Stories featuring the moon

Over at Kirkus, Thea from The Book Smugglers has a post about SFF set on the moon:

Artemis & Other Moon-Inspired Science Fiction Stories

While there are lots of things to say about Artemis—from a characterization and authenticity viewpoint, in particular—the book dives deeply into life on the moon and how such a society could work. The tradition of the moon and its ingratiation in the sci-fi canon is strong—here are some other moon-centric SFF reads, inspired by (or as alternatives to) Artemis:

…And then we get a list.

Off the cuff, I can think of two books set on the moon:

1) Growing Up Weightless by Ford, a book I really liked in many ways but which offered a terrible ending . . . well, that’s not fair. One aspect of the ending upset me a good deal, so that I have never been able to re-read the book. Which was otherwise very good indeed, so maybe eventually I will actually pull it off the shelf again and just brace myself for the ending.

And then of course

2) The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein.

So let’s see which books Thea picked out … yes, I see quite a few books I haven’t read (as well as Heinlein’s classic). I have read one:

(3) Life as We Knew It, by Pfeffer.

Thea acknowledges this one is cheating, since it doesn’t take place on the moon. It sure doesn’t. This is the one where the moon sudden approaches the Earth for no explained reason, wreaking total climactic havoc and ending life as we knew it. It’s quite good, though I have some serious caveats with the plot.

But if we’re going to include it, then hey:

(4) Seveneves by Stephenson is clearly eligible under the rule that the moon rules the plot. You remember, this one starts with the idea that the moon shatters into a zillion pieces for no explained reason, wreaking WAAAY more havoc than just moving it a little closer.

Okay, if you’re a fan of Lunar stories, click through and check out Thea’s list.

Anybody got a favorite moon book neither of us mentioned?

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