59 pages • 1 hour read
Stuart GibbsSpace Case
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 17-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary: “Moonwalk”
“The Lunar Surface”
An intense passage from the handbook precedes this chapter, warning about the danger of journeying onto the lunar surface without protection. The handbook explicitly forbids children from ever going out of the airlock and reminds adults to check their suits multiple times before exiting.
“Lunar Day 189, Evening”
Dash explains his theory to Kira, telling her that it’s likely that Holtz sent his phone out into the solar array using a robot. Kira suggests that they go retrieve it together, and Dash hesitates, telling her he wants to wait and try to find his other connection first. He won’t reveal who it is, and they make a plan to regroup that evening if he can’t find another option.
Unfortunately, Dash isn’t able to talk to Zan, even though he sees her from across the room. At one in the morning, Dash and Kira meet at the air lock and get each other dressed in the space suits. They test their suits, making sure they can communicate via the audio. When they first exit onto the lunar surface, Dash feels “a sense of euphoria” (273) as they bound out together. On their way toward the solar array, Dash pauses to look up at the huge robot arm that extends over them. Kira is thrilled, showing how far she can leap at one time.
As their search for the phone starts to seem hopeless, Kira begins telling Dash about something else she discovered—she stops talking when Dash finds the phone buried in moon dust. But as they begin moving back toward the base, Kira finishes her thought, admitting that she found the footage of Dr. Holtz in the bathroom. Dr. Holtz wasn’t on the phone; he was talking to himself, suggesting he may in fact have been struggling with mental illness. Before Dash can fully respond, the robot arm begins moving above them, and it becomes clear that someone is trying to kill them with it.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Bad Robot”
“Emergency Preparedness”
A short excerpt on emergency preparedness reminds lunar residents to make sure they are always ready for something to go wrong.
“Lunar Day 190, Possibly the Last Minutes of My Life”
Dash and Kira begin running away from the attacking robot arm, though they are uncoordinated and get separated. The arm follows Dash, who quickly realizes how difficult it is to run fast on the moon. He is hit by the arm, which has a kind of robotic hand. As he falls onto the moon’s surface, he hears an ominous “clink” (286) as the glass of his helmet cracks.
Kira tells Dash over the audio that the arm is coming after him. But Dash keeps still, realizing that because of the space dust coating him, the person operating the arm may struggle to spot him via the video interface. Kira asks where Dash is, and Dash lies, correctly assuming that the person controlling the arm is listening to their audio. Dash runs toward the phone where it has fallen and is able to grab it before bounding in a different direction from the oncoming robot arm. As the arm crashes into a part of the base, Dash and Kira rush inside to the air lock; when the door shuts, the glass in Dash’s helmet shatters completely. Nina and Dash’s parents find them by the air lock, both furious and horrified, and Dash proudly holds up Dr. Holtz’s phone—only to realize that the screen is shattered.
Chapters 17-18 Analysis
One of Dash’s most important characteristics is his ability to track patterns and outsmart people as a result. The theme of Finding Creative Solutions to Problems is an important one on multiple levels throughout the novel. Gibbs builds this theme over time, showing Dash dealing with small issues like evading Nina and with bigger problems like Patton Sjoberg’s violence. In the climactic robot arm scene, Dash uses his ability to look at the different components of a scenario and come up with very creative solutions. In the case of the arm, Dash both tracks how it moves, how it sees, and how the person operating it might be listening in on the helmet audio. All these elements play into the motif of visibility, with Dash manipulating different types of visibility to outsmart his would-be murderer. Dash’s navigation of complex violent situations is a critical part of his character and is what helps him eventually solve Holtz’s murder in the resolving chapters that come next.
A more subtle aspect of Space Case is the way that Gibbs’s narrative builds an argument for giving adolescents more freedom in their lives and experiences. While the novel takes place on a base on the moon, Dash describes multiple times how mundane his reality it: He goes to school, he talks to friends, he eats unpleasant food. The only other adolescent until Kira arrives, Roddy, spends most of his day in the virtual reality platform, just like he would have on Earth. While the adults on base might be engaged in demanding, complex work, the adolescents are left with far too little stimulation. Through Dash’s investigation of Dr. Holtz’s death, however, Dash begins having experiences that are more exciting, engaging, and nurturing. He grows as a character through these complex interactions. His growth augments the novel’s insistence that reality and honesty have more to offer than fantasy worlds and comfortable lies. This contrast is highlighted by Dash’s reaction to his trip to the lunar surface, where he is euphoric over both the physical freedom and the beauty surrounding him. Gibbs seems to be arguing, through this narrative, that adolescents—and perhaps everyone in general—needs opportunities to face challenges and work through difficult problems in order to learn.
The structure of Space Case follows a traditional detective mystery in that characters are slowly revealed over time, but the solution to the investigation is not revealed until the final chapters. While the climax of the novel could be considered Kira and Dash’s encounter with the murderer via robotic arm, they still do not know who the murderer is. This tension heightens the suspense toward the novel’s close and keeps readers hooked. Additionally, while one suspect has been ruled out in Daphne, almost every other person on the moon base is still under suspicion: Kira, Dash, and Zan have not yet successfully identified who the perpetrator might be. Like other novels in this genre, the protagonist has to pull together numerous threads, ruling out leads and options, until they can finally ascertain the solution to the mystery.
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By Stuart Gibbs
