The Oxygen Farmer
Colin Holmes
CamCat Books
Copyright 2023 by James Colin Holmes

“Mil” Harrison is a stubborn old man. In his seventies, he’s been living on the Moon for half of those years. His job? “Farming” oxygen (getting it out of the lunar regolith) to be used for life support and fuel. He’s got the knowledge that comes with his years to be able to fix most of the physical problems he deals with, the experience to know which rules can be “bypassed” when necessary, and the general respect and collection of favors to be given some slack when he does choose to “bypass” a rule.

While trekking across the lunar surface to collect a part he needs for a repair, he takes a shortcut across an “exclusion zone”. Normally, these are Thou Shalt Not Enter Under The Severest Of Penalties areas. He’s not worried; no one seems to know just why this particular area was given that designation. Then he quite literally stumbles over something that isn’t supposed to be there….. And when he investigates the site – because he can – he finds something really interesting and REALLY dangerous.

You know, it’s really refreshing to read a SF novel set in a future just close enough so that people alive today will be alive then, and it’s NOT some global warming heckhole, a cyberpunk-ish noir world, or a corporate-controlled dystopia. One figures that in fifty years, if things go reasonably well, we’ll have bases on the Moon and be preparing for a manned mission to Mars.

There’s a lot more to like with this novel. Holmes keeps the action moving at a brisk pace. Possibly too brisk; travel between the Earth and the Moon seems to go faster than it probably should. I’m not entirely sure that the Worst Case Scenario presented (and promoted in the jacket copy) has even the tiniest chance of coming to pass. The real threat is more political than physical, but that isn’t going to get a potential reader to hold on to the book once they pick it up. I also have some minor questions about the lunar geography as presented. But I can let all that pass.

One thing I do want to note that’s touched on in the story is the loss of information over time. The documents Mil finds in the secret facility were printed with cheap ink on cheap paper, and even locked away under the Moon’s surface, the text has faded away over the decades. Similar documentation back on Earth is very hard to find, since – because of the secrecy – it was never digitized and stored on a computer. This sort of thing isn’t science fiction; given how rapidly computer technology has been changing, there are still a LOT of “legacy” systems in use (e.g. COBOL, a computer language introduced in 1959 and still in use in many businesses and government agencies), along with piles of stuff stored in a format or on a medium that very few people have the equipment to access. Can we be sure we are actively updating ALL the vital information so future generations can access it if need be?

Anyway…..

Mil happens to be estranged from his family, which does have an effect on the plot. For once, it’s not because there was some silly misunderstanding in the past; it seems much more likely that he, his daughter, and his granddaughter all went their separate ways in life and just gradually lost touch. It happens! There is a bit of a reconciliation at the end, but it’s not a sappy Lifetime Channel “kiss and make up” scene. Mil, while recovering from his plot-concluding heroics, gets to acknowledge that he’s happy with how his daughter and granddaughter are moving up in the world.

The thing I like the most, though, is that the protagonist is Old. Not someone in their 40s (which qualifies as Old in Hollywood), nor is he a doddering oldster yelling at clouds while waiting to be put in an old people storage facility a nursing home. Mil is still fit and active – which you kind of have to be if you’re going to be living and working on the Moon.