Pegasus Colony

An interesting concept isn’t enough to outweigh the limp prose and weak characters in this debut novel of interstellar space travel. In the mid-22nd century, a disaster causes humanity’s first space colony, located on the planet Akiane, “in the constellation Pegasus,” to be cut off. Communication is re-established 300 years later, at which point the colonists have no interest in the World Space Coalition that sponsored their original mission. They do, however, agree to talk to communication tech Jessica Hewitt, who thus becomes the person on whom all hope of a reconciliation rests. The core plot is interesting enough, split between the backstory of the colonists surviving on the harsh planet and the conflicts brought about by the economic and scientific interests of the Terrans, but Moore’s writing undermines the story, with generally flat prose occasionally giving way to awful faux-Southernisms (“as grateful as a cat in a tuna factory,” “grinning like a possum eating a sweet potato”). (Mar.)