DNF Review – Moon Over Brendle by Jeff Noon (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 249 pages
Publisher: Angry Robot
Release Date: May 12, 2026
ASIN: B0FM6ZKW8S
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eBook for Review from NetGalley
Rating: 3/5 stars

“The Dust tells the story…

1968, Lancashire: It is Joe Sutter’s last summer before going to secondary school. His world is like ours but beyond and beside what we know is Greot; a vast swirling rainbow of many-coloured dust. It settles on the dead, it swathes cities and fields. Joe is one of the few who have the gift of always being able to see it. But no one knows what Greot is. Is it the trillion-eyed god? The history of everything told grain-by-grain? Prophecy? The magic of creativity?

Joe can’t know; all he wants to do is draw comics and listen to music. Then one day, after climbing up to the ancient tower on Brendle hill, he meets an old writer of pulp SF books who is determined to pass on the power and joy of telling stories. And everything changes.

Decades later Joe is a successful SF novelist, and the time has come to tell his story, not only of how he became a writer but also how the secrets of the dust were revealed to him, one grain at a time.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this on ebook to review through NetGalley.

Thoughts: I found this incredibly slow and ended up setting it aside 25% of the way in. This has a very nostalgic feel to it. I just kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing really happened in the first 25% of the story. This might work for those who like deliberately paced coming of age stories with some magical elements to them. I struggled to get through the first 25% and was dreading sitting down to read more, so I decided to call it.

Set in rural England in the late 1960’s Joe Sutter is plodding through the summer. However, Joe is not like other kids he can see the Greot, a swirling could of rainbow colored dust. Joe’s summer gets more intriguing after he meets an old writer of SF books.

The idea of the Greot is intriguing, as is the fact that some can see it and others can’t. However, at 25% of the way in, we were still watching Joe wander around and do “summer stuff” like kids used to do; get in trouble, hang out in abandoned train-cars, and try to navigate his best friend getting interested in girls. It was, to put it bluntly, boring and not at all relatable to me. I really struggled through this and was just getting to the part where Joe meets the sci-fi writer. I absolutely dreaded sitting down to push through more of this…so I set it aside. I have a lot of books to read, and this just wasn’t for me.

The part that I did read flowed well and was grammatically easy to read. It just felt like we get a lot of Joe wandering around and admiring the colors of Greot and not of anything intriguing happening. I was hoping that the mystery of what Greot was would help pull me through the story, but I found myself disinterested in reading about more swirling colors as I progressed.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this was incredibly slow and I did not find it at all engaging. The writing flows fine, and there are some interesting ideas in here, they just don’t seem to go anywhere. I liked the idea of Greot, I liked that only certain people can see it, I enjoyed the nostalgic summer feel to this. I didn’t enjoy the characters and didn’t enjoy the fact that by 25% of the way in the main character was still wandering around aimlessly. This might be for those who enjoy a very deliberate sci-fi story with a nostalgic feel to it. It was not for me. Giving it a neutral 3 stars because I read less than half the book.