Day, Thomas A.

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Day, Thomas A.

PERSONAL:

Male.

CAREER:

Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Best Books list, 2006, Kirkus Reviews, for A Grey Moon over China.

WRITINGS:

A Grey Moon over China (novel), Black Heron Press (Seattle, WA), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

First-time author Thomas A. Day presented a stark picture of the not-too-distant future with his 2006 novel A Grey Moon over China. By 2017 the control of energy has become a cause for war; the United States is battling the combined powers of Japan and California. Amid the chaos, a group of renegade soldiers steals the plans for an energy device that could not only end the wars, but could also stop a worldwide environmental disaster. However, they use this device instead to secure their own freedom from Earth before it collapses, finding their way to a distant planet that is part of an abandoned space colonization effort. Once there, though, they learn they have brought many of Earth's problems with them. Entertainment Weekly contributors Will Boisvert and Noah Robischon felt the debut author's "epic paints an engrossing high-tech-decaying-into-low-tech future." Similarly, Library Journal writer Jackie Cassada thought Day offered "a grimly optimistic picture of the future." Higher praise came from a Kirkus Reviews critic who found the novel an "uncompromising dramatization of the futility of violence." The same reviewer concluded, "Inventive, disturbing, intriguingly populated and utterly fascinating: an altogether remarkable debut."