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A review by markyon
A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke
4.0
With the centenary of Sir Arthur’s birth being on 16th December 2017, I thought that it was an appropriate time (not that I needed much persuading!) to reread some of Sir Arthur’s lesser known (and perhaps better-known!) work.
Sir Arthur’s work has been comfort reading for me for a long while. Earlier this year I read Earthlight, which I was pleasantly surprised by (though Sir Arthur allegedly claimed later in his life that he was embarrassed by it) and resurrected a review from 2015 of The Ghost From the Grand Banks. In 2015 I reread and reviewed Childhood’s End.
This time around, it was one of my first introductions to Sir Arthur in novel form. A Fall of Moondust is a survival novel, an exciting “will-they-won’t-they?” page-turner that inspired me at about the age of ten to keep reading science fiction. But now, over forty years later, is it still worth a read?
A Fall of Moondust was Sir Arthur’s eighth published novel. It’s publication in 1961 was preceded by his futuristic underwater adventure The Deep Range in 1957. This period of four years had not been idle, though. Arthur had been writing short stories and moved from the UK to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and helped set up a diving business. His official biography claims that Moondust was written in an intense three months (September - November 1960) following a time when his interests were almost anything but writing science fiction novels. Although he was still writing scientific articles and short stories, his autobiographical war novel Glide Path was left unfinished, as too his novel Imperial Earth, first begun in the 1950’s. At 43, Sir Arthur seemed to be facing a mid-life crisis, but Moondust was his recovery.
It is perhaps ironic that his writing of a story where people are drowning in lunar dust reflects his interest in things underwater (the moondust, in many ways, acts like a liquid) and his own personal financial state of affairs.
The story is straightforward. The ship Selene is a cruise ship that takes tourists and passengers across the Sea of Thirst, a crater which is filled with very fine dust that in many ways acts like a liquid. On a routine journey a moonquake causes the Selene to suddenly sink without warning to 15 metres below the surface. The story deals with how Captain Pat Harris and his stewardess Sue Wilkins try to keep the passengers calm whilst they await recovery. The only problem is that the rescue services are looking in the wrong place, and the air and supplies for Pat, Sue and their twenty passengers is running out….
Perhaps most of all, Moondust is a sublime exercise in problem-solving. As one situation after another befall the passengers and crew of the Selene, some of which have never been encountered before, the reader becomes engrossed in how human ingenuity is going to solve each problem as it happens, whilst all the time the temperatures are rising and the air is running out. The consequences of mistakes in this hostile environment are life-threatening, which creates a great sense of tension.
One of the solutions to avoiding panic is for the crew to keep the passengers occupied. This does mean that we have passengers sat around, playing poker with cards made out of pieces of paper, telling stories or reading aloud paperbacks found amongst the passenger’s luggage. With typical Clarkean humour, one of these books is the latest bonkbuster. Imagine being isolated with nothing to read but Fifty Shades of Grey.
What has struck me most on rereading is how clever some of the characterisation is. Clarke has a reputation for writing thinly outlined individuals, which at its worst leads to stereotypes and clichés. Whilst there is little here to dissuade his critics, there are subtle touches here that show that not all is stereotypical. Sir Arthur deals with racism issues obliquely and subtly by having a person of colour in the passenger list, for example. One of the most intriguing characters though is Thomas Lawson, the scientist who discovers the submerged Selene. He is talented, young and opinionated to the point of arrogance, known as being a rather prickly personality by his peers. These days we would see Tom as a person exhibiting autistic tendencies, a surprisingly prescient character choice, fifty years before such characters became popular. I also found it interesting that Captain Pat Harris is dependable, trustworthy and likable but is not the know-it-all hero we might expect. He is not always the saviour of the day. Although he is often putting himself in danger, he is capable of making mistakes. Instead, it is the older and more experienced Commodore Hansteen, travelling as a passenger incognito, who is seen as the person with charismatic leadership qualities.
Throughout all of the events though, it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the scientists and engineers who are our heroes. Typically of a Clarke novel, it is their quiet resourcefulness that saves the day (and the passengers of the Selene.) Like those characters, stylistically the book is not flashy nor particularly sophisticated, yet it gets the job done.
On its publication, Moondust was seen as a welcome return to the science fiction fold by Clarke. Many claimed that it was his best book yet, although, with the fullness of time, in 2017 this is often regarded as either Childhood’s End (1957) or 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), still seven years away from publication. It was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel, although it lost out to Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle.
Though perhaps lesser-known than some of Sir Arthur’s other works, Moondust is a great read, an exciting page-turner and all-in-all not a bad introduction to Sir Arthur’s work. Whilst it has undeniably dated a little, it still has the charm and pace that excited me as a reader forty-odd years ago.
Sir Arthur’s work has been comfort reading for me for a long while. Earlier this year I read Earthlight, which I was pleasantly surprised by (though Sir Arthur allegedly claimed later in his life that he was embarrassed by it) and resurrected a review from 2015 of The Ghost From the Grand Banks. In 2015 I reread and reviewed Childhood’s End.
This time around, it was one of my first introductions to Sir Arthur in novel form. A Fall of Moondust is a survival novel, an exciting “will-they-won’t-they?” page-turner that inspired me at about the age of ten to keep reading science fiction. But now, over forty years later, is it still worth a read?
A Fall of Moondust was Sir Arthur’s eighth published novel. It’s publication in 1961 was preceded by his futuristic underwater adventure The Deep Range in 1957. This period of four years had not been idle, though. Arthur had been writing short stories and moved from the UK to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and helped set up a diving business. His official biography claims that Moondust was written in an intense three months (September - November 1960) following a time when his interests were almost anything but writing science fiction novels. Although he was still writing scientific articles and short stories, his autobiographical war novel Glide Path was left unfinished, as too his novel Imperial Earth, first begun in the 1950’s. At 43, Sir Arthur seemed to be facing a mid-life crisis, but Moondust was his recovery.
It is perhaps ironic that his writing of a story where people are drowning in lunar dust reflects his interest in things underwater (the moondust, in many ways, acts like a liquid) and his own personal financial state of affairs.
The story is straightforward. The ship Selene is a cruise ship that takes tourists and passengers across the Sea of Thirst, a crater which is filled with very fine dust that in many ways acts like a liquid. On a routine journey a moonquake causes the Selene to suddenly sink without warning to 15 metres below the surface. The story deals with how Captain Pat Harris and his stewardess Sue Wilkins try to keep the passengers calm whilst they await recovery. The only problem is that the rescue services are looking in the wrong place, and the air and supplies for Pat, Sue and their twenty passengers is running out….
Perhaps most of all, Moondust is a sublime exercise in problem-solving. As one situation after another befall the passengers and crew of the Selene, some of which have never been encountered before, the reader becomes engrossed in how human ingenuity is going to solve each problem as it happens, whilst all the time the temperatures are rising and the air is running out. The consequences of mistakes in this hostile environment are life-threatening, which creates a great sense of tension.
One of the solutions to avoiding panic is for the crew to keep the passengers occupied. This does mean that we have passengers sat around, playing poker with cards made out of pieces of paper, telling stories or reading aloud paperbacks found amongst the passenger’s luggage. With typical Clarkean humour, one of these books is the latest bonkbuster. Imagine being isolated with nothing to read but Fifty Shades of Grey.
What has struck me most on rereading is how clever some of the characterisation is. Clarke has a reputation for writing thinly outlined individuals, which at its worst leads to stereotypes and clichés. Whilst there is little here to dissuade his critics, there are subtle touches here that show that not all is stereotypical. Sir Arthur deals with racism issues obliquely and subtly by having a person of colour in the passenger list, for example. One of the most intriguing characters though is Thomas Lawson, the scientist who discovers the submerged Selene. He is talented, young and opinionated to the point of arrogance, known as being a rather prickly personality by his peers. These days we would see Tom as a person exhibiting autistic tendencies, a surprisingly prescient character choice, fifty years before such characters became popular. I also found it interesting that Captain Pat Harris is dependable, trustworthy and likable but is not the know-it-all hero we might expect. He is not always the saviour of the day. Although he is often putting himself in danger, he is capable of making mistakes. Instead, it is the older and more experienced Commodore Hansteen, travelling as a passenger incognito, who is seen as the person with charismatic leadership qualities.
Throughout all of the events though, it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the scientists and engineers who are our heroes. Typically of a Clarke novel, it is their quiet resourcefulness that saves the day (and the passengers of the Selene.) Like those characters, stylistically the book is not flashy nor particularly sophisticated, yet it gets the job done.
On its publication, Moondust was seen as a welcome return to the science fiction fold by Clarke. Many claimed that it was his best book yet, although, with the fullness of time, in 2017 this is often regarded as either Childhood’s End (1957) or 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), still seven years away from publication. It was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel, although it lost out to Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle.
Though perhaps lesser-known than some of Sir Arthur’s other works, Moondust is a great read, an exciting page-turner and all-in-all not a bad introduction to Sir Arthur’s work. Whilst it has undeniably dated a little, it still has the charm and pace that excited me as a reader forty-odd years ago.