Space Case: Book Review By Abdurrahman Alturki

Finding great books for me was a bit of a challenge, especially that reading books wasn’t one of my daily habits. But when I remembered the dense book of mystery, Space Case, one of my favorite books I’ve read a few years ago, making the decision was easy. After a day, I already read halfway through the book.

Space Case, authored by Stuart Gibbs, was published in September, 2014. In addition to this series, the Moon Base Alpha series, Gibbs wrote the FunJungle series and his New York Times Bestselling series, the Spy School series, which all fall in the genres of adventure, humor, and mystery.

In this book, the main character, Dashiell Gibson, undergoes a journey to investigate and solve a murder mystery. As the novel opens, he emphasizes how NASA greatly exaggerated the quality and greatness of life in a base on the moon, which was called Moon Base Alpha (I will refer to it as MBA). Before going to the moon, NASA chose families with parents who excelled in research and science to live at the moon base for three years. Dash recalls the offer as incredible and impossible to pass on, full of non-stop thrills and amazement. He says, “Imagine hearing you’ve just won a free three-year stay in the most luxurious hotel in the most insane location imaginable. Oh, and you get to be famous, too. [...] Have-kids-learn-about-you-in-school-a-hundred-years-from-now famous. We were going to be lumped in with the greatest explorers of all time…”

Despite the fame, all of the Moonies (what the people living in MBA are called) believe that everything on MBA – unbearable space food, horrible and time-consuming space toilets, and with almost nothing to occupy your time with– makes the whole point of fame worthless. NASA forbids the Moonies from making a single complaint to the public about MBA, and they are powerful enough to delete any posted complaints. With all of this, Dash describes life on the moon as worse than garbage.

I found this part of the story interesting because this is how the author hooks the reader. In a lot of people’s opinions, living on the moon sounded like a blast. I, myself, was surprised how the author showed how life on the moon could’ve been much worse than we all thought, where the Moonies realize they have taken a variety of things from Earth for granted.

When one of the scientists becomes dead, Dash suspects criminal activity but no one believes him. For the remainder of the story, Dash finds more compelling evidence of a murderer and more suspects. This is a major reason why I believe Space Case is a fantastic mystery novel. The author elevates the tension and intensity of the mystery by introducing numerous suspects. Towards the end, Gibbs raises the uneasiness in the reader to its maximum when the criminal is chasing after Dash’s life before uncovering the murderer. When comparing the main character in the beginning with the end, I observed significant character development, where he transformed from a bored, unfortunate kid to a brave and ambitious detective. The limitations of life on the moon is a recurring motif throughout the novel, and Dash shows how to make the best of a tough situation. Also, his experiences prove that all mysteries are worth solving just to be safe. In Space Case, if Dash dropped the investigation, who knows what else would happen with a criminal on the loose in addition to one murder?