Out of the Cradle

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"Countdown for Cindy" by Eloise Engle

Published in 1962 by C.S. Hammond & Co., it weighs in at 191 pages. Old school editing, no errors noted.

Cindy McGee is a fresh graduate of the Aerospace Forces nursing school, and a crisis on the Moon puts petite 95-lb. Cindy first in line to be the first woman on the Moon. Three scientists have fallen during an expedition into the Lunar mountains, and need both medical treatment and the spiritual succor that only a nurse can provide to a wounded man if they are to survive the journey home. She also manages to revive the spirits of the Moonbase just by being there, assuages some conflicts, and ends up a media star.

This is a really nice girl juvenile that is probably far too innocent for today's youth, though would be completely okay for classroom use. Cindy's a spunky little redhead trying to make her way in a 'Man's world', but has the insight that she may not need to overdo it in the process. Men respect competence, and we fear too.

Some of the neat foresights include "a motion-picture camera the size of a pack of cigarettes; a light bulb no bigger than a pinhead; an electric motor about the diameter of a dime."

I think this is the kind of uplifting book young ladies should read, and give it a waxing three-quarter Moon.

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"This Place Has No Atmosphere" by Paula Danziger.

Published in 1986, my copy was printed in 1999 by PaperStar Press. It weighs in at 156 pages. No errors that I noticed.

Aurora Borealis Williams is an unhappy young woman. She's going to the Moon whether she likes it or not (she doesn't), as her parents, a doctor and a dentist, have just been transferred there to the growing colony of Lunar City at the city of the old Tranquility Base.

She's, like, totally bummed that she has to go, and her little sister is such a brat. The main boy in the Lunar school is a barfburger, and there aren't a whole lot of boys to choose from. And like, she has to babysit littler kids at school which is so not cool.

So what's the solution to the Lunar blues? Why, what Mickey Rooney always used to suggest: Let's put on a show! What show? Oh, you're going to have to read the book to find out, but it offers lots of opportunity for drama for our protagoniste.

This is another one for the the young ladies. Aurora is a much more sophisticated character, but she's also a lot shallower than Cindy. Whereas in "Countdown for Cindy" one really felt the strong insights learned by the character, in "This place has no atmosphere" one really gets the sense that Aurora grows from being a shallow teenage girl to a slightly less shallow teenage girl by the end of the book.

The author did get a lot of good stuff right. Such as:

"Ted tells us, 'Lunar soil is made up of [40%] oxygen, [20%] silicon and [20-30%] metals. We use this plant to convert the moon's [sic] natural resources into necessary things. The dust is used to make concrete. The silicon is made into solar collectors, semiconductors, and glass. The metals, especially the aluminum and titanium, have a variety of uses.'"

By itself it's a nice diverting read that makes a good attempt at plausibility. There's no adult content, so it's safe for teens. I'd have to place it in the 14+ age range (because I have no clue what I'm talking about, and 10 is probably considered okay these days for talking about boys).

I'll give it a waxing half Moon.

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"Moon Base" by E.C. Tubb

Published in 1964 by Ace Books, it weighs in at 191 pages. No errors ntoed.

Felix Larsen has been sent by Her Majesty's government to investigate reports of some kind of 'wrongness' at Luna Station One near Tycho crater (43.4S, 11.1W). Under cover as a laser installation technician, he tries to find answers to the questions his bosses have, and what the sense of 'wrongness' is all about, since he can feel it too.

It's nothing obvious. People are reasonably happy, everyone works well. There's the usual concern about the Russians, but this was written deep in the midst of the Cold War. The British base is trying to develop bacteriological agents that would be effective in a global war. They're also running some basic research experiments, like on a homegrown brain called Abic, or Artificial Biochemical Integration Computer.

Still, there are some odd things. While scouting an emplacement for a laser defense installation, a section of the escarpment breaks free, Felix stumbles and cracks his faceplate, and falls 1,000 feet. And survives. Talk about your good luck! Turns out there's a bit more to it though, and when Felix starts comparing Abic's encephalograph readings to various accidents, he comes to some very unsettling conclusions. Is there some insane malevolent force endangering them, or is it something else?

A very nicely written little science fiction Cold War spy thriller. The clues are there all along, but it's still a surprising twist at the end. A very interesting read.

I'll give it a waxing three-quarter Moon.

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Novelette Break:
"Footsteps" by Shane Tourtellotte

Published in the May 2005 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, it weighs in at 22 pages.

Sheriff Luz Warren is the law at the Moonbase in Mare Crisium. She apparently made something of a name for herself in an earlier story as a young up-and-comer in the shadow of her old mentor, and now that he's retired it's her turn to take the reins. Doing so involves solving a particularly bizarre death on the Moon that at first blush looks as if someone in streetclothes walked half a kilometer across the open face of the Moon and then died.

Solving this mystery is a perplexing conundrum cloaked in the enigma of an unsuited individual walking in vacuum. Clues include protective parents and lost love, and a private individual of rare brilliance. The press is clamoring that Luz prove her worthiness by solving the case yesterday if not sooner. All the trails lead nowhere, but the solution is there.

This was a very clever mystery story. One can feel the frustration of the protagoniste as she keeps hitting dead ends, and the solution to the mystery is a nice surprise, though it shouldn't have been unexpected to any regular reader of sci-fi possibilities.

I rather enjoyed this one, so I'll give it a waning three-quarter Moon.

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"The Moon Metal" by Garrett P. Serviss

Published originally in 1900, my copy is a 1972 FAX Collector's Edition reprint. It weighs in at 163 pages, with some weird errors at the end, where inconsistent letters were dropped, though the words were properly spaced as if they were there. That's okay, as I learned a new word: irrefragable.

It's the near future (from the vantage point of 1900), and enormous lodes of gold have been discovered at the South Pole, and the world's financial markets teeter on the brink of inflationary ruin. (This was back when currency volumes were pegged to availability of a tangible item like gold. This helped to limit inflation somewhat) Other precious metals are also found in abundance, and the world starts plunging into chaos and economic ruin. The world's financial leaders gather to try to develop a solution before all hope is lost. It's not looking good.

Then a messenger delivers a business card to the head of the conference. It's from Dr. Max Syx, and made of a brilliant and beautiful metal unknown to anyone. Dr. Syx proposes that this new metal, Artemisium, be used as the store of value in place of gold. All he asks is a 1% share. In a panic, the financiers agree, but immediately start trying to figure out where the metal comes from. Thing is, no one can.

How this mystery is solved makes for quite an engaging story. Some of the spelling is a bit archaic, like clew for clue, but I'm a bit fond of that. Mr. Serviss was actually quite an accomplished Sci Fi writer, I'm finding out. Apogee recently did a reprint of his story Edison's Conquest of Mars" that I reviewed over at the Space.com Uplink.

This one is a tough rating. It's not actually set on the Moon, so it can't get a very high rating. The Moon as kathode is an intriguing idea that was new to me, but the author's got quite a few of those up his sleeve. It's an old school man's adventure tale, which have a certain novelty these days. Makes me wonder if there's a Doc Savage Moon-related tale.

I'll give this one a waxing quarter Moon at perigee.

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"Peter and the Moon Trip" by Hazel W. Corson

Published in 1957, mine is a second edition published in 1965 by Benefic Press. It weighs in at 95 pages. Large print, lots of drawings.

This is not Peter's first trip into space. He's been to the space station before, when he accidentally fell asleep on a rocket. When some men can't go on a misison to the Moon to set up a Moon base, Peter's dad asks him if he wants to go.

Peter is a useful part of the expedition, serving as a kind of all-around go-fer. He can operate the radio and television cameras, so he's useful for trips out in the Moon tractor. There's lots of danger on the Moon, and Peter has his share of excitement. He also makes a very fortuitous find that may prove important.

This is an early-start reader, probably somewhere around 7-9 years old. there are ample illustrations of Von Braunian rockets and space stations and Moonships, although the Moon tractors look particularly TinTinian. This is a fine book for young boys. Peter is a very positive role model, competent, resourceful, and clever. He's treated as a young adult and given minor responsibilities. If I had a boy I'd want him to read this book.

A waxing quarter Moon.

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"Lunar Justice" by Charles Harness

Published in 1991 by Avon Books, it weighs in at 180 pages. No errors noted.

Quentin Thomas is a patent attorney retained by Penal Systems Inc. (PSI, a clue) to transport their new, about-to-be patented guillotine to Lunaplex on the Moon. Its uniqueness is the fact that three people have to push a button for the execution to take place, but the actual button-push is a random one of those three, so no one can ever know who is actually the executioner (or bourreau in French, something I picked up from, IIRC, Vingt Ans Aprés, the sequel to Les Trois Mousquetaires. See, I do read stuff other than Lunar Sci Fi .

The intended victim is one Michael Dore, a multi-billionaire who has been advancing a plan to ignite Jupiter into a second sun, so that the outer three Gallilean moons can be populated by an overburdened Earth. He's taken billions of dollars to pay for the transport of massive amounts of nuclear waste to Jupiter for disposal in the Great Red Spot. (it used to be tossed into Sun) His contracted due date is nigh, with no results. The Lunar Court will hear the case, which has been carefully prepared to ensure guilt.

An interesting courtroom drama set on the Moon, this book is full of odd twists, nefarious ne'er-do-wells and interplanetary plots. A bit eccentric in its approach, it's not as polished as many of the policiers (or police story novels in English) reviewed previously.

This one gets a waning half Moon.

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"Moon Ahead" by Leslie Greener and John Hutchison

Published in 1951 by Penguin Books, mine is apparently an abbreviated version published in 1957 by Puffin Books (Penguin's kids line). English editing, no errors noted.

Sam Holloway, an amateur radio buff from the U.S., is visiting his radio buddy Noel Durand in the heart of the Australian outback. Their fathers are taking them camping to visit some unique geological elements on Mr. Durand's property. They get to the Devil's Rings only to discover that someone has been trespassing! Mr. Durand goes into the camp for a parley, and when the boys see Mr. Durand come running out of the trailer, only to be subdued, they bolt for home, two days away.

Turns out those weren't the bad guys but there -are- some bad guys who are trying to get to the Moon first for some obviously nefarious purpose. When an explosion disables some of the men, the boys' fathers are asked to come along on the journey to Tycho crater. So in the finest tradition of British boy's adventure tales the boys stowaway onboard for the launch.

Apparently this book was used at a number of British schools back in the 1950s as a pedagogical tool for teaching more about the Moon. It has some excellent diagrams and drawings, and conveys a fair amount of factual knowledge about the Moon. It's something of a 45-year antecendent to Moonwake.

I enjoyed it, and give it a three-quarter Moon.

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"The Unknown Sky: A Novel of the Moon" by John Dwyer

Published in 2000 by Authors Choice Press, it weighs in at 350 pages. A handful of spelling errors, typically missed double-letters, like baring instead of barring.

The book opens with Father Martin Sheeran and two other Jesuit priests about to conduct prayers on the Lunar surface in crater Maginus (50.5S, 6.3W), where the order has established a small facility, CATLUM-1, to study Catholic spirituality in this new frontier. Instead of kneeling, Father Martin adopts the lotus position and sinks into a deep prayer/meditation. Soon, he reaches up, and removes his helmet. He meditates for close to an hour with his head exposed to the vacuum before replacing his helmet and then slowly returning from his trance state.

The other priests, and indeed the world are stunned at this turn of events, which causes no end of consternation and dismay. A scientific team is quickly dispatched to render a rational, scientific explanation for what had happened, if indeed it even did happen (video technology is very good, and what was broadcast could have been faked).

The Chinese are the only ones to date to have established a Lunar base, near the CATLUM-1 facility, called Sinopan. LEO has been fully developed, with casinos even, but the Moon remains a desolate frontier. This miracle, though, may change all of that.

This is a Catholic miracle-mystery novel, involving questions of God, Satan, entertainment interests, and power-players maneuvering on the world stage. The religion isn't heavy-handed, but rather woven into the context of the story, so it's not over-bearing. The questions raised are good questions, and the book keeps you thinking about them after the last page is turned.

I'll give it a three-quarter Moon.

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"Peace on Earth" (Pokój na Ziemi) by Stanislaw Lem

Published in 1987, my copy is a 1994 Harcourt printing, weighing in at 234 pages. I didn't notice any errors.

In the future Earth has been ravaged by war and the terrors of technology, and world leaders decide they've had enough, though they trust no one. A Lunar Agency is set up and all weapons development is transferred to the Moon, where it is removed from the control of terrestrial nations. After the initial set-up, the remote factories will evolve future generations of weapons. Problem is, the Moon has gone radio silent, and now the Lunar Agency is concerned that the machines on the Moon have turned their attention to Earth.

Astronaut Ijon Tichy is sent to the Moon to investigate. What he finds is disconcerting, and a remote callotomy cuts the corpus callosum, isolating the two sides of Ijon's brain and leaving only the left hemisphere able to communicate. The book follows Ijon's attempts to learn just what it is that his right hemisphere knows; information that people will kill for.

Lem has always been a difficult writer for me. He clearly did a lot of research into the issues addressed by the book, and it is an intriguing scenario - are we a unitary person, or can we be subdivided?

I'll give it a half Moon.

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"Full Moon Fever" by Joe Casey, Caleb Gerard & Damian Coucero
Graphic Novel

Published in 2005 by AIT/Planet Lar, it weighs in at 68 pages.

Intercorp runs a large base on the Moon. The toilets are acting up, so they send their Waste Disposal Crew: Off-World Division to clean up the mess. The crew attempts to land, but finds the landing bay doors locked, and no one will answer the comm to open them. After solving that problem, the crew finds a much bigger one: the base is deserted, meals half-eaten, vending machines destroyed in the cafeteria, and just an over-all sense of eerieness.

The crew gets to work, but so does whatever is responsible for what happened at the base, and the body count soon starts rising. Will anyone survive? How does it tie into the botanical research being done at the base? And how is aconitum lycoctonum involved?

A gruesome and fun horror story, I'll give it a three-quarter Moon.

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"To Luna with Love" by Herbert Bevis

Published in 1971 by Lennox Hill Press, it weighs in at 192 pages. No errors noted.

The year is after 2010, and ongoing wars, a decline in civic values, new diseases and the advent of The Pill have devastated populations and civilization looks like it's on the way out.

The President has a plan to save the best and brightest of what remains of the nation's population. As the nation spirals into chaos, a last ditch effort is made to transport 50 youngsters to the Moon where they can provide the seeds for the future.

This isn't an easy task, and many dangers are faced on the way. The colony in Sinus Iridum is near to an old penal colony that was abandoned, along with everything else on the Moon, in the last ditch effort to be on the last spaceplane off the Moon. Some of the prisoners are still around. Will they succeed? Will they ever get back to Earth?

I really enjoyed this book. It makes you think about some things, and reflect on the perception of decay in society. It's a brisk read, and I polished it off in one sitting.

Definitely worth a waxing three-quarter Moon.

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"Ice" by Shane Johnson

Published in 2002 by Waterbrook Press, it weighs in at 390 pages. A few minor errors.

When a bizarre mechanical failure strands the astronauts of Apollo 19 on the Moon near the Marlow (read: Aitken) Basin, the doomed men, Gary Lucas and Charlie Shepherd, head out in their Lunar truck to witness unseen vistas before the end. On Earth the soon-to-be widows mourn and the politicians start circling like sharks.

During their explorations the men stumble upon a lake of ice, its glass-smooth surface reflecting the stars above. Further research reveals a machine, an enormous cadaver in a similarly enormous spacesuit, and the doorway to a base. Suddenly the men seem not so doomed, though cut off from Earth their salvation may be their prison.

What follows is an interesting speculative tale that is predominantly Christian in nature. One of the protagonists, Gary Lucas, is a self-professed atheist, but a hallucinatory trip to the days of the Noachian flood help convince him otherwise. What's revealed is a tale of the achievements of the Men who were closer to God, and a catastrophe delivered from space that destroyed all that had come before.

The tone of the story is definitely much different from "The Unknown Sky". In this work God is apparently a lot more involved in showing people the Truth of the Light (which to me would seem to require a lower level of faith than a completely unexplained miracle, but I'm an atheist and not well versed in matters theological). The book is also a little more heavy-handed in preaching its faith. Nevertheless, it is an intriguing speculative story of what may have come before.

I'll give it a waning three-quarter Moon.

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"Stark's War" by John G. Hemry

Published in 2000 by Ace Books, it runs to 261 pages. No noticeable errors.

At the turn of the millenium, American corporate hegemony reigns supreme throughout the world. All resources are controlled by the Americans, and the rest of the world decides they'll go someplace else to get resources. So they set up shop on the Moon. Seeing the prosperity to be had there, the americans decide that well, the Moon is their's too, Congress says so, so they send in the Army to take it.

Ethan Stark is a Sergeant. He's not the most obedient Sargeant, but he takes his responsibilities seriously, perhaps the only person in his chain of command who does so. Slowly, he comes to learn the real reasons he's on the Moon. The military is selling the video of Moon combat to finance the operations. It's a Faustian bargain, and when the bill comes due, it comes down to honor vs. politics, reason vs. expediency. Sgt. Stark has to make a choice, one that will change the destiny of the Moon.

Some of the combat scenes are quite well realized, especially the descriptions of bullets tearing apart the walls of dust thrown up by artillery. A pretty good book, and one I would certainly recommend to those military leaders who think that their political advancement is more important than the men and women who are their responsibility.

This one gets a waxing three-quarter Moon.

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"City on the Moon" by Murray Leinster (1957)/
"Men on the Moon" by Donald A. Wollheim (ed.) (1958)

An ACE Double Novel book published in 1958, it weighs in at 151/137 pages. No errors noted.

It's the 1950s, and through international cooperation a city on the Moon has been established to support an EML-2 Atomic Fusion/Fission lab pursuing a course of inquiry that may supply boundless power for an energy hungry Earth. Three inflated domes, covered with regolith, provides living space for a number of people, and even plants.

Problem is, since it's international cooperation everyone has knives at everyone else's backs. The U.S. has established missile bases to ensure that no attack will ever be unpunished. Solar mirrors melt veins of metals found in the Apennines, vacuum pure to be cast in molds below. Regular freight ships from Earth crash near the base and are retrieved by Moon jeeps on long spindly legs. Regular Moon ships carrry personnel to/from the Moon city and EML-2 station. While liquid propellants are used for Earth departures, bolt-on solids are used for all trips thereafter, sort of like JATOs. It's a neat system, where a 2-10 would be a 2 gee burn for ten seconds.

Sabotage abounds. Jeeps sometimes don't come back, buried beneath rockslides in the mountain passes (supposedly safe because they've been pre-blasted exactly to prevent that sort of thing), holes appear in the air-domes, jeeps have their air hose valves broken, rocket modules get relabled, and so on. Things have reached a crisis point, and humanity may not be on the Moon much longer. Can they overcome the grim odds?

"Men on the Moon" is an anthology of five possibilities. "Operation Pumice" by Raymond Z. Gallun is described as 'How we flew to the Moon' and tells of the things a man will do when inspired by the look of rocket rapture in a young boy's eyes. "Jetsam" by A. Bertram Chandler is described as 'And how we landed on it' and tells of a clash of egos on the first Moon landing, and what we might discover there. "The Reluctant Heroes" by Frank M. Robinson is described as 'How we settled there' tells of the loneliness of a man who shoulders the mantle of responsibility for the future of the first Moon base. "Moonwalk" by H.B. Fyfe is described as 'What we saw around us' and tells the story of a man stranded a long way from home after a rover accdent, and the long walk back. "Keyhole" by Murray Leinster is described as 'The surprise that awaited us' and tells of the discovery of impossible animal life on the Moon and our study thereof, or are we the studied?

This was an enjoyable read, though it did take a little while. The stories were interesting, and 'The Reluctant Heroes' certainly struck home. 'Moonwalk' is excellent and should definitely be read with a Lunar map at hand (see here). My favorite had to be 'City on the Moon', a rip-roaring, edge-of-the-seat yarn of good triumphing over evil, and coming out ahead in the end.

Definitely a waxing three-quarter Moon.

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