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A Fall of Moondust
by
For a million years the bubble had been growing, like a vast abscess, below the root of the mountains. Now the abscess was about to burst. Captain Harris had left the controls on autopilot and was talking to the front row of passengers as the first tremor shook the boat. For a fraction of a second he wondered if a fan blade had hit some submerged obstacle; then, quite lite
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Paperback, 224 pages
Published
March 14th 2002
by Gollancz
(first published September 1st 1961)
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The Earth's Moon in the mid 21st Century this frontier land is slowly growing , the future is in its tranquil cities under lunar domes ( Clavius City, population 52,647) . Tourism is a key to financial survival on this remote hostile world. Selene (Moon Goddess) a hovercraft designed to float over the lunar surface especially on the treacherous Sea of Thirst, above the moondust. Only one of these "boats," has been built if successful others will follow you would think . In charge of Selene, is t
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If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.
Swallowed by the Sea of Thirst: "A Fall of Moondust" by Arthur C. Clarke
“He was a boy again, playing in the hot sand of a forgotten summer. He had found a tiny pit, perfectly smooth and symmetrical, and there was something lurking in its depths—something completely buried except for its waiting jaws. The boy had watched, wondering, already conscious of the fact that this was the stage for some microscopic drama. He had seen an ant, min ...more
Swallowed by the Sea of Thirst: "A Fall of Moondust" by Arthur C. Clarke
“He was a boy again, playing in the hot sand of a forgotten summer. He had found a tiny pit, perfectly smooth and symmetrical, and there was something lurking in its depths—something completely buried except for its waiting jaws. The boy had watched, wondering, already conscious of the fact that this was the stage for some microscopic drama. He had seen an ant, min ...more
Oh this was sooo close to 5 stars. It must be, oh gosh, almost 40 years since I read this, and boy did I enjoy it. Arthur C is a magnificent storyteller and an excellent character builder.
This book builds and builds and just when you think (view spoiler)
It is an excellent book, and given that I have always enjoyed Arthur C , I have to wonder why I have not read more (often). I have probably ...more
This book builds and builds and just when you think (view spoiler)
It is an excellent book, and given that I have always enjoyed Arthur C , I have to wonder why I have not read more (often). I have probably ...more
As satisfying as a good HARD SF can be, one complaint often leveled against them is that they are TOO LONG-winded and pageTHICK and that those employing IT don't have the proper skills (story-making, that is) to create the narrative friction and plot rhythm requisite to bring the reading experience to a truly enjoyable climax. Well, at under 225 pages, this story's tight, well-honed body is a classic example of "hard" science fiction doing it right. I DID IT, liked it and I would DO IT again and
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I read this book a long long time ago, borrowed from library. This story has typical style of Mr. Clarke: pretty technical but not too tedious, man vs. nature (a.k.a. disaster theme). Maybe not so intense like modern day disaster movies/novels, but I enjoyed this uncommon slow pace disaster story. Slow, but not boring.
a fun trivia: what I can remember after all these years, the length of each chapter is similar. On my edition that I read, length of each chapter is around 8-9 pages.
a fun trivia: what I can remember after all these years, the length of each chapter is similar. On my edition that I read, length of each chapter is around 8-9 pages.
What began as a four hour trip became a deadly trap.
Tourists on the Moon take a sightseeing trip across the "Sea of Thirst"
A rare hard science fiction adventure from the pen of Arthur C. Clarke.
image:
The moon desert was filled with an extremely fine dust, a fine powder far drier than the contents of a terrestrial desert and which almost flows like water.
The "Selene" was specially designed to skim across the surface until a rare subsidence caused the ship to sink beneath the dust becoming totall ...more
Tourists on the Moon take a sightseeing trip across the "Sea of Thirst"
A rare hard science fiction adventure from the pen of Arthur C. Clarke.
image:
The moon desert was filled with an extremely fine dust, a fine powder far drier than the contents of a terrestrial desert and which almost flows like water.
The "Selene" was specially designed to skim across the surface until a rare subsidence caused the ship to sink beneath the dust becoming totall ...more
Finally Got Around To...
Back in the 80s when I was swimming through Asimov, Herbert, and Clarke, I distinctly remember picking A Fall of Moondust off my high school library's shelf and reading the first page, then putting it back to save for later.
A Fall of Moondust might be the closest thing to a suspense thriller Arthur Clarke ever wrote. Due to a freak moonquake, the tourist bus/spacecraft Selene gets buried 15 meters below one of the lunar "seas" in a region of dust with bizarre, liquid-like ...more
Back in the 80s when I was swimming through Asimov, Herbert, and Clarke, I distinctly remember picking A Fall of Moondust off my high school library's shelf and reading the first page, then putting it back to save for later.
A Fall of Moondust might be the closest thing to a suspense thriller Arthur Clarke ever wrote. Due to a freak moonquake, the tourist bus/spacecraft Selene gets buried 15 meters below one of the lunar "seas" in a region of dust with bizarre, liquid-like ...more
May 07, 2020
Baba
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
sfmasterworks,
scifi
SF Masterworks 49 - A lunar 'bus' is involved in an accident that sees it disappear off of the surface of the moon. Scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and to a lesser extent the media, work together (led by the engineers), to find, and then attempt to rescue the 2o stranded passengers and the 2 crew. Clarke takes the simple 'coal miners missing after cave-in' idea and adds futurism, science, logic, tons of suspense and well crafted characterisations of a large ensemble cast to make me a nerv
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Before there was The Martian (and indeed, before Apollo 13), there was A Fall of Moondust. I don’t know if the one influenced the other, but the feel is very much the same: people are stranded in a situation in space in which there are problems of communication, air, sanity, etc. (The exact same situations don’t come up, but the same basic problems apply, as of course they would.) I’m not sure how feasible the science of the Sea of Thirst is, but Clarke makes it work within the story, and as far
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really wonderful set-up then bogs down into a bunch of people with slide rules digging a hole
Ok, have to own up to not having finished this. I couldn't.
It was as dry as the dust which lends it's name to the book. I just couldn't get enthusiastic about it at all.
Sorry Arte! ...more
It was as dry as the dust which lends it's name to the book. I just couldn't get enthusiastic about it at all.
Sorry Arte! ...more
“The best book Arthur C. Clarke has written,” John Wyndham.
No. It isn't. Rendezvous With Rama was the best book Arthur C. Clarke wrote. Not only was RWR the best book Clarke wrote, it is one of the greatest Sci-fi books of all time. Period.
Granted, Rendezvous was published in 1973 and A Fall of Moondust in 1961 and John Wyndham died in 1969 never having the opportunity to read Rendezvous With Rama. Still, A Fall of Moondust is fecal matter splashed on paper.
This book was wretched and boring. It ...more
No. It isn't. Rendezvous With Rama was the best book Arthur C. Clarke wrote. Not only was RWR the best book Clarke wrote, it is one of the greatest Sci-fi books of all time. Period.
Granted, Rendezvous was published in 1973 and A Fall of Moondust in 1961 and John Wyndham died in 1969 never having the opportunity to read Rendezvous With Rama. Still, A Fall of Moondust is fecal matter splashed on paper.
This book was wretched and boring. It ...more
One of the first novels by Arthur C Clarke that I read as a kid. Part hard science fiction, part suspenseful thriller, it was a good story then and now.
This is a book about saving the lives of people on the moon. It is along the same lines as The Martian, using science and clever ideas to overcome setbacks. Instead of one person trapped, it is a group of 20, and Clarke has fun with their group dynamic. He also uses them as a vehicle to discuss the cult of UFO watchers. Other characters are also ...more
This is a book about saving the lives of people on the moon. It is along the same lines as The Martian, using science and clever ideas to overcome setbacks. Instead of one person trapped, it is a group of 20, and Clarke has fun with their group dynamic. He also uses them as a vehicle to discuss the cult of UFO watchers. Other characters are also ...more
Arthur C. Clarke is one of those authors of whom I'm never quite sure how fond I am. I hear his name and think “Gee willikers, I love Arthur C. Clarke!” And then I think back over the books I've read by him and I'm not so sure. Before today I'd read a total of thirteen books written or co-written by him, and had given him a rather underwhelming average score of 2.4 out of 5. If one ignores the ones he co-authored (and their style in each case suggests that his co-author did most of the writing)
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ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.
Pat Harris is the captain of Selene, the only tour bus on the moon. Every day he and his stewardess, Sue Wilkins, take passengers on a trip across the moon's Sea of Thirst. This crater filled with moondust seems similar to a lake on Earth, and Selene, like a motorboat, smoothly skims across its surface. By the light of Mother Earth, Selene's passengers are entertained by glorious views of the moon's topography, including the impressive Mountains of Inacces ...more
Pat Harris is the captain of Selene, the only tour bus on the moon. Every day he and his stewardess, Sue Wilkins, take passengers on a trip across the moon's Sea of Thirst. This crater filled with moondust seems similar to a lake on Earth, and Selene, like a motorboat, smoothly skims across its surface. By the light of Mother Earth, Selene's passengers are entertained by glorious views of the moon's topography, including the impressive Mountains of Inacces ...more
One of the very first sci-fi books I read, after "Red Planet" and other stories by Robert Heinlein.
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Like its reel counterparts, popcorn literature set in outer space are usually replete with alien invasions, intergalactic skirmishes, and heroes trying to defeat extraterrestrial elements. But there is no written rule saying all works under the genre should have all these checklist items ticked—relying on hard facts, research, and a little bit of forecast will sometimes do just dandy. If done properly, they could even be better than most of those soft sci-fi treats. This dawned on me as I correc
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No book exists in a vacuum. By that I mean you can't come to a book or story without the history of your own reading or viewing experiences across the same or other genres and in other mediums.
For example, my own love and fascination with "Doctor Who." During the second Doctor's era, there were a lot of stories that fell into the category of base under siege. Basically, you had an external threat menacing an isolated group of human beings. It's a fairly simple premise but one that the series wor ...more
For example, my own love and fascination with "Doctor Who." During the second Doctor's era, there were a lot of stories that fell into the category of base under siege. Basically, you had an external threat menacing an isolated group of human beings. It's a fairly simple premise but one that the series wor ...more
This book was such a great read for me. I picked it up and felt I was immediately thrust into this lunar environment. The action was paced sublimely. Although the science of a "sea of sand" was not correct, it was easy to suspend belief for this extremely well written story.
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(Rereading now because Dave gave me his copy that he read long ago.)
I need to read this again. (I remember enjoying it very much, but a new read might reveal a new star rating.)
I was reminded of it because I was thinking about examples of what I call "No Enemy" books. Books where's there's no bad guys, human or alien, but rather the challenge is against an inhospitable planet or a virus or something. Like The Martian.
Please tell me of any further examples you know of!
Ok done with the second re ...more
I need to read this again. (I remember enjoying it very much, but a new read might reveal a new star rating.)
I was reminded of it because I was thinking about examples of what I call "No Enemy" books. Books where's there's no bad guys, human or alien, but rather the challenge is against an inhospitable planet or a virus or something. Like The Martian.
Please tell me of any further examples you know of!
Ok done with the second re ...more
Trapped under moon dust
annoying cast fails to die
bury them deeper.
annoying cast fails to die
bury them deeper.
I abandoned this at 50%. I normally like Clarke but the 1950ies gender roles annoyed me too much. Women were all stewardesses, former burlesque dancers, or bitter virginal old maids.
Written in 1961 prior to the Moon surveying spacecraft of the Sixties and the Apollo series of moon orbits (8, 1968) and landings (11, 1969 to 17, 1972, -13), Clarke establishes the Lunar landscape early on, on which to set his space thriller, in our own back yard, so to speak, in terms of space exploration of the Solar System or space opera's grand sweep of the universe. As usual, Clarke is interested in bedding his story in verisimilitude of detail. The problem is, this is a very local event w
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The sea of Thirst. Countless eons have gone into the creation of a sea unlike anything mankind has encountered before. A sea of dust. On the moon. People travel from all across the inhabited systems to board the Selene and travel across that endless sea of lifeless grey dust, but something is stirring beneath the dust. Something that just might cost the lives of all those aboard the Selene.
Science marches on. Back when this was written there was a real concern that the surface of the moon might ...more
Science marches on. Back when this was written there was a real concern that the surface of the moon might ...more
It's been such a pleasure to read (well, listen to) these authors that represent standards of Science Fiction. I really enjoy Clarke. Can't wait to really dig into Asimov. I never read this stuff as a kid, but it's a joy to experience now.
Also, I particularly enjoy stories in which there's no villain and this is one of them. I kept thinking of The Martian. I have to wonder if Andy Weir consulted this book periodically when writing The Martian. ...more
Also, I particularly enjoy stories in which there's no villain and this is one of them. I kept thinking of The Martian. I have to wonder if Andy Weir consulted this book periodically when writing The Martian. ...more
I read this, oh, almost 30 years ago and it remains vivid in my memory. In the intervening years I've re-read it twice without diminishment.
Without giving too much away, this is a disaster story set upon the Moon, in which a team of rescuers race against time to reach a stricken hovercraft, packed with tourists, sunk beneath the moondust. ...more
Without giving too much away, this is a disaster story set upon the Moon, in which a team of rescuers race against time to reach a stricken hovercraft, packed with tourists, sunk beneath the moondust. ...more
I’m surprised that this was never made into a movie during the disaster craze. It is the perfect disaster film, but set on the moon. A tourist bus gets trapped in a sea of dust, and the forces of nature lazily race against a rescue operation that often has no idea what is wrong, or where.
This is very tightly-written, and exciting all the way through.
This is very tightly-written, and exciting all the way through.
It feels a bit dated at times but most of the time it's a good read. It's entertaining and intriguing, it feels like a movie or a series, I was constantly hoping for the best but not really knowing if we would have a happy ending.
I was expecting it to be a bit heavier on the science, but he leaves things open just enough to not be completely obsolete to 2020 readers. ...more
I was expecting it to be a bit heavier on the science, but he leaves things open just enough to not be completely obsolete to 2020 readers. ...more
You can read my review here: http://embracingmybooks.blogspot.be/2...
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This is an entertaining hard science fiction story about a group of tourists riding a "boat" across a sea of dust on the moon's surface who find themselves getting sucked under and trapped. It reminded me of The Martian with its plot that involves a struggle for survival in a hostile environment where a series of technical problems are met and must be overcome. It's not as good as The Martian since it lacks that novel's humor and character development (Clarke is great in many ways, but all his c
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| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Sword and Laser: Keeping up with the times | 3 | 78 | 11. August, 07:33 Uhr | |
| Too many social-media sites, I have a life to live | 2 | 20 | 10. Oktober, 19:32 Uhr | |
| UK Amazon Kindle ...: A Fall Of Moondust - Arthur C Clarke - Finally on Kindle | 3 | 25 | 07. März, 12:16 Uhr |
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Arthur Charles Clarke was one of the most important and influential figures in 20th century science fiction. He spent the first half of his life in England, where he served in World War Two as a radar operator, before emigrating to Ceylon in 1956. He is best known for the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he co-created with the assistance of Stanley Kubrick.
Clarke was a graduate of King ...more
Clarke was a graduate of King ...more
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