Rogue moon

Rogue Moon has some fairly critical reviews. People complain that it's boring, that it has one-dimensional characters, a weak ending and pointless digressions. They're not entirely wrong.

The characters all have a similar voice - presumably Budrys' voice - and spend most of their time in monologue. They each have a single, powerful motivation. Their interactions are there to allow them to explore these motivations rather than to forward the plot.

It was written in 1960 and the way that shows through is mostly in the characters roles and the author's intruding sexism. You remember the long scene in Day of the Triffids where the protagonist talks about how women have guided human evolution to the point where men do everything for them? That kind of thing. It's very much of its time, and reads a little like an Edmund Cooper novel. I'm positive it was meant to be progressive.

From the cover, you might assume this was all a big space adventure, but that's misleading. It's a story about men being men, and learning the measure of a man, and all that.

The measure of a book is in how it leaves you - do you think about it for days and weeks to come? Do you see its characteristics in other works? Does it have a lasting emotional impact?

Rogue Moon doesn't quite tick any of these boxes, but am I pleased that I read it? Yes, yes I am.

I read this book back in 2003. By the way, the paperback cover I have is different from the one pictured here in GR, even though it is the same edition from what I gather. Still, a good book. Here is what I wrote back then:

>>The paperback edition is less than 200 pages (184 or so). The story is fairly simple: there is a mysterious artifact on the moon that kills anyone who approaches it. Technology enables on adventurer to go in, get killed, then get revived and go in again, and again, learning a bit more each time. The book is well paced. The hero is very masculine (read here "macho," not too PC for those who fuss over that), but it makes a good read. The ending is both intriguing and packs a good punch when we find out the real price of the transmission technology that enables the exploration. Anyhow who reads science fiction should read this.<<