Moonbound: A Novel

Robin Sloan expands the Penumbraverse to new reaches of time and space in a rollicking far-future adventure.

It is eleven thousand years from now. A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a remote village under a wizard’s rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of eye-popping discoveries and challenges: unknown enemies, a mission to rescue the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel encounters an entity from an earlier civilization, a sentient, sensitive artificial intelligence with a special perspective on all of human history—who becomes both Ariel’s greatest ally . . . and our narrator.

Moonbound is an adventure into the richest depths of Story itself from the creator of the Penumbraverse, Robin Sloan. It is a deeply satisfying epic of ancient scale, blasted through the imaginative prism of one of our most forward-thinking writers. And this is only the beginning.

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Published Jun 10, 2025

464 pages

Average rating: 8.33

6 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

boyleschris
Oct 18, 2025
Chris's recommendation
BugsBooks
Jul 11, 2025
9/10 stars
This book is WEIRD in a good way. It’s exceptionally fun and is one I think you need to read more than once. A mix of sci-fi and fantasy concepts following a young boy on a quest. Post apocalyptic, talking beavers, AI, different dimensions, and wizards. A true celebration of story telling.

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