Series: Book 50 in the SF-Masterworks series
Rating: Not rated
Tags: EN-Masterworks, Lang:en
Summary
Rogue Moon is a short sf novel by Algis Budrys, published in
1960. It was a 1961 Hugo Award nominee, losing to Walter M.
Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. A novella-length version of
the story was included in the anthology The Science Fiction
Hall of Fame, Volume 2, edited by Ben Bova. Before 1969, every
science fiction writer wrote his or her own version of the
first Moon landing. Few carry the horror of Budrys' unsettling
story. During all recorded history, the Moon has hovered above
our heads, a timeless symbol for lovers' ecstasy. Goddesses
& Gibson Girls have tripped the light fantastic of her
beams while sonneteers & scientists have scanned her
changing phases. Now humans had actually reached the Moon,
& on it the explorers found a structure, a formation so
terrible & incomprehensible that it couldn't even be
described in human terms. It was a thing that devoured people;
that killed them again & again in torturous, unfathomable
ways. Earthbound are the only two men who could probe the
thing: Al Barker, a homicidal maniac, whose loving mistress was
death, & Dr. Edward Hawks, a scientific murderer, whose
greatest mission was rebirth.