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`The Oxygen Barons" (1990) is one of the last books in the Ace Science Fiction Specials Series 3, which was edited by Terry Carr; following his death in 1987, Damon Knight took over the editing duties. It is unclear which of them was responsible for handling this book; neither Carr nor Knight were ardent enthusiasts of hard SF, in which `Barons' could be firmly categorized.

`Barons' is set several centuries in the future, in which the inner Solar System has been colonized or exploited for raw materials, which are delivered via mass drivers from one outpost to another. The Moon has been terraformed and possesses a stable, breathable atmosphere and a network of rivers and large bodies of water. Its government is divided between two feuding factions, the Nearside and the Farside. These polities are loosely confederated with a variety of off-world corporations and trading blocs who are vying for power among themselves. A particular bone of contention is the extravagant amount of oxygen needed to sustain the operation of the Moon; there is a move afoot on the part of some of the off-world corporations to divert its oxygen for use in sustaining other colonies elsewhere in the system.