Rogue Moon

by Algis Budrys

Shortlisted for the 1961 Hugo Award, Rogue Moon is the disquieting and story of what happens when monstrous scientific ambition is matched by human obsession.The moon had finally been reached, and on it was found the most terrifying structure, that killed men over and over again, in torturous, unfathomable ways. Clearly, only a mad man or a suicidal maniac could explore its horrible secrets.All his life, Al Barker has toyed with death. So when the US lunar programme needs a volunteer to penetrate a murderous labyrinth, alien to all human comprehension, Barker's the man to do it. But what is required of Barker is that he withstand the trauma of dying, not just once, but time and time and time again ...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Horror, Classics, Audiobook, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

175 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Algis Budrys was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names Frank Mason, Alger Rome, John A. Sentry, William Scarff, Paul Janvier, and Sam & Janet Argo.

Called "AJ" by friends, Budrys was born Algirdas Jonas Budrys in Königsberg in East Prussia. He was the son of the consul general of the Lithuanian government, (the pre-World War II government still recognized after the war by the United States, even though the Soviet-sponsored government was in power throughout most of Budrys's life). His family was sent to the United States by the Lithuanian government in 1936 when Budrys was 5 years old. During most of his adult life, he held a captain's commission in the Free Lithuanian Army.

Budrys was educated at the University of Miami, and later at Columbia University in New York. His first published science fiction story was The High Purpose, which appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in 1952. Beginning in 1952 Budrys worked as editor and manager for such science fiction publishers as Gnome Press and Galaxy Science Fiction. Some of his science fiction in the 1950s was published under the pen name "John A. Sentry", a reconfigured Anglification of his Lithuanian name. Among his other pseudonyms in the SF magazines of the 1950s and elsewhere, several revived as bylines for vignettes in his magazine Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, is "William Scarff". He also wrote several stories under the names "Ivan Janvier" or "Paul Janvier." He also used the pen name "Alger Rome" in his collaborations with Jerome Bixby.

Budrys's 1960 novella Rogue Moon was nominated for a Hugo Award, and was later anthologized in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two (1973). His Cold War science fiction novel Who? was adapted for the screen in 1973. In addition to numerous Hugo Award and Nebula Award nominations, Budrys won the Science Fiction Research Association's 2007 Pilgrim Award for lifetime contributions to speculative fiction scholarship. In 2009, he was the recipient of one of the first three Solstice Awards presented by the SFWA in recognition of his contributions to the field of science fiction.

Budrys was married to Edna Duna; they had four sons. He last resided in Evanston, Illinois. He died at home, from metastatic malignant melanoma on June 9, 2008.

Reviews

[Althea Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've long been aware of Budrys as a 'classic' author in the SF genre, and 'Rogue Moon' was a Hugo nominee, so this seemed like a good place to check out his work.

A mysterious alien artifact has been discovered on the Moon. Under the supervision of a brilliant researcher, Dr. Hawks, it's being investigated, with the help of a new, Star Trek-style transporter technology which allows men to beam to the moon. Luckily, the body that ends up on the moon is only a duplicate. "Luckily," because the artifact on the moon is an enigmatic "American Ninja Warrior"-style obstacle course, and men keep dying. The horrible experience leaves even the duplicates back on Earth insane.

Dr. Hawks' solution, presented to him by a slimy administrative type, is to recruit an adrenaline junkie with a deathwish, Al Barker, rather than the upstanding young astronaut types he's been going through. Will Barker have the "right stuff"?

The story isn't really 'just' a science-fiction adventure. Budrys uses his premise to do a lot of implicit editorializing about "types of men," "relations between the sexes" and whatnot, by contrasting Hawks (and the program administrator) with Barker, and their girlfriends with each other. Unfortunately, I felt that this attempt to elevate the tale beyond its basic speculative premise weakened the piece rather than strengthening it. I wasn't fully on board with his whole 'essential differences between men, and what makes a 'real man'' digressions - but his ideas about the nature of women are just deeply peculiar (and flat-out wrong, IMO.) (Basically, he seems to be saying that a woman can either be supportive or non-supportive of her man, but the idea that a woman might have qualities independent of how she relates to a man seems to have never occurred to him.)

I appreciate a good, deeply thoughtful spec-fic story, but I prefer simplistic adventure stories to half-baked social theory.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Open Road Media for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are solely my own.

EDIT: If this book sounds intriguing to you, I highly recommend reading Alastair Reynolds' 'Diamond Dogs' instead: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

[Apatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is one of the SF Masterworks series of classic sf novels so it clearly is not something to be sniffed at, plus it was cited by Alastair Reynolds as a favorite so I duly added it to my reading list (a year or so ago!) and finally got around to it. Really not what I was expecting to be honest.

Set in 1959 it is the story of a scientist who sends a man to the moon to investigate a mysterious alien construct (Big Dumb Object ) picked up by a satellite photo. Unfortunately, rocket science is not sufficiently advance to transport men to the moon so they have to resort to a sort of teleportation instead. This entails that the traveler is converted to a signal and then transmitted to a receiver on the moon. The only snag is that the alien construct mysteriously kills him before he gets very much investigation done, so the scientist finds a man - Al Barker - who has a special mindset to duplicate and transmit to the moon. He dies soon after arrival and a little exploration but then they send him again and again so he gets a little further in his exploration every time. That is the gist of it, great sci-fi concept, but...

Normally characterization in an sf novel is something to be applauded as it is all too rare in sf novels, for example, Asimov, Clarke and Philip K. Dick are brilliant sf writers but character development is not their forte. Algis Budrys has done something highly unusual here, he spent a lot of time developing his characters and less time writing the science fictional parts. However, I don't think this worked out well as none of the characters he essayed here are likable or particularly interesting. The central character Dr. Edward Hawks is a melancholic academic type, apparently entirely devoid of humor. The other protagonist Al Barker is a self-centered annoying bastard who reminds me of Jay Gatsby of all people. The book also features a superfluous romantic relationship which is less believable than the teleportation technology. For some reason, the characters spend a lot of time psychoanalyzing each other and themselves to soporific effect. The narrative only livens up when they get around to beaming up to the moon and Al Barker dies over and over again (much to my satisfaction).

In spite of my complaints above, the sci-fi aspect of the book (and the shortness of it) makes it a worthwhile read. The ramification of this type of instantaneous transportation very well thought out. I personally feel the implication of this technology is handled better than the much more recent Altered Carbon or Pandora's Star (though I much prefer both this books to Rogue Moon). The alien artifact is more of a plot device than anything else, so don't go expecting a Rendezvous with Rama or Ringworld here. With reference to the artifact concerned I do like this passage though:

"Perhaps it's the alien equivalent of a discarded tomato can. Does a beetle know why it can enter the can only from one end as it lies across the trail to the beetle's burrow? Does the beetle understand why it is harder to climb to the left or right, inside the can, than it is to follow a straight line? Would the beetle be a fool to assume the human race put the can there to torment it — or an egomaniac to believe the can was manufactured only to mystify it? It would be best for the beetle to study the can in terms of the can's logic, to the limit of the beetle's ability. In that way, at least, the beetle can proceed intelligently. It may even grasp some hint of the can's maker. Any other approach is either folly or madness."

So a recommendation with some reservations then, a 3 stars rating seems about right.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

6.0 stars. On my list of "All Time Favorite" novels. I just re-read this novel after having first read it about 15 years ago and I was blown away by how amazing this novel is. Algis Budrys was a phenomenal writer who wrote highly intelligent science fiction during a time when much of the SF being published was of the stereotypical "spaceships and aliens" variety. Quality science fiction at its most basic is usually about ideas and the human condition. Well this book screams about the human condition and what drives people to explore and confront the world around them. This, along with Beyond Apollo by Barry Malzberg and Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, are examples of psychological science fiction. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!

Nominee: Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1961)

[kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remembered this being a whole lot better than it was. The premise is SO COOL and there are moments of genuine introspection / exploration of mortality / identity / human nature BUT oh my god 90% of this book is macho dudes having pointlessly overwrought conversations with each other and engaging in pissing contests about who is more of a "real man" and who is going to win the trophy woman. (Also CW for casual domestic violence yeesh.)

The conversations Main Scientist Dude has with his girlfriend are actually super unintentionally hilarious because he just Wall of Texts her all the time (for PAGES) and never lets her say anything and then she's like "I love you". I just chose to read all her replies to him sarcastically, like when he's all telling her about his childhood and then:

'Please go on telling me about yourself,' she said.

NO REALLY THIS IS FASCINATING PLEASE CONTINUE.

Later:

'Do you want to know what it is with you and women?'
Hawks blinked at her. 'Yes. Very much.'
'You treat them like people.'
'I do?' He shook his head again. 'I don't think so.'

She goes on to credit him with doing a ton of things we've never explicitly seen him do, like respecting her boundaries and not being condescending toward her. And then he contradicts her again!

'I take up as much room in the world, the way you see it, as you do. Do you have any idea of how rare a thing that is?'
Hawks was puzzled. 'I'm glad you feel that way,' he said slowly, 'but I don't think that's true.'

Sorry, Elizabeth, I'm with him on this one.

'Cobey'll be very upset,' Hawks was saying, lost in thought. 'He'll have to pay the technicians bonus-time rates.'
'Who's Cobey?'
'A man, Elizabeth. Another man I know.'

YES THIS IS DEFINITELY YOU TREATING HER LIKE A PERSON.

Then there's this gem:

'Women--' he said earnestly, 'women have always fascinated me. [...] there was something about women. I don't mean the physical thing. I mean some special thing about women: some purpose that I couldn't grasp. What bothered me was that here were these other intelligent organisms, in the same world with men, and there had to be a purpose for that intelligence. If all women were for was the continuance of the race, what did they need intelligence for? A simple set of instincts would have done just as well. And as a matter of fact, the instincts are there, so what was the intelligence for? There were plenty of men to take care of making the physical environment comfortable. That wasn't what women were for. At least, it wasn't what they had to have intelligence for ... But I never found out. I've always wondered.'

[Cue another long scene where he tells her his life story and she quietly listens. This story is about how he was dating a woman in college who once said she didn't want to spend the evening listening to him talk and he immediately fell out of love with her and never spoke to her again.]

He opened the car door, half turned to step out, and then stopped. 'You know -- You know,' he began again, 'I do talk a lot, when we're together.' He looked at her apologetically. 'You must get awfully bored with it.'
'I don't mind.'
He shook his head. 'I can't understand you.' He smiled gently.
'Would you like to?'
He blinked. 'Yes. Very much.'

THEN MAYBE TRY SHUTTING UP AND ASKING HER ABOUT HERSELF SOMETIME

'Maybe I feel the same way about you?'
He blinked again. 'Well,' he said. 'Well. I've been sort of assuming that all along, haven't I? I never thought of that. I never did.' He shook his head.

*facepalming intensifies*

Bonus: I definitely decided from the tenor of their weirdly-emotional conversations that he was in a closet relationship with his second-in-command. There's a bunch of this sort of thing which doesn't seem to make much sense otherwise:

'My God, Ed, what's happened to me? What am I doing to both of us? All I ever wanted to do was help you, and somehow it's come out like this. I never should have come here today, Ed. I shouldn't have done this last thing to you.'

So anyhow someone who is not from the 1950s should write a better version of this book pls.

[Gusto Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

It started out so well...

With a premise like the one this book has, it seemed like a must read. published and set in 1960 before we went to the moon, this sci-fi tells of space exploration. Some kind of implied NASA agency has created a cloning device that transports a pilot's double up to the moon to check things out. The astronaut can sense what his clone is experiencing. And there's an entity up there that keeps killing clones. Cool? One would think, right?

And the pilot that they rope into doing it next is a real tough guy/thrill seeker. He IS fascinating. And his girlfriend is hot and flirts with every man alive. Therein lies the problem. The story becomes a soap opera. Very little of it deals with the ghostly killing cloud on the moon. There is lots of character study in it, but very few chills.

I tried to take into account that this was written 50 years ago, but there were plenty of well-crafted masterpieces back then.

Gusto Dave

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is arguably the most amazing science fiction novel of its period. Written in 1960, it was surely shocking at a time when the big SF sellers relied on characters that were so wooden and stock that they would have regarded Pinocchio as a real boy. It's not that Algis Budrys did away with those stock characters - we still get the obsessed scientist, the bitter hard-bitten antihero, the vamp and so on - but what he does with those characters is unprecedented.

The underlying premise of Rogue Moon has been reused by Hollywood quite a few times. It effectively crops up, for example, in The Prestige, Source Code and Edge of Tomorrow - one of the main characters repeatedly dies. In this case it is because a mysterious alien object found on the Moon kills everyone who enters it. An attempt at a solution is to use a (newly developed) matter transmitter to make two copies of a person, one who goes through the object and dies, the other of whom is still on Earth. The Earth copy somehow has the same memories as the one who dies, so should be able to feed back information - but it takes someone who is arguably a psychopath to survive this experience repeatedly, gradually getting further and further through the device.

Usually in these repeat death stories, the whole point of the storyline is to achieve whatever they are attempting to do. But in Rogue Moon, achieving the result is almost irrelevant. It's the consideration of the impact of the knowledge of impending death on the characters and the way that they interact that is central. In a hugely admiring review of the book, the SF author James Blish claims that every character in Rogue Moon is insane. I think that's an exaggeration - but they certainly all have serious issues. And unlike anything else of the period (think of Asimov's Foundation series, for example, where the characters are magnificently two-dimensional), the characters may still be wooden, but they spend most of their time analysing each other's behaviour. It's as if all these stock characters were psychoanalysed by the novel.

Women play a bigger part here than in most SF of the period, though by modern standards they are still primarily there to reflect on their interactions with men. Of around six main characters two are female - one the aforementioned vamp and the other Blish suggests is effectively her boyfriend's (the obsessed scientist's) mother figure, though given she's much younger comes across more to me as someone with a father fixation. Even so, the women do play a far more significant part than they did in many SF books of the time.

I only came to Rogue Moon when it was 61 years old - and obviously the way it reads to some extent reflects the way science fiction was written back then. But it is remarkable how different it is to the typical book of the period. Fascinating.

[Jason Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rogue Moon succeeds as a vehicle for existential philosophy, but falls a little short as a story. Characters are interesting but often behave in ways that make little sense, with perplexing motivations. The story revolves around an ominous, alien structure, but when you finally delve into the structure’s mysteries, it’s something of a letdown.

I did enjoy Rogue Moon, though, and despite some disappointing revelations, the melancholy ending was a beautiful way to close out this book.

[Paul Weiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Character studies and science philosophy in a fictional setting.

Pre-dating Arthur C Clarke's alien monolith in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by almost a decade, ROGUE MOON tells of an equally bizarre alien construct on the moon called simply "the Formation". Dr Edward Hawks, a ruthless scientist is determined, at any cost, to plum the depths of the Formation and to puzzle out its origin and purpose, by sending a steady stream of hapless volunteers on a deadly one-way mission of exploration to the moon. Dr Hawks' recently built matter transmission device is capable of sending an exact duplicate of someone to the moon and into the Formation. The "original" of these intrepid explorers is held on earth in a type of stasis - a state of deep sensory deprivation - until the duplicate is killed in the maze inside the Formation. This frequently happens within minutes of their arrival on the moon. Although the nature of the process of matter duplication and transmission allows the original to share the experiences of his duplicate, the experience is so powerful as to drive every volunteer to hopeless insanity when they awake after the death of their doppelgänger.

Al Barker is an adventurer and utterly self-centered thrill-seeker - one might almost say, a sociopathic A-personality suicidally driven to ever greater heights of physical achievement regardless of the potential cost to himself and those around him. Hawks realizes that Barker may be the only person in the world with the physical strength and the ability to negotiate the intractable puzzles of the Formation combined with the mental strength to retain his sanity in the doing. Sure enough, a string of repeat missions ends in the death of Barker's duplicate but each trip finds him delving deeper and deeper into the mysterious path through the Formation. Likewise, against all odds, the original Barker remains sane and when he awakes, he is able to pass on the intelligence of his foray into the Formation to Hawks.

For this reader, it was a matter of some frustration to discover that even at the end of the story, the nature and purpose of the Formation remained undisclosed. While the hypothesized scientific nature of Hawks' matter-transmission device was discussed at considerable length, it became clear by the end of the novel that aliens, the Formation and science were not really the main themes of Budrys' ROGUE MOON at all. The story was really an extended essay probing the nature of the ethics of scientific discovery and exploration. In addition, Budrys spent considerable effort talking about the philosophy of matter transmission and the possible meaning of a relationship between humanity and an alien species capable of creating a device like the Formation.

While much of this philosophical navel-gazing is delivered via stiff-necked dialogue between characters who would now seem very dated and out of place in this century, ROGUE MOON does deserve kudos for having the courage to place theme over plot in a genre that is much better known for its guns ablaze space opera approach. I don't think I'd go quite so far as to call it the masterpiece that some have labeled it but ROGUE MOON is worthy of a sci-fi fan's time and effort and deserves a place in any well-stocked library of classic science fiction.

Recommended.

Paul Weiss

[Efka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nepaisant to, kad ši knyga įtraukta į visokius geriausių, įtakingiausių, klasikinių ir kitus panašius sci-fi literatūros sąrašus, man ji pasirodė nykus, nuobodus, neaiškaus siužeto kūrinys. Nelabai net supratau, ką autorius norėjo juo papasakoti, ir kodėl sci-fi kūrinyje apie mėnulį ir ateivių labirintą mėnulis ir ateivių labirintas lieka net ne antram, o kokiam ketvirtam plane, o pirmus tris planus užima Coelho'iška filosofija ir, pardon my french, nuolatinis betikslis visų veikėjų matavimasis kurio didesnis ir kuris sugebės toliau prieš vėją myžtelt.

Nekažkas. Skaityt siūlau nebent iš smalsumo, bet už kokybę ir malonumą, arba tiksliau, jų nebuvimą, liksit atsakingi tik patys. Aš siūlau negaišti laiko, yra šimtai to vertesnių knygų.

[Ints · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kad ieraudzīju šo grāmatu nopirku ar lielu sajūsmu. Ne jau katru dienu gadās atklāt leišu Sf autoru par kuru neesmu dzirdējis.

Grāmatas abstrakts man šķita vilinošs, mistisks artefakts uz Mēness, kuru mūsdienās sauktu par pārkūra trasīti. Cilvēki mēģina to iziet, jo iespējams galā kaut kas būs. Taču katra kļūda ir nāve. Piecdesmito gadu ASV flote nav ņemama ar pliku roku, viņi teleportē cilvēkus uz Mēness un tie dodas pētīt. Te ir interesanta koncepcija par pašu teleportāciju, nolasot uz magnetafona lentes katra cilvēka atoma vietu ķermenī oriģināls tiek iznīcināts un uz Mēness salikts jau tāds pats no vietējiem materiāliem. Uz zemes tiek izveidots vēl viens oriģināls un viņu smadzenes nonāk superpozīcijā, kas nodrošina notiekošā atcerēšanos. Problēma rodas neveiksmīga pētnieka nāves brīdī, ne katrs spēj pārdzīvot savu nāvi un palikt pie vesela saprāta.

Superīga ideja vai ne? bet tai tiek veltītas labākajā gadījumā divdesmit lapaspuses. Viss pārējais ir dažādu vīriešu arhetipu analīzei no vīriešu skatupunkta. Galvenais varonis, izcils zinātnieks šai jomā ir nepārspējams. I sevi izanalizēs i citiem vietu ierādīs. Viņam viss ir gadu uz priekšu izplānots. Pārējos tēlus mēs redzam tikai caur viņa prātu, tā kā vajadzīgā uzskatu gaisma tiks garantēti nodrošināta.

Vispār jau pārējie varoņi ir diezgan klišejiski Connington - meitu ģēģeris un superslepenas korporācijas HR vadītājs. Viņam galvenais ir dabūt to ko vēlas.

Barker - tāds YOLO cilvēks, kuram patīk riskēt un kuram izrādās ir nospļauties par paša nāvi. Viņam svarīgi būt pirmajam, nepārspētam un vienīgajam. Ideāls cilvēks artefakta pētīšanai.

Tad nu šos tēlus autors apzelē no visām pusēm, jo "Only Man can understand Man".

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in the late 1950s, this is a sf novel that is considered something of a classic by sf connoisseurs. Edward Hawks is running a project that puts men on the moon by beaming them up sort of like Star Trek style, except they first make a profile of the person which essentially destroys the original person, but two copies are made. One is kept on Earth; the other is essentially a clone (Budrys doesn't use that word) created on the moon after the profile is beamed up. On the moon an alien structure, has been found but when men try to explore it, they are killed by it. Hawks hired Al Barker to be a volunteer to explore it. Barker has a sort of suicidal personality which makes him a logical candidate for the job. Each time he is beamed up and enters, he gets a little farther than previously. His copy on Earth has a mental link with his clone on the earth so that even though the moon clone dies, the earth clone has all his memories.

Much of the novel also deals with the interpersonal relationships between Hawks, Barker, the HR person Cunningham, and the female characters - Claire Pack and Elizabeth Cummings. Interesting psychological commentary.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read "Rogue Moon" by British sci-fi author Algis Budrys years ago, and I recall liking it for a variety of reasons but mainly because it was, I recall, extremely dark and weird.

There was probably more horror elements in this novel than sci-fi, as it dealt with an ancient alien structure found on the surface of the moon that kills anyone that enters it. It doesn't just kill you, though. It brings you back to life repeatedly to kill you again and again.

I don't honestly recall much of it, but what I do recall still induces goosebumps. This is probably worth a good re-reading.

[Frank Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

An alien object has been discovered on the moon and it's acting like a death maze. Each time the artefact is approached the person can get a little further than the previous attempt before being killed. The head researcher, Hawks, teams up with the human resources guy to hire a psychopath, Barker. The plan is to clone Barker by some method that leaves him telepathically connected to his clones and to send the clones into the artefact one after another.

None of the characters are sympathetic to readers; Hawks is happy to repeatedly kill his subjects, the HR guy keeps a list of psychopaths on call for odd jobs, Barker is, well, a fkn psycho and his girlfriend is just trying to bang everyone.

A lot of the narrative has little to do with the actual psychological experiments and I found most of the story was rather boring as a result. It's an excellent premise but the story focused on adding background for Barker and Hawks more than on exploring the current dynamic of their interaction.

First published in 1960 this book calls ahead to the free loving hippy movement with Barker giving us his views on why he lets his girlfriend run around and a fair chunk of word real estate being taken up by the girlfriend flirting with Hawks.

There was also a passionate paragraph or three about why women are as intelligent as men which was probably necessary for the books contemporary audience.

Overall I thought this was a great idea but a boring book.

[Stuart · Rating 1 out of 5]

Massively disappointing SF 'Classic" - Clunky Psychology Melodrama
The concept of this book is promising - a mysterious object on the moon is discovered, but all attempts to explore and understand it lead to a string of dead or insane astronauts. I was all prepared for story much like Stanlislaw Lem's The Invincible and Solaris, or at least 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What I got instead was two initial chapters introducing the main characters that were so dry and clunky I really thought that maybe I had the wrong book. Where was this mysterious and deadly aliens artifact? Just these endless and tedious conversations among the scientists and their girlfriends, debating who is best suited for this death-wish mission, and half the time just the most painful romantic melodrama among them. Did Algis Budrys really think he was suited to that type of internal psychology story? Especially in 1960, it may be have a refreshing new approach vs space aliens, shiny starships, and little green martians, but it was so amateurish as to be unbearable for a modern reader looking for a good speculative SF classic. Utter rubbish, if I were feeling uncharitable, which I did after losing 6hrs of valuable listening time. At least I can tick it off the list!

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Überraschend intensives SF-Kammerspiel.

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Twilight Zone-esque tale with no easy answers, about sending a series of men to the moon to explore an alien artifact.

This was a rough read; the writing has aged mostly well, but it IS a lot of bloviating. As it turns out, the bloviating was there for a reason, and pays off with what may be the universe's most poignant "I told you so," but it's still difficult to read.

It looks like from reviews that either the book resonates or it decidedly does NOT. It did with me; I found it in the same category as Solaris and Roadside Picnic, and another book I won't mention, as it would spoil some twists in either one book or the other. Anyway, this is a book about the human condition dressed in a surreal SF tale's clothing.

Recommended if you liked 2001, book or movie. Otherwise I'd be cautious.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that's a 2.5 rating. The science speculation in this book, the mysterious object on the moon and the teleportation technology, is seriously chilling. I loved that part of it. It was interesting and terrifying. Unfortunately most of this book is about some bitter, obsessed middle-aged men and their pissing contests and whatever it means to be a "real man" in the 1960's. There are two female characters: one is a one-dimensional femme fatale who only stays with real men, and the other is nothing but an opportunity for one of the male characters to talk about his feelings because he can't do that to other male characters.

[Oblomov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Year of New Authors

A breakthrough in transmission technology has allowed mankind to dub a human being and materialise their doppelganger on the moon, with a short term psychic link to their original on earth. This monumental progression for science is somewhat hindered by an alien structure on the lunar surface, as indescribable as it is very, very deadly. With every volunteer who enters swiftly dispatched by the malevolent architecture, and psychologically damaged by experiencing their own death through their clones, the head scientist searches for a man prepared to die over and over again.

Why in the ground control to Major Tom fuck is this book not more well known? I mean... Jesus, forget Solaris or Duncan Jones' Moon, this novel is a pungent Smörgåsbord of philosophical, moral and sociological questions, including, but far from limited to: concepts of personhood, suicide, PTSD, loneliness, the psychopathy of politics, legacy, power, masochism and, of course 'What has science done!?'

The themes and questions the book raises are delightfully exhausting, but most fascinating to me was the exploration of gender. The portrayal of rival forms of feminity is about as nuanced as you could get for the early 1960s (it's just Whore and Madonna, honestly), but Budry's exploration of manliness fascinated me. We're given a triumvirate of toxic masculinity with our three main male characters, with the dare-devil jock, the slimy master of manipulation, and the cool detatched, unemotional scientist. All three archetypes are utterly broken as they suffer their own inner turmoil, are desperate for some form of true connection with another human being, and their bravado and power are exposed as worthless facades for a sad and isolated vulnerability.

Sadly, there are two notable downsides to the novel.
The dialogue: It suffers from the Haruki Murakami problem of everyone being far too quick to offer monologues on their own secret desires within two minutes of meeting someone, as well as the Ayn Rand bullshit of a character's personality being second to their philosophical role, so everyone has an uncanny valley feel of a human being.
The second fault is the weird eldritch building. It piques your interest through the entire book, but ends up as nothing more than a disappointing maguffin. It's weird, it's mind bending, sure, but we're given no clue or even discussion on the what/why/how of the other worldly structure, and once the characters are able to navigate this Ikea from Hell, it's swiftly forgotten so they can talk about humanity again.

This a novel length wiki page of thought experiments, but it still works as a compelling narrative with memorable characters (even if their dialogue is a little off). It invokes that beautiful sense of suffocating, God awful ennui I seem to love inflicting on myself, apparently for no good reason other than a spoonful of surreal salt helps reality's existential crisis go down.

[Malice · Rating 3 out of 5]

La idea me gustó, pero siento que divaga bastante en temas que no vienen al caso. El tema de la exploración lunar queda en segundo término y no lo toca más que al final. Hay bastantes escenas que parecen de relleno y eso que se trata de un libro bastante corto.
En conclusión, creo que si se hubiera centrado más en la exploración y las implicaciones de la muerte en los exploradores, me hubiera gustado mucho más.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Without going into spoilers, we've reached the moon via matter transmission & found a Lovecraftian maze that we must explore & decipher before the Russians get there. (Remember, this was published in 1960 when we lagged behind them in the space race & the Cold War was at a very frosty peak.) This story revolves around the man who leads the project.

I could have lived without the first 2 chapters. They're a long introduction of the characters which was unpleasant to read - people at their worst - & most weren't very important. Chapter 3 wasn't bad & things really picked up in chapter 4, but bog down again later as Budrys keeps exploring human nature. By the end, it makes sense why he did this. It was a great ending & is worth enduring what comes before. It's not a terribly long book, so skim a bit if you must, but slow down & really read the end. Wow! It's a 2 star read with a 5 star end.

I read a short story which had a similar theme & I think did it every bit as well, but in a much shorter format, but I can't think of the name of it or the author. I'll put a description under a spoiler tag. I'd love to find it again, but it does contain a major spoiler for this book.
A young woman goes to a facility to be teleported to another planet. The bored technician runs her through & then finds out the automatic disposal didn't work. Like in this book, teleporting someone elsewhere reads & sends an electronic copy. In the short story, the machinery is supposed to get a confirmation of receipt & destroy the original. It didn't & there's a very somber discussion between the two before the guy talks her into going back in to finish the process. I think I read this in an anthology 30 or more years ago, possibly 70s or early 80s.

[Ben Loory · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was a reread, as it's one of my favorite books. hadn't read it in a while. it more than holds up. the thing i like about this book is that my brain can't contain it. the character interactions are so intense and limited, mostly, to dialogue (and often speeches) about abstract subjects... ethical and existential conundrums, what it means to be a man, to be brave, human... sometimes it makes me feel like i'm a little kid who had wandered out of bed in the middle of the night and is eavesdropping on his parents' party. all that added to the genius of the story (a really tense adventure story featuring a 2001-style deal with a strange artifact on the moon, star trek-style teleportation, limited telepathy, and repeated unavoidable journeys through death and out the other side)... this book just totally rocks, is all i can say. also it has this amazing feel of being in the late 50s... it's totally of a time and a place, as well as being universal... it's like a black and white neo-realist thing... i think probably starring lee j. cobb and maybe karl malden... with claire bloom (from the haunting) as the girl... the bad girl, not the good girl... the good girl is probably donna reed or something. who cares. anyway, i think it is safe to say that they don't write them like this anymore. if, in fact, they ever did. if they did, i sure don't know about 'em. it's sort of like if hemingway and mickey spillaine got together to rewrite the screenplay to tarkovsky's stalker.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gods, just lost my brilliant review... In summary

1. Superficially a SF
2. Really an essay on what it means to be me
3. Been there, done that
4. Know what it means to be me
5. It can have only 1 ending (this the SF part)
6. I was bored

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

In these days of ten volume, backbreaking series, it’s easy to forget that sometimes brevity can equal quality.

Algirdas Jonas Budrys (1931-2008) is a writer who deserves greater recognition in the genre, though these days, if he is known at all, he is perhaps better known as a critic. For the record, much of his time was spent writing the Book Reviews column for Galaxy (1965-71) and The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy (1975-93), as well as being a teacher at the Clarion Writers Workshop and an organizer, editor and judge for the Writers of the Future awards.

So: a stylist who didn’t publish just for the sake of it.

Although he published comparatively little SF himself, especially in novel form, what he did I’ve usually found to be pretty good. Who? (1958) became a film in 1973 and Michelmas (1977) was a novel that predated the internet but was fairly prescient in being a world where the lead character is involved in solving a mystery using his self-invented omnipresent computer. (We would probably call it MultiVac or the Internet these days.)

With that in mind, Rogue Moon, his most famous story, is sold to us under a bit of a misnomer. The title makes ideas of galactic-spanning Empires and FTL spaceships spring to mind: nothing could be further from the truth.

At the beginning this isn’t that clear. Rogue Moon seems to be initially a great exploration puzzle, about a large alien artefact found on the surface of the Moon. All attempts to explore it leads to the intrepid explorers being killed or going insane in various ways, but their deaths slowly reveal that the process of dying is the point: that and by dying in various ways by moving through it humans learn something about themselves, as presumably would the aliens, should they still exist. It is a Clarkean test, an ordeal that humans must pass in order to evolve and develop beyond their present state.

As this shows, Rogue Moon is a deeper and more complex novel than we expect at first. Though set on the Moon (of the title), its core, as Graham Sleight points out in his introduction, is more about death and the way that people approach it and deal with it.

There’s less space opera and more sociological analysis, which can throw some readers off-balance, expecting more flash and bang. It is less ‘outer space’ and more ‘inner analysis’.



The characters involved are interesting, because some of them are downright unlikable. Many of the characters are complex and at times shockingly unpleasant. Manipulative, selfish, demanding: these are not the clean-cut heroes and heroines we’re conditioned to expect.

Our main character, Edward Hawks, is a seemingly emotionally detached scientist who has sacrificed his morals and ethics in order to cope with the fact that he knowingly sends men to their deaths in the search for scientific knowledge. Al Barker is ‘the solution’, a deeply cynical and unpleasant character but whose nastiness to those around him is what seems to be needed in order to survive the transfer to the Moon and the tests set by the alien artifact. Claire Pack is a sexual predator who admits that she’s a bitch to everyone, knows what she wants and how to get it and how to both tease and ‘reward’ those who please her. Vincent ‘Connie’ Connington is the personnel expert who introduces Hawks to Barker, obsessed with Claire and yet rebuffed by her, a necessary target for Barker to use as a punchbag. Elizabeth Cummings is an artist who, in comparison to the other sociopaths, seems quite out of place as the nice girl who Hawks falls in love with.

Reminder: this is an SF novel, right?

It has been argued that Rogue Moon is one of the heralds of the 1960’s New Wave for that reason, though its origins is at least peripherally in the SF trappings of the 1950’s. We still have a desire to ‘beat the Russians’, for example, and much of it can be read as an intellectual puzzle.

There are some differences. The mode of transportation is a matter transmitter rather than a spaceship, for example. This use of matter transmission to access the artefact allows a discussion about identity, as the process creates two: one on the Earth whilst the transmitted version explores the alien realm, something which allows the explorer to die again and again.

After the 1950’s explosion of space exploration novels, this is a good example of how authors were trying to examine and push the boundaries of SF by the late 1950’s and early 1960’s that led to the New Wave. There’s more here about human relationships than spaceships. The downside of this is that some readers may find the navel-gazing and the deep intuitive analysis this thought-experiment creates rather wearying, although I would add myself that it is not as bad as some of the New Wave got to be later. Much of the book deals with this analysis through lengthy language so well honed that there is an element of unreality about them. It is not how people normally speak. At times it can be a tad hysterical, with lots of angsty speeches about the value of death and its relevance to life, the meaning of a man and the human race’s place in the universe.

I can see why readers at the time would’ve been perplexed by it, as something quite different to what else is out there. The ending is a resolution of sorts, yet also deliberately ambiguous and may annoy some readers expecting everything to be tied up at the end.

Though short - more novella than novel – Rogue Moon has some memorable scenes and dialogue that remain with the reader after reading. The deficiencies of its age are outweighed by the quality and maturity of its writing, which at the time of their original publication over fifty years ago must have been head and shoulders above the rest. In less than 200 pages it covers weighty ideas that belie their origin and questions the idea that all SF has to be starships and deathstars.

Often regarded with Bester’s Tiger! Tiger!/The Demolished Man, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz as a seminal book at a time of change and growing maturity in SF, Rogue Moon is a thought-provoking, even if unpleasant novel, that deserves the over-used term of ‘classic’. A recommended read, but not for everyone, and although it is one you should at least try, it’s not one you would read repeatedly.

It was nominated for Best Novel in the 1961 Hugo Awards, but lost out to Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz.

[prcardi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Storyline: 3/5
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 2/5

Some of these old science fiction writers had some talent. Budrys spends his on concocting a provocative scenario that makes one ponder what they would do in that situation. He spends time getting the constraints, justifications, and technological details in place to make it a haunting choice and a delightful possibility. Written about a decade before we landed on the moon, Budrys still had hope for finding wonders in the near-Earth orbit.

These old science fiction writers also had a habit of squandering their talent. Budrys tries really hard to make this a psychological drama - so much so that the science fiction story is in the background for most of the telling. This was an attempt at serious literature, a stab at strong personalities thrust into the paths of one another and watching the psychological tension build. It is supposed to be mysterious and suggestive, somber and reflective, but none of that was going to be pulled off in a short 1960s science fiction story about the moon. So what we readers get is a tension-filled story with characters all vying for some sort of relational supremacy all while something interesting with science and space goes on in the background.

Some neat ideas; a neat scenario, some strong though largely uninteresting characters. This is probably rather good science fiction from the era, but it pales in comparison to the works that would start coming out later that same decade.

Reminds me of: Frederik Pohl's Man Plus or John Brunner's The Whole Man.

[Simon Hedge · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know how all the characters in the Winnie The Pooh stories are apparently displaying various types of mental disorder? Well, this book is kind of doing the same thing. But where the denizens of the 100 acre wood are a likeable bunch with a few foibles, the characters in this story are broken, unpleasant and often dangerous. A person with training in the field of psychology could have a fine time going through the book diagnosing the conditions of the cold almost psychopathic Dr Edward Hawks, the self-destructive machismo of Al Barker, the compulsively manipulatory Claire, the deluded narcissism of Connington…. Each character is a mass of physical and mental ticks, all detailed in the text against a background of a science fiction story that asks the reader to confront some big questions and still tells an exiting tale of a mystery on the moon.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Have to say I really hated everybody in this book. Too little of the story is about the SF-ness idea, maybe 1/10th. The other 9/10ths are a boozy, alcoholic examination of machismo, in a pissing contest of the three male leads. Women treated weirdly. Hate this book.

[Ira (SF Words of Wonder) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out my full, spoiler free, video review HERE.
This one had some great SF elements but don’t expect the book to focus on those. Burdrys made this character focused, and let me warn you, the characters are not that likeable. Somehow, I still really enjoyed this one. There were some really interesting themes and ideas explored about life/death, an unknown alien presence and cloning. Not one I’d recommend to everyone but I can see why this one is considered a classic.

[Sue Burke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Warning: contains spoilers.

Although this novel was praised by Alfred Bester as “one of the finest flashes of heat lightning to dazzle us this year,” that is, the year 1960, and John Clute, in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction , called it “now widely regarded as an sf classic,” I respectfully disagree.

I think there was a great SF story in there trying to get out, but it stood as much chance as an escape from Alcatraz. The author also seemed to be trying to write a different story than the SF one, and he failed at that, too.

Clute said the “perfectly competent surface narration deals with a hard-SF solution to the problem of an alien labyrinth, discovered on the Moon, which kills anyone who tries to pass through it.” Well, it aspired to being competent. Readers are shown some technology about the means to reach the Moon, or rather, the reader must wade through long monologues about the technology. This could have been a story with a lot of action. Instead it’s largely a collection of windy speeches: a lot of telling, not much showing.

In addition, the alien labyrinth on the Moon is a piece of nonsense once we get on the inside. Passing through it added no more meaning to the story than swimming through an alligator-filled moat. It’s a lost opportunity to create a transcendent story about an alien artifact that tells us something about our universe.

Clute also says, not unreasonably, that the means to get to the Moon, which involves creating two copies of a person, then killing one of them, “is a sustained rite de passage, a doppelgänger conundrum about the mind-body split, a death-pean.” Well, it aspired to being that, too. The idea isn’t really explored, however. Instead, various characters deliver long monologues about life, death, courage, and what it means to be a man (to be macho masculine, that is, not a human being).

For example:

“A man should fight, Hawks,” Barker said, his eyes distant. “A man should show he is never afraid to die. He should go into the midst of his enemies, singing his death song, and he should kill or be killed; he must never be afraid to die; he must never be afraid to meet the tests of his manhood. A man who turns his back -- who lurks at the edge of the battle, and pushes others in to face his enemies --” Barker looked suddenly and obviously at Hawks. “That’s not a man. That’s some kind of crawling, wriggling thing.”

The reader will also find long, sometimes shouty, monologues in which men jostle over who is the sexually dominant alpha male. (What does this have to do with an alien artifact on the Moon?)

In addition, although Budrys gives us strong characterizations, those characters are deeply emotionally troubled, disturbingly self-destructive, and some of them might be sociopaths. They spend a lot of time (and speechifying) trying to hurt each other emotionally and sometimes physically in a vicious psychodrama that is a pointless sideshow to the actual SF story. Edward Albee could have written it, and probably less tediously.

Carl Sagan, in a 1978 article for the New York Times, called Rogue Moon one of the “rare few science fiction novels [that] combine a standard science fiction theme with a deep human sensitivity.” He seems to have read it as a boy, and I think children have such an intense, sensible hunger for big ideas with that they can be willing to overlook big ideas that are poorly presented. An adult might think otherwise: this is a could-have-been-good SF story that gets obscured by a different story, and both are badly told.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A piece of classic SF with an intriguing premise that explores some of my favourite themes but for me seemed to lack focus and was distracted by pointless character interactions and conversations.

Many a time I've pondered what really happens to you if you were teleported from one location to another, the original you destroyed but your exact molecular structure accurately recreated in the target location. How would you really know you were still who you were before after the event? All you would have are your memories which might have been changed in subtle ways not objectively verifiable to anyone else. What about if more than one copy of you was recreated, which is the real you and which should go back to living your life afterwards.

These questions (and more) are at the centre of this book in a story set in 1960 in which although we haven't yet managed to fly people to the moon, we are able to teleport there. A strange artefact is discovered on the dark side of the moon that kills all who enter it if they breach a seemly pointless set of rules that they can only discover by trial and error. Ed Hawks, who's heading this exploration of the artefact, has come up with a mind blowing way of keeping people alive when they enter it, if only he can find someone who can keep their sanity after experiencing their own death...

My main problem with this book is there were pointless digressions as superfluous characters were introduced leading to many pointless conversations that did little or nothing to move the plot along or develop the characters that were central to the story. Often these conversations were hard to follow which didn't help. These formed such a large portion of the book that it has to bring down my rating of an otherwise fine story.

To sum up, a great story that was significantly flawed.

[Zorlon Zorlon · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars.
This is a weird little novel that fares better with a little reflection afterwards. I hesitate over it even as I write this as I am more uncertain than I usually am what I just read.
Edging out of what might be familiar science fiction tropes, Rogue focuses more on the conflict between love and death, as he himself pointed out in a later interview. That conflict is very much to the fore here.
The science fiction bits are simple: scientists find a "formation" on the moon that is a kind of death-laden labyrinth through which an individual must precisely thread their way else they die (shades of Roadside Picnic/Stalker). Lots of people die. Or rather there teleport copies die and the originals go insane.
The scientist in charge of the exploration team teleporting copies of the doomed explorers to the moon from Earth is recommended a guy who might be able to figure things out since he is a quite repulsive monomaniac dripping machismo and who leads a devil-may-care daredevil existence doing what we might call nowadays extreme sports. This asshole doesn't mind dying repeatedly. Or does he?
That's the crux of the novel, long fascinating conversations about death, life, and death. There's some love, too, so that always lights the way.
Again, a befuddling novel that will linger with you and which has some quite harrowing and fascinating moments.