Things are true or they aren’t, no matter how old the person saying them happens to be.” She drained her drink. “And don’t you dare give me any bullshit about generational politics and demographics and youthful rage and all that crap. You and Mom and Pug, you all ‘know’ that humans aren’t really needed on Earth anymore, that robots can do all the work and that artificial life forms called corporations can harvest all the profit, so you’re just hiding under the floorboards and hoping that it doesn’t all cave in before you croak.” What do you do here, anyway? Try to live as lightly as possible, right? Just keep your head down, try not to outspend that little precious lump of dead money you lucked into so that you can truck on into the grave. He’s got a duty to try and make something of it with whatever time he’s got left. We’re going to be left on this ball of dirt for however many years we’ve got left. He’s going to turn into ashes and vanish. There's much that's outstanding in this Project Hieroglyph contribution, starting with the obvious Heinlein inspiration: the title, the hard-SF theme around the moon and writing such as: However, as a whole, the novella is still well-crafted, keeps the reader's interest, and contains quite a few interesting and thought-provoking concepts & ideas - even if I don't agree with all of them.

I also felt that, while the piece in many places felt almost like an 'argumentative essay,' throwing in the medical stuff (dying wishes and such) felt like shoehorning in an appeal to base emotions in the service of the argument - which is a very poor debating technique. Unfortunately (?) I am one of those people mentioned within the piece who would think that this project not only fails to be inspiring or important, it's really quite a terrible idea. A medical crisis spurs a jumping-off point from the two men's original Burning Man tech project into a bigger concept - one involving the Moon. We fast-forward a few years into the future. (I would've believed that everything has happened IRL, as depicted.) However, then it takes a jump into the sci-fi realm. Up to this point, the piece reads almost like a personal essay by Doctorow. While recovering from a cancer scare, he meets a kindred spirit who introduces him to the culture and philosophies of Burning Man - which are described here with a wide-eyed enthusiasm that I just do not share - I found it rather naïve-seeming.

It's written to be convincing, but while it's well-crafted, I remain unconvinced. This long story is full of passion and sincerity.

Man who sold the moon