Tranquility's Child by Greg Urbach; ebook

In the summer of 2049, Doctor Thomas McKinsey and a small band of revolutionaries initiated a coup d’etat and declared the moon a republic. Six months later, McKinsey’s followers were dead and he was dying. With the Earth entering a prolonged global struggle, McKinsey programmed the computers of Tranquility to carry out his vision of a unified world, even if accomplished at a terrible cost. As an afterthought, he instructed the computers to raise the moon’s only surviving resident, a baby born just days after the evacuation.

Following in the tradition of Tarzan of the Apes and Clan of the Cave Bear comes Waters of the Moon, the chronicles of an orphan raised on the moon with computers as his only companions. In the first book of the series, we meet young Grey Waters, a thoughtful and intelligent boy struggling to survive in a world ruled by machines. His guardian is the Machiavellian Life Support Computer, dedicated to carrying out Doctor McKinsey grand strategy. Grey’s bitter enemy is the Security Computer, who feels Tranquility can never be secure with a human roaming about it long corridors. Overseeing the project is the cautious Defense Computer, always watching but rarely committing until all the factors are calculated. Grey has friends among the computer community, including the Medical Computer and Library Computer, but he also has critics, such as the distrustful Energy Computer and over-stressed Maintenance Computer.

The book’s early chapters witness the struggles of the Life Support Computer to keep Grey safe and guard the moon from the warring alliances on Earth, for none of the computers want Tranquility’s weapons used to alter the delicate balance of power. Anxious to please, Grey studies hard hoping he will grow up to be a computer, but he can be stubborn as well, which often leads him into serious trouble. In time, much to his disappointment, he learns he will never be a computer. He is a human, an outsider, and alone. He also suspects the computers are engaged in a great project, something so secret they rarely share information even among their own systems. He is given the title Governor of the Moon, but he knows the computers will never relinquish their power. Through long years and many battles, Grey gradually reaches maturity, and then one day, through a remarkable accident, he discovers Tranquility’s true purpose. Is he willing to leave Earth’s future in the control of the computers, or will he rebel against their authority?

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