FYI: this is the answer to an early reader question that I received for my FAQ so this is up at the Other Systems Website too.
The Light Side of the Moon deals with serious issues that the world must decide is right or wrong. I feel as a species, we are on a precipice of change as our electronic creations become sentient. We can choose to evolve our morals with technology or not. I look at The Light Side of the Moon as a cautionary tale if humanity chooses not to evolve. If we continue to allow adolescent greed or anger rule how we interact with people.
As the internet grows and expands, we have discovered other inventive ways to hurt eachother: trolling, swatting, revenge porn.
The internet is not the problem: we are.
Okay back to The Light Side of the Moon: some of the events that happen in the novel actually occurred when Europe sent prisoners to Australia and the Americas. (For example: women and girls attaching themselves to Correctional Officers for protection.) One might think that these events still don’t occur, but sadly they do.
Some say the adult content in the book is the sex and vulgar language, but in my opinion, the true adult content is that the world in the novel allows children to starve, refuses to pay workers a living wage, and humans still have atrocities such as child betrothal and marriage, economic slavery, and an unjust correctional system. We can go to colonize the moon, we can go to other planets, but until we face the problems we have now, they will always be with us.
That being said, even in the darkest places, there is hope for humanity, because good people exist. In my opinion, that is the story I wrote in The Light Side of the Moon.
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