A Fall of Moondust [Mass Market Paperback]

Arthur C. Clarke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1991

Time is running out for the passengers and crew of the tourist cruiser Selene, incarcerated in a sea of choking lunar dust. On the surface, her rescuers find their resources stretched to the limit by the pitiless and unpredictable conditions of a totally alien environment. A brilliantly imagined story of human ingenuity and survival, A Fall of Moondust is a tour-de-force of psychological suspense and sustained dramatic tension. "The best book yet about man’s most dramatic journey, the most exciting science fiction novel for years." - Evening Standard "Expertly told and cruelly exciting to the end." — Sunday Times "Extremely good . . . with some superbly ingenious and exciting new twists." — Daily Express

--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Marvellously convincing' -- Times Literary Supplement

'The best book yet about man's most dramatic journey, the most exciting science fiction novel for years' -- Evening Standard --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

A brilliantly imagined story of human ingenuity and survival, A Fall of Moondust is a tour-de-force of psychological suspense and sustained dramatic tension. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Spectra (April 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553289861
• ISBN-13: 978-0553289862
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #416,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Real Science, Real People, August 22, 2001

By 

Patrick Shepherd "hyperpat" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fall of Moondust (Paperback)

Long before Arthur Hailey (Airport) or The Poseidon Adventure, there was this book. In some ways this may be the ultimate `disaster' book of science fiction, done with impeccable attention to science, and a very plausible (at the time it was written) setting.

The Selene is a rather unique ship, built to travel on surface of a lake composed of nothing but dust, the end result of billions of years of slow erosion of the Lunar surface by continuous heating/cooling and the impact of meteorites. When this book was written (1961), this was a very plausible hypothesis, and is still not completely out of the question for isolated areas of the moon that we haven't explored yet. Due to a rare large moon-quake, the ship, and all its passengers, is suddenly buried some 50 feet below the surface, totally cut off from the world.

The story revolves around what four separate people do about this situation: Harris, Selene's captain; Lawrence, the engineer in charge of the rescue effort, Lawson, an introverted astro-physicist who reaches the limelight due to his involvement in initially finding the crash site, and a reporter tracking the greatest rescue attempt ever.

For Harris, and the other twenty people trapped in the ship, we see not only a reasoned response to the disaster, but a calmness and degree of civility between the people that might seem, at first glance, to be unrealistic. But when you look at the actual response of many people in similar disaster scenarios (think the Titanic), what is portrayed here is actually quite probable. The character sketches of the passengers cover a pretty wide range of personality types and professions, and add strong elements of believability and relevance to the story. Harris's growth as an individual and his involvement with the ship's stewardess are, perhaps, a little weak and clichéd, but the general interaction of all the trapped people provides its own level of suspense to the story.

The real story, though, lies more with Lawrence and the problems he faces in figuring out how to perform this rescue in such a hostile environment - and it's not just one problem, for it seems as soon as he figures out a way to handle the current crisis, new problems emerge. Each problem clearly derives from real science, and the whole thing is carefully plotted to keep the suspense alive.

I guess this book was somewhat ahead of its time, as Hollywood never picked up on this book. Or more likely, Hollywood didn't know what to do with a science-fiction concept grounded in real science (never Hollywood's strong point), even though the basic plot seems like it was just tailor-made for screening. So all we have is this taut, suspenseful book, very unique within the science-fiction world.

---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SUSPENSE, March 24, 2008

By 

R. Christenson "SpaceComics.com" (Pine, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

A Fall Of Moondust, by the late Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood's End, Dolphin Island) is really a suspense disaster story that takes place on the moon, science fictional in the setting and the author's speculation, clever at the time, that deep dust in the low-gravity craters would be similar to liquid water on Earth. And so the premise is that a "boat," carrying passengers across a crater on the moon, sinks in the dust. Rescue operations are oviously trickier than on Earth, communication through the dust seemingly impossible. Suspense mounts as engineers devise means to locate the boat, communicate with it, provide air, and commence rescue operations all while the passengers await their fate. One of my favorite sf novels due to the effective blend of suspense, the clever sci-fi idea, and Clarke's scientific accuracy.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Prophet strikes again, March 21, 2006

By 

Sondre K. Jacobsen (Trondheim, Norway) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fall of Moondust (Paperback)

This is an astounding book from the greatest Science Fiction writer of all time. Reading large scale "space operas", one would expect that the action in this novel is not as gripping since it revolves around a very confined area. Most SciFi writers are able to convey a story, but fall through on their deficiency in technology. Sir Arthur C. Clarke never misses a step when he describes the extremely thrilling story, and so skilfully describes the surrounding technologies and landscapes. What absolutely unbelievable is that this book was written even before the lunar landings in 1961, but all his observations of the moon, the computer technology, descriptions of plasma drives still holds to this day. This novel was one of his most successful, and Clarke has since been humoristically called the "prophet" since the manned and un-manned space flights seem to confirm his observations of space and our nearby planets. He never quantizes technologies, but describe how the story actually revolves in the future technology environment. Where Gibson in "Neuromancer" wrote about the main character "..stole 4Mb of hot ram..." one immediately sets the story to the 90'ties when 4 Mb of Ram was significant memory, even if it was supposed to be in the far future. Clarke never makes such mistakes, making this novel, written in 1960, as relevant today as it was then. In "A Fall of Moondust". Add to this the uncanny ability to explain the action so well it is almost as watching a movie whilst reading the story, this is one book that is highly recommended.