements (I would not call it really sci-fi) and a bit of social commentary. The action takes place in the distant future so the author had to work on getting readers up to speed with everything that had happened and this was done in the form of history lessons told to a child (basically huge infodumps that were not at all interesting to follow). The rest of the story is told also through various characters talking to this child... not the best choice, since stuff ended up being repeated and there was a sense that plot progress was slowed down to get everyone's perspective in. And the point is that it does not really amount to much. It is a very banal tale of capitalist exploitation of the poor and underprivileged in a context that is not made interesting by the author. I do not recommend this one.

[Seraphina A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for a college class, and though not a book I would normally reach for, I found it interesting after the first thirty or so pages. It’s hard to follow at first, as it jumps from different POVs and timelines but you don’t know which is which, though this gets easier as the book goes on. It’s about a mother who sends her son a bunch of memories and stories from her life, and mainly from her time as a lunar bracero, which is a continuation of the bracero program but in the 22nd century. It gets into politics and history, but since it’s in the dystopian future, it’s mainly history from years that haven’t happened yet. And it scarily connects to current fears and events. It’s not very informative of Chicano/a culture like I thought it would be, but nonetheless, an enjoyable read. It was also pretty short, but sort of predictable.

[Kelly]

I'm not sure how to review this book, because while I really *liked* it (once I stopped reading to do some background research on the Braceros program from the 20th Century), it's not really well written. In a tiny nutshell, this book does a LOT of "telling" rather than "showing" so there are pages upon pages of "and then this happened....and then this happened....and then this happened." That being said, the *ideas* in this book are super duper fantastic: the fictional future that is painted in this text is really a mirror of the actual past. Lots of re-visioning of the shifting sands of nation-states and alliances. Galactic colonization. Debtors' prisons/reservations and, of course, lies Lies LIES!! I can't *reallllly* recommend it unless you want to do a super deep dive into Chicanafuturism, but if that is your jam, then DEFINITELY GET IN THERE!!!

[Didi | Planty of Curls · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, this is a hard one because I really like the plot and everything, but I could not get past the writing enough to enjoy the book. It constantly changed perspectives with about 5 characters, but it was hard to keep track of who the character’s were and when they were narrating. It was a really difficult read for me to get into, because as soon as I’d understand a little of who was speaking in context to the chronology and plot, it would change up. It felt more like a chore to get through than a leisure read. The narration became more consistent to the end of the book, but I couldn’t say that I enjoyed reading it. I just spent the whole book being confused.

[Joey Smallwood · Rating 1 out of 5]

This may be the worst book I ever read. It's up there for certain. It's not so much a lack of talent but a laziness for any sort of illustration. Complex emotions become feeling bad etc. The story line is silly bu somehow most of my class enjoyed this book. So if you like shitty books, this one is for you!

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. Interesting dystopian ideas from a Central American authors point of view. Written as a series of messages to the main characters kids presented well. Overall it’s a bit choppy. Character development was pretty good.

[Eduardo Norte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confuso, plagadito de info-damp, muchisimos errores de maquetacion que complican las lecturas y con un potencial enorme que acaba siendo un poco petardo. Remonta en algunos pasajes, pero en general, malillo.

[Emilia Migliaccio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not many people are fond of the style of the book, but once you accept that the characters are flat and it’s more about what’s going on, I found it enjoyable to read. The text demonstrates strong critiques on capitalism and labor exploitation on immigrant workers.

[natalia · Rating 3 out of 5]

this one was a toughie to read - super interesting concept (thesis lol) but writing was bad and sooo hard to follow and also filled with typos ??? still getting 3 stars tho bc latine speculative fiction in space !

[Jared · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of repetitive but certainly engaging and interesting at parts. Strong basic plot, but execution sometimes lacking

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not one to usually like novels that have little to no dialogue in it. I often find myself skipping full pages when that happens and so when I discovered that this book was done in the style of a memoir and that the duologue in it was brief if even there at all, I was more than a bit apprehensive about reading this. Seeing as how I finished it in the course of a day suggests to me that the dialogue issues weren't really an issue for me, after all.

Lunar Braceros is an interesting science fiction story set over a century in the future where life on the moon is not only possible, but it's where the jobs are now. If you're lucky enough and intelligent enough, you get to live and work up there, paying off family debt and hopefully earning enough money to move your family out of housing developments that parallel concentration camps. Only, any government that actually thinks these camps are a good thing never offers someone a deal that cut and dry. The entire story is from the voice of a mother, telling her child about the revolution that is taking place behind the scenes of polite society in hopes that this child will one day understand why his parents left him at such a young age to further the cause. It's sad and its moving and it packs just enough punch to make you feel for the characters amidst a lot of science jargon. Overall, it was a very good story and left me wandering just what happened to the characters after these memoirs ended.

[D'Argo Agathon · Rating 3 out of 5]

An alright little book -- 120 pages long, an interesting but surface-level look into the future. Sanchez and Pita get some of the science wrong, but that's not as egregious as the two main plot holes that should have been caught, considering how detailed the story is: one, the idiotic premise that, should we overcome the dangers of shooting trash and radioactive waste into space, we would bury it in the moon (obviously we we send it to the sun, not waste the moon... just an absolutely silly plot device which unfortunately is critical to the plan of the book); and two, the ridiculous oversight that once the first team or two started to go missing, the families on Earth wouldn't start bitching. Eh, but other than these two massive holes, the details and the structure of the book are pretty fun, though a bit contrived.

[Krystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was assigned to read this book for one of my college classes. This is not the type of book I read so I had difficulty getting into the story. I also had a very hard time keeping up with the switching narratives. The first 20 pages were especially difficult because I did not have a grasp on the different characters and how they all went together. While I would not read this book again it actually wasn't a bad read. The story was interesting once you understood what is going on. For someone who wants a dystopian story with lots of history behind the story this is the book for you.

[Sierra 🌸 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book for school and it was a little bit of a struggle because of that. I think I would have enjoyed this book a bit more if I didn't have to try so hard to understand everything right away in order to participate in the class discussions. The story is a little bit confusing. The story is told very out of order and certain parts are narrated by different characters, but it doesn't tell you that it's someone different or who it is. So it takes a little bit of work to understand what's going on, but once you get past that, it's a really good and a little bit disturbing story.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a horrible horrible book. It's pretty much out of print, so don't worry, you shouldn't have to read it. Some good ideas, and horrible execution. The plot is way to complex, and the big ideas aren't explained very well. The chaotic form with multiple voices could be a good technique to advance the plot, but it ends up being extremely confusing and repetitive at the same time. The authors are pretentious in their referencing of Latin American history.

[Floricanto Press Latino Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever read. Lunar Braceros delivers. It’s a powerful social narrative that creates an alternative imaginative reality and explores the dynamics of space travel in relation to the Américas.”
- Angie Chabram, UC Davis
“I’ve been waiting for this kind of novel for most of my life, a work of science fiction from below, focused on people of color, that takes on big ideas about history, politics, capitalism, philosophy, and science.”
- Curtis Márez, UC San Diego

[Jackie]

Assigned for a Latin X speculative fiction seminar, along with its sequel. A messy but generative novel written by academics, and it shows.

[clairemous · Rating 3 out of 5]

good concepts and futurism, but just not executed in a way for digestible reading and an enjoyable time

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The academic level is graduate; the artistic level is junior high. Just because you're a successful scholar doesn't mean you'll be a successful novelist.