The Next Continent

by Issui Ogawa, Jim Hibbert (Translator)

The year is 2025 and Gotoba Engineering & Construction—a firm that has built structures to survive the Antarctic and the Sahara—has received its most daunting challenge yet. Sennosuke Toenji, the chairman of one of the world's largest leisure conglomerates, wants a moon base fit for civilian use, and he wants his granddaughter Tae to be his eyes and ears on the harsh lunar surface. Tae and Gotoba engineer Aomine head to the moon where adventure, trouble, and perhaps romance await.

Genres: Science Fiction, Japanese Literature, Japan

500 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Issui Ogawa (小川 一水) is a Japanese writer of Science Fiction.

Reviews

[Rachel (Kalanadi) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The hard science and engineering endeavor were fantastic. The characters and their development were less so, and I don't know if that is actually a cross-cultural misfire or weak writing. I was on fire for the plot though, until the last 50 pages or so when it got very distracted and went hurtling off in the "aliens!" direction instead of hitting the emotional high note it was headed for on the project completion. Pretty sure I'll seek out the author's other book that's been translated into English too.

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had a similar feel to Contact (Carl Sagan) and The Secret of Life (Paul McAuley). I enjoyed it, but the main female character was incomprehensible to everyone else in the book, and so was a little incomprehensible to me, too.

[Booknerd Fraser · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an ok Japanese take on something Arthur C. Clarke might have written 40 years ago. The characters are a little underdone; my only real complaint is the multitude of daddy issues.

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of boring, and the relationships are... weird...

[Ami Iida · Rating 2 out of 5]

the story ofthe moon

[Dave Pryor · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This is a book that takes you to the Moon. That endeavor is going to take a lot of mundane and boring work, and the book suffers from that fact. If you want to know some of the critical details any Moon endeavor, then this is a must read. Issui Ogawa tells a good story of the various pressures, technical issues, personal challenges, and political interactions that are going to befall any such effort. Some very original ideas are presented here that every Science Fiction book about realistic planetary exploration has had to consider in the years since it was published.

Some beauty in the reading may have been lost in translation. Anyone familiar with Asian language structure will see some of the hurdles common to rewriting in English here. I get the feeling that the popularity of this book was a bit of a cultural exchange effort between the Science Fiction communities of the world in the late 'aughts, lending to much word of mouth.

Strangely, while I wouldn’t recommend this book generally, unless you are interested in Hard Science Fiction, I would recommend seeking out Issui Ogawa’s other works based solely on the high points of “The Next Continent” and a perusal of previews of his other books. He has an audience, and that is no small feat. He touches on thoughts that you need to consider in the realm of Sci-Fi, and that is often worth giving an author a chance.

[Tenma · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Next Continent” was a fun book to read. I am not into science fiction, and I do not know how many SF sub-genres there are. I don’t even know if this book qualifies as a SF. There are no aliens, no time transport, and no intergalactic wars. “The Next Continent” is an academic and a fictionalized, but realistic, take on what could have been a purely scientific white paper on what would take to build a permanent base on the moon.

In a nutshell, a consortium of private Japanese companies collaborate to build a permanent base on the moon that can accommodate up to 50 visitors. The base was named the 6th continent, hence the title of the novel. This consortium was led by a young heiress apparent to an entertainment conglomerate. The story takes the reader from initial concepts development to actual base construction intermitted by technical challenges and setbacks. There is so much drama in the novel and quite a bit of technical details that gives it a balance from being a pure SF to a slice of life tale.

[Jason Seaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Issui Ogawa's "Lord of the Sands of Time" was part of the first pair of books Haikasoru released last year, and his "The Next Continent" is even better. Part of the reason for the excitement is the feeling that every piece of "Continent" has been meticulously researched and plotted out, as Ogawa shows us how a new manned settlement on the moon would come to be, from the materials engineering to the publicity campaigns. It is, perhaps amusingly for a Westerner reading it, very rah-rah in some ways, with the NASA bureaucracy painted as double-dealing compared to the noble Japanese companies, and there's a combination of innocence and cliche in its use of a child genius as one of the main characters. But it's also earnestly and cheerfully naive in that way, a callback to the early days of science fiction where the fascination of how something new and amazing could come about entirely through human effort (with, yes, a little patriotic fervor thrown in) is enough to carry. the story

[Chris Duval · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended: Issui Ogawa's "The Next Continent," (2003; translated by Jim Hubbert, Haikasoru, 2010). This is SF that an engineer could enjoy: technological optimism, attention to techie details (e.g., vibrational parameters on a space flight)--Heinlein would have been okay with it; toward the end it throws in some wilder stuff--reminding me of Sir Arthur Clarke. There's lots of materials science--e.g., how one might make concrete on the moon (assuming water ice in a shadowed polar crater). Some might be uncomfortable [spoilers] with the slowly developed romance whose tentative beginnings are between a 13 year-old girl and a man in his 20s, but it's done sensitively. This novel in its original language won the Seiun [Japanese SF fan award)] and judging by the English version, it deserved it.

[E.J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Next Continent is less a conventional story and more a theoretical outlining of how to build something on the moon. The guy knows his stuff and puts in all the engineering, astronomy, physics he can with a dash of politics. There's some thin threading of character drama, but otherwise this is a kind of "how to" book. The engineering/space stuff is great and very imaginitive. I can't attest to how accurate the science is, but most of it read well. I wish there was more of a human dynamic, as the conflict/drama quotient is low, but if you're interested in theoretical space development, this is a decent way to spend the afternoon.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm surprised at how strongly the Japanese language shines through in the translation. I mean, the translation itself is very good, it's plain English...but it's very easy to see it's couched in Japanese culture. I haven't read enough to form an opinion on quality.

Overall...super-hard SF. Not a lot of plot and no singular antagonist, it's mostly protagonists versus obtuse people and the cold vacuum of space. It would be nice if lunar colonization was really this easy...

[Stephen Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really three-and-a-half stars. A little more human-feeling than some of the pulps, but still very reminiscent of the better of them. Does a good job of mixing the ultimate success of the project, as silly as it is in some respects, with reasonable problems and delays. No cardboard villains and the heroes don't sparkle unduly.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tood but somewhat drawn out tale that was longer than needed but not long enough. A little to much sub plots and not enough attention to some main plots. It reminds me of Ben Bova's work but missed out on a lot of the social aspect. It was a good not great book.

[Infinite Scythe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not actually 5 stars probably more like 4.5. I really liked it. A few things weren't really grounded for example why they wouldn't account for setbacks that would push back their timeline and/ or increase their spending. But overall very enjoyable.

[Rita · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. It did engage me at times, but I mostly felt like I was slogging through a plotless piece of hard SF, which is not really my thing.