Thursday, March 29, 2007

"A Fall of Moondust" (novel): Engaging thriller

Review of the novel titled A Fall of Moondust by Arthur ClarkeAmazingly, this 45 year old science fiction thriller still doesn't feel dated!

It is a fast moving & very engaging shipwreck & rescue story, set in an extremely exotic locale - neither land nor water, neither air nor space! Sounds like old Indian story of Hiranyakashapu - you will neither die indoors nor outdoors, neither during day nor night, neither killed by a man nor beast ...

This book actually could have been a bit smaller. There are some movie style scenes that dramatize things a bit too much, & help prolong the book. But overall, extremely enjoyable.

Fact sheet.
A Fall of Moondust, novel, review
Author: Arthur C Clarke
Genre: Science fiction, thriller
First published: 1961
Rating: A
Hugo Award nominee in novel category in 1963

See also.

  1. "Maelstrom II": Another very good & off-beat wreck & rescue story on moon.
  2. A shorter version of somewhat similar wreck & rescue appears as a sub-plot in "The Sands of Mars" when you are about two thirds through that book.
  3. Robert Heinlein's "Searchlight" is a similar shipwreck & rescue drama on moon.
  4. Larry Niven's "At the Bottom of a Hole" describes thick layers of fine dust on Mars that behaves like is fluid & is opaque to aerial surveillance. This is very similar to moon dust where the revelers' ship in this Clarkian story sinks. But this dust is only a minor feature in Niven's story.
  5. All of Clarke's "shipwreck & rescue stories", "thrillers"; other sf authors' shipwreck & thriller stories.
  6. All Hugo Award stories.

1 comment:

Pirate Named Neo said...

I loved that book, read alot of Clarke's writings, hard to say which would be considered my favorite, Rendezvous with Rama comes to mind. Least to say I am and have been most my life a fan of Arthur