To Dust You Shall Return: Review of Jeff Noon’s Moon Over Brendle

Eden Kupermintz Under Review:Moon Over Brendle. Jeff Noon. Angry Robot, May 2026. Even though Jeff Noon’s Moon Over Brendle begins by naming its protagonist “Joe Sutter”, it’s hard not to read it as a memoir. Sutter, like the author of the book, is a prolific science fiction author. Sutter is from the environs of Manchester; Noon was born in nearby Lancashire, where much of the book takes place. This leads us to a tantalizing thought: if Noon and Sutter are so much alike, can Jeff Noon also see a magical dust, invisible to the rest of us, coating our world? This conceit lies at the heart of Moon Over Brendle. Set in an England much like our own, we learn that the world is blanketed by Greot. Briefly visible to everyone for a few minutes every day, this multi-colored dust is otherwise undetectable, except to a small number of people called witnesses. Even fewer are “beholders”, witnesses who seem to have a closer relationship with the dust. And, indeed, Greot is able to have…