Out of the Cradle

[murphydyne]

Choose Your Own Adventure #167: "Moon Quest" by Anson Montgomery, illustrated by Roy Richardson

Published in January 1996 by Bantam Books, it weighs in at 119 pages.

It is the year 2053 and YOU live on the Moon, in Tycho crater (43.3S, 11.2W). Every year it gets bigger and bigger, and over 100,000 people live on the Moon. Over 50 nations have interests on the Moon, but the idea of an independent Moon exists. The establishment of a Mars colony has led to a boom in products exported from the Moon to support the Martians. Finals are just about wrapped up for the year, and summer vacation is about to start. Excellent grades make you eligible for the Summer Scientific Corps, a chance to study the Moon firsthand. You catch up with your friends Tamil and Madison in the hydroponics. You're musing over what to do now that summer is here. Your job as a tour guide is going slow, but you haven't heard from the geology folks about going on an expedition to the far side.

Suddenly, you get some urgent messages. A delegation of VIP muckety-mucks is up from Earth and they need a tour guide to show them around, and congratulations, you get to go on a trip to the far side of the Moon. What is your choice?

Be careful. I counted fourteen endings, with five of those not so good endings. Your adventures may take you from medical emergencies to mysterious caverns, to political intrigue to terrorism. Your choices decide your fate. It's not always good. It's been said that 'exploring the frontier' is just a euphemism for finding new and more gruesome ways to die, and the Moon is no exception. Or you could be a hero!

This title is going to be re-released later this year, likely September (it was supposed to be June). Since it got postponed, I went ahead and picked up the old copy. It's fun, with decent illustrations. It goes to great lengths to be factual and accurate in its descriptions of the conditions on the Moon. The cover notes that it has '10 Fascinating Moon Facts Inside' in a special foreward.

It's a fun set of tales, so I'll go with a waxing half Moon.

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"A Blood Red Moon" by Eddy N. McEntire

Published in 2002 by PublishAmerica, it weighs in at 142 pages. A few errors noted.

Uh Rah! Sir, who do you call when a mad despot takes over the Moon and threatens the entire Earth? Sir!

The United States Marine Corps, of course. Once again back to the Moon to save the freedom of the U.S. of A.

The time is the future. An international base has been established on the Moon, but one man has managed to wrest control and institute a reign of terror on the inhabitants. That is but a prelude, as he begins to rain down rocks upon the Earth, wreaking havoc on civlization. The U.S. is on the job, especially after a few cities get taken out. Rapidly developed nuclear rockets deliver large numbers of army infantry and a few handfuls of Marines to the Moon in what is known tactically as a mass application of organic assets to overwhelm an entrenched static fortification.

It's a rough trip and not all of them make it. Those that do quickly get their act together and our team of Marines sets up a mortar emplacement to bombard the fortified installation. Wave upon wave of infantry begin a frontal assault. Things aren't looking too bad. Then Gunnery Sargeant Joey Michaels can only watch as one and then two of his mortar postions explode in a silent cacophany of rock and body and equipment. What the? Air support?

'What?' cry the distant officers? Intelligence didn't say anything about air strike capability by the Moon base. There can't be air support! Uh, Sir, our men are being mowed down, sir. They can't be! But they are, and the tide of the battle soon flows the other way, and Gunny's few surviving squad mates can only watch the devastation in horror. They try to break for the rockets, only to find them destroyed by the enemy ships. Their air is running out. This doesn't look good. The last thing Gunny Michaels sees is a man pulling a cart.

When he comes to, he is not dead. This surprises him. Turns out there are subtle forces working for good on the Moon. The Preacher has come to save them, not only physically, but spiritually as well so that they might fulfill His works and rid the universe of this evil that afflicts the Earth.

I'm not sure what to make of this one. I'm not against a good military tale. I'm not against a good religious tale. This one, however, takes a somewhat extremist view. I'm not familiar with the finer subtleties of Christian orthodoxy, but the terms Revivalist or Revelationist might be applicable. This is certainly the most aggressive of the religiously themed Moon stories reviewed to date. The battle descriptions are okay, but the plot and characters really aren't fleshed out in any major way. The whole point seems to be that God works in mysterious ways.

I really can't give this one above a quarter Moon.

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Apollo Main by Kenneth Golde

Published in 2001 by Fire Breathing Dragon, it weighs in at ? pages. Various spelling and grammar errors sporadically throughout, including some homonymic ones.

The place is the near future, on the Moon. Large numbers of men and women work there, pulling the Moon Ore from the rocks of the Moon and using it to power the energy needs of Earth. The Moon Ore was discovered by chance, and the finder was wise in his approach, so that when the potential of Moon Ore as a power source became more widely known, there was only one person to deliver it. His family has prospered accordingly, and the current Escobar Mantiga is one of the most powerful individuals on the planet. The colony of miners that supports the extraction of the valuable ore that powers the planet is ostensibly governed by a Lunar Governance Council that is ostensibly independent of Señor Mantiga. Still, everyone knows it's a company town, and life sucks accordingly whilst Escobar plays his dominance games on Earth.

On the Moon, Moonquakes chop off a power conduit that leads to the current mines. A repair team manages to get one person through the rocks to the other side, before a Moonquake buries him entirely, and forcing his teammates back on the other side of the obstruction. The crew has to go into the old Apollo Main, closed for decades, to get him and fix it. A crevice opened up under Ham Stoddard during the rockfall, and the team has to do some spelunking to find Ham, who has somehow managed to survive the long fall. He becomes something of a hero as a result, and a rallying point for disaffected miners. They're sick and tired of the way their Corporate masters treat them, and the time is ripe for a strike.

There were reasons the Apollo Main was closed, and dark forces conspired to conceal the reasons by any means...ANY means necessary to do so. This leaves the strikers rapidly running out of air, water, and food. Revolutionaries spring up to overthrow the despotic order, and it looks like they may even be able to pull it off with a little help from unexpected sources, like Escobar's womanly sister Selena, who takes a passionate liking to our hero Hampton Stoddard.

Independent press is always a bit hit-or-miss. There's an awful lot of dross amongst which one must search the few really good ones that make the whole effort worthwhile. This is one of the good ones. The plot is well-wrought, the characters have depth, and the technology setting (outside of the Moon Ore) is not implausible. The author does seem to delight in the belief that bodies explode when exposed overly long to vacuum. IIRC, e don't have any good examples of this, but it is largely theorized to be a rapid degassing through existing orifices in a not pleasant way. You're not supposed to hold your breath when exposed to vacuum, as that will blow out all of the tiny alveoli that are the workhorses of your lungs. By allowing the gases to escape you minimize damage to the lungs and increase survivability odds from none to slim.

An enjoyable read all the same, I'll go with a waxing three-quarter Moon. It would have done better without the spelling errors.

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"Griffin's Egg" by Michael Swanwick. Illustrated by Peter Gudynas.

Published in 1990 by St. Martin's Press, it weighs in at a brisk 101 pages.

Gunther Weil is a truck driver on the Moon. He ferries bits and pieces from one location to another. Occasionally he gets a bit adventurous, and finds untrod paths between his various destinations. Industry has set up shop on the Moon, processing vast quantities of regolith to produce goods for profit. Arriving at Murchison (5.1N, 0.1W) after a little detour, he finds out that he's needed at Chatterjee, near Chladni (4.0N, 1.1E). There's been an accident, and he needs to get some equipment there. Using his robotic unit, he finds that the specialist that's been waiting on him is using a suitcase nuke to sanitize a nuclear reactor gone awry. Turns out that Westinghouse Lunar is going to start mass producing them for industrial applications.

Later, after an accidental meeting with the specialist in a shelter during a sudden Solar flare, Gunther finds out a bit more about some of the things that are being done on the Moon, such as the Center for Self-Replicating Technologies. The lab work is done on the Moon because the sponsors are genuinely afraid of the consequences of accidents. Consequences which Gunther will learn of first-hand.

As in any kind of exploitative environment, there will be those trouble-makers who refuse to conform. Some are smart enough to do it surreptitiously, and if they become angry enough they usually end up as terrorists. Some of them do work for good, such as in the Briefcase War that had driven Gunther to the Moon in the first place, wherein suicide bombers managed to take out the world leaders who stood poised to unleash a far worse nuclear holocaust upon the Earth.

Someone on the Moon is angry, and suddenly systems go down at Bootstrap, the maglevs are disabled, and some kind of bio-agent has been unleashed upon the populace, turning anyone exposed into a schizophrenic. Only those in vac-suits are spared, but soon realize the daunting task of caring for a city full of people unable to care for the systems that keep them alive.

This one is one of those cautionary scientific tales. There're a lot of disturblingly plausible possibilities in this story. The plot and characters are fairly well developed, though really this is more of a novela than a novel.

I'll give it a waxing half Moon.

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Space: 1999 "Rogue Planet" by E.C. Tubb

Published in September 1976 by Pocket Books, it weighs in at 160 pages.

The Moon continues its seemingly endless journey through space. To help occupy the crew, Commander Koenig decides to allow some of the crew to stage "Hamlet" in their off hours. During the staging of the play a strange warning manifests, sending the whole base into a panic as Moonbase Alpha faces its next challenge.

There's something in empty space ahead of them, but they can't tell what, only that it induces madness. Fortifying their defenses, they brace for whatever doom their trajectory is carrying them towards. They end up in a pocket universe, with some strange -thing- at the center which is slowly draining the energy of the Moonbase while they're trapped therein. The christen it the Omphalos, and they wrack their brains for a solution while watching the very life of Moonbase Alpha drain away. They find that another planet has been trapped in the pocket universe, one that was drained aeons ago. Slowly, Koenig pieces together a strategy that may allow them to escape the clutches of the rogue planet.

Again, the freedom of not having to describe a TV episode has allowed for some creative stories set in the Space: 1999 milieu. As an author, Mr. Tubb seems to have a fascination with the 'psychic', but it could be argued that there is still much we have to learn about the powers (and influences) of the brain.

This one gets a waxing half Moon.

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"Maurice on the Moon" by Daniel Barth

Published in 2006 by XLibris, it weighs in at 113 pages.

Maurice is a 12-year old living on the Moon. His parents relocated to the Moon for work when he was 2, and haven't gone back. He's heard all about Earth, and is anxious to escape on an adventure so that he can go experience it himself. He tries to stowaway on a liner, but his gal-pal Cassie rats him out. So he decides to get rich so he can buy a ticket. He takes her out on a prospecting expedition for the only thing worth large amounts of money quickly - Helium-3. Of course, he takes one risk too many and they end up stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a defective buggy half buried in a small crater. It looks like the last thing young Maurice will see will be the lift-off of the last Earth-bound liner to leave without him. Wait...he's got an idea. Maybe they can use the buggy after all.

Well, Maurice's little misadventure has gotten him in a lot of trouble with his parents, and the authorities who had to stage a very expensive emergency rescue to get him. His Dad decides that if Maurice has too much free time on his hands, perhaps he can start working in the mining office after school. It turns out that Maurice's samples and data were sufficiently intriguing that the company is favorably disposed towards him.

After a while, he hates it, and starts looking for an out. Maybe intramural athletics is the way to go. He sets his sights on the high jump, which perhaps will get him a bit closer to Earth. Trials are coming up, and Maurice is miserable in the event, not even close to the required 24 feet. He's got one week till the final tryouts. Oh well, tough break, son. Listen, your Mom and I have decided to emigrate to the Moon and stay here. Isn't that wonderful? Then he finds out that his bestest friend, Cassie, is going to Earth with her family. His best friend torn from him to go to the one place he can't get to. Things are looking bleak for Maurice, and he's morose as a consequence. Wait...he's got an idea.

This one is quite a story, and I would put it in the same league as 'Moonwake', both being of a more science 'faction' nature than much of the science fantasy one see's nowadays. There're a lot of lessons learned by young Maurice over the course of his adventures, and his risk-taking is close to being fatal, not just to himself. Mr. Barth's background as an astronomer and science educator is evident in the strict adherence of the text to scientific principles. Its conveyance of Lunar knowledge shows that the author did his homework.

This one absolutely merits a Full Moon.

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[murphydyne]

"The Patchwork Girl" by Larry Niven

Published in 1980 by Ace Books, it weighs in at 208 pages with lots of illustrations by Fernando.

Gil Hamilton has been sent to the Moon as the representative of the United Nations Police, known as the Amalgamated Regional Militia, or ARM, which is ironic because he's known as Gil 'the Arm' Hamilton. Something about losing an arm out in the Asteroid Belt, but as a result unlocking psychic powers which allows him to feel (like with a hand) with his mind, but only out to arm's length. This particular skill will prove useful in his investigation.

The conference is on Lunar laws regarding organlegging. This is where the body parts of felons convicted to death for crimes were used by the wealthy to keep themselves alive, or even augmented. There is some concern that the Lunars are playing a little fast and loose with the bodies, scavenging bits and pieces of those who are in a six-month window available for last-ditch legal efforts while the criminal is kept on ice.

Speaking of criminals, it turns out that one of the delegates has been shot by a message laser, only narrowly escaping death with a seriously cooked sternum. The mystery is how the assassin was able to do their work because none of the pieces fit together. Even worse, the only suspect available is the beautiful Naomi Horne, the very woman for whom Gil's unrequited love drove him to the Asteroid Belt. He doesn't think she did it, but why is she so willing to take the fall? It doesn't add up, and Gil races to try to figure out what really happened before she's sent to her six-month deep freeze, because Gil doesn't think the Lunars are going to wait six months.

This was a chilling tale, especially in light of some of the stories one hears (most untrue) of the trafficking in human organs. The tale cautions of how our laws can be twisted to nefarious ends. I can see where this could lead to nightmares for more sensitive types. There are a lot of plot twists as one gets closer to the end, and the climax sticks with you afterwards.

I'll go with a three-quarter Moon.

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"Tranquility" by Fred van Lente, illustrated by Steve Ellis

Published in varying original incarnations over the 1995-99 timeframe, this collection was put together in 2006 and is available at Lulu Books. It weighs in at 142 pages. In graphic novel form.

Tranquility is an agent for Security Operations of the Lunar Exploration and Development Corporation (LEDC). She has a talking gun named Rodney. Time for some senseless violence...

The Pontiff of the Terran Church has come to the Moon, and the masses crowd to see him. This of course means there is danger, and the Cardinal is all over John Q. Public, the head of LDEC on the Moon and answerable only to the head of LEDC on Earth. He assigns Tranquility to baby sit him for an hour to make sure nothing happens. Something does, but it's amazing what a woman can do with safety pins and belts and a talking gun.

It's tough finding a date when your AI gun is always scaring off the boys, so Tranquility turns to the Narcissus Dating Agency for some help. They run some tests, do some videos, and promise to get back to her in a week. Two weeks later her first date shows. He's perfect. He's everything a woman claims she wants in a man. He even knows the right bodice-rippers. Her gun's not impressed, and talks her into following the guy afterwards. Why is he going to the dating agency? She sneaks in to find...tanks of clones. Her date was a clone. Now there's going to be heck to pay.

Tranquility's got to take out a group of Whig smugglers. Then another. It's a brutal life. The Moon is a harsh place, and some of the oppressed workers are agitating for the overthrow of the LEDC. It's a tightly controlled environment, and Earthers have no idea how bad life is on the Moon. Especially when the corporate police have effectively unlimited power. Time for more senseless violence. Slowly, though, Tranquility begins to piece together her background, and the larger forces that are conspiring around her.

This is the kind of story that's perfect for 'edgy', disaffected teenage boys. Maybe girls too, though I wouldn't want to think of Tranquility as a role model. The AI talking gun is an interesting. Guns are often described as phallic substitutes for the user's own feelings of genital inadequacy. In this case the gun acts as a substitute for the source of the phallus. She does start to exhibit more self-doubt as the trail of bodies lengthens, but somehow it doesn't seem enough, even if she is just a pawn in a much larger game. If she were a man, she'd be Judge Dredd.

This one gets a waxing half Moon.

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"Exit Strategy" by Pierce Askegren

Published in 2006 by Ace Books, it weighs in at 278 pages.

Erik Morrison is overseeing the Ad Astra project for the Allied Lunar Combine (ALC). The project is nearing fruition, but he's thrown off his stride by the untimely death of his two sons. As any man would he plumbs the depths of despair with the aid of alcohol. In a moment of weakness he needs someone to talk to, and makes a phone call to Wendy Scheer, the psionic leader of the SETI-like HALO project who has this natural tendency of people just liking her and wanting to make sure her agenda is met. This makes anyone who has ever been in contact with her potentially suspect and Erik has worked hard to keep the project free of her influence.

He slowly starts to climb out of the bottle, with the arrival of one of his ex-wives further complicating things. His assistant turns out to be quite adept, and everything seems to be going swimmingly for the launch of humanity's first trip to go meet whatever placed the object found on the Moon in the first story. Until his security chief Kowalski finds some strange results in the bio-computers being prepared for the starship. Wendy has been working far more deviously than most had assumed.

This is the last book of the Inconstant Moon trilogy, and it seems to almost limp to its conclusion as if it's running out of steam. The fundamental story threads seem left unresolved, with everything conveniently transferred to Earth.

I've got to give this one a waning half Moon.

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"Space: 1999 - Phoenix of the Megaron" by John Rankine

Published in November, 1976 by Pocket Books, it weighs in at 159 pages.

The Moon continues its trajectory through the depths of space, the residents of Moonbase Alpha always hoping beyond hope that somewhere they might be able to find a planet they can call home. They get a sighting, a blue and white planet with a breathable atmosphere. They're on a fast approach, so there's not going to be much time between recon and exodus. Everyone get on it, the Command staff's going on reconnaissance.

Despite their inquiries, there's been no response from the planet. Closer examination reveals the detritus of an ancient and advanced civilization. It seems impossible that such a planet should be entirely uninhabited, and they're right. The Eagle gets shot down, and the Moonbase command team find themselves at the mercy of the local warlord without a whole lot of time on their hands.

A fortuitous escape leads the Alphans to a group of outcasts who fill them in. Their civilization is in one of its periodic collapses, with most of the planet poisoned from the last auto-da-fe. The Alphans try to explain to the Megarons that they don't need to live in fear of the warlords, but only manage to stir up the thugs, who decide the outcasts need a lesson. Things look grim for the Alphan command team as the Moon recedes from its encounter with the planet.

And so, we finish the first half of the Space: 1999 books. This one was a bit better than most. Coming up we have the six books covering the second season of Space: 1999, followed by the four books published more recently. Seems kind of fitting to be half-way done, as at over 200 reviews so far, I guesstimate that I'm a bit over halfway to the 400 or so Moon stories I guesstimate will be where I get to before this particular project wraps up.

This one gets a waxing half Moon.

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"Doors of Death and Life" by Brenda Clough

Published in 2000 by Tor Books, it weighs in at 265 pages.

Rob Lewis met Gilgamesh in a previous book by the author, and obtained from him the Pearl of Immortality and a kind of mind-bending charismatic mental power. He gave the Pearl of Immortality to his friend Edwin Barbarossa in return for a promise to keep Rob's powers a secret.

In this book the two characters explore how to try to be human when you have super-hero powers. It is only marginally associated with the Moon, in that Edwin takes a job on the Moon, and on his return trip after his tour of duty there's a horrendous mechanical and systems failure that poisons the air and kills his crewmates. When he gets back to Earth still alive, questions start to arise as to just how that might have come to be. Fanatics decide to get in on the fun, and a bunch of other stuff.

Quarter Moon on this one.

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Comic Book Break!

"The Conquerors of the Moon!", art by Wally Wood, from the January-February 1952 edition of Weird Science, #11, republished in "The EC Archives: Weird Science"

The time is the not too distant future. Using private capital, "The Uranium-Development Corporation" has sent the first men to the Moon and claim the entire thing. The courts uphold their claim, and so begins U.D.'s development of the Moon's resources. It's not an easy task working in the extreme colds found on the Moon. The Chairman addresses the Board. There is a solution, and that's to use a teleportation device to transfer a small portion of the Earth's atmosphere to the Moon to create a better work environment. Others get news of the plan, and agitate to have it stopped. U.D. is forced to set up their transmitter at a secret location in the north woods of Canada. The controls are set to turn off after 34 hours, the time necessary to teleport the required amount of air. Soon, the Chairman is rocketing to his Moon Empire.

Thirty-four hours later, the teleporter is still functioning. Soon, people around the world start noticing the effects. Weather stations report dropping barometric pressures. The military locates the transmitter station, but the bomber they send to take it out can't get enough lift! The people of Earth are doomed!

When the Chairman gets to the Moon, his radio having broken shortly after lift-off, he his horrified to learn of what has happened, especially since long term provisions had not been made, and their store of food is finite. Then, one day, a plant is spotted. Some spore from some ancient time of the Moon must have survived...

Quite speculative, I'll give this one a quarter Moon.

[murphydyne]

"Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Published in July 2003 by Roc Books, it weighs in at 373 pages. One or two errors noted.

We open with the Armstrong Marathon, an extreme event that tests both runner and equipment. Coburn is towards the front of the pack, and somewhere after mile five he rounds a rock to see the pink spacesuit of his business partner curled on a ball on the regolith. He stops to check on her, and gazes in horror at the bulging eyes and distended tongue of oxygen deprivation. He quickly presses his panic button, but why didn't she?

A death during the marathon isn't unheard of, but the publicity's not good. So the city accidentally sends their most competent detective to check it out. It doesn't take her long to figure out that it's murder, and so begins the task of putting the pieces together to find the perpetrator. Detective DeRicci seals the marathon, because all participants are now suspects. So begins another long day.

Miles Flint is in one of his slow periods when he's contacted by a law firm looking for a Retrieval Artist, someone who finds people who have dropped out of their former lives, typically for interstellar legal reasons, and have started unconnected new ones. Not to turn them in (those are the Trackers), but usually because of a will provision or estate or some legal reason such as that. After a bit of back and forth, he starts getting to the real story. The law firm wants him to find a woman who is either the most misunderstood scientist in the Solar system, or a vicious killer on par with some of the heinous madmen of the 20th century.

Frieda Tey 'accidentally' released a virus into an enclosed dome environment that called everyone therein except for the research team. Rather than go to trial, Tey disappeared. The virus was named after her, and all future decontamination units had to be effective against it. But what if she was hiding in plain site?

Miriam Oliviari is a tracker. She was hired by the families of the victims of the Tey virus to find her and bring her to justice. She's close to her target, and is certain she'll find her at the marathon. She goes undercover as one of the Med Techs for the race, certain that she'll be able to get the genetic evidence that she needs. She ends up collecting the suits from the runners as they come in from the race, a perfect spot. One runner, sweating more than he should be, stumbles against her and collapses.

The stage is set for a complicated mystery. Well, less so a mystery than a tale of the protagonists racing to catch up with a brilliant but twisted mind. The story encapsulates one of the worst nightmares that could be faced by a future space colony - a viral outbreak. The Disappeared/Retrieval Artist concepts provide an interesting wrapper for the mystery,and while the author's Retireval Artist concept works best in the context of interstellar alien treaties, it still works outside of that context as aliens didn;t really figure into this one.

An enjoyable tale, this gets a Full Moon.

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[murphydyne]

"The Conquest of the Moon" by Andre Laurie

Published originally in 1887, mine is a 2007 reprint by Black Cat Press weighing in at 352 pages. Lots of OCR errors.

In Melbourne, Australia, three businessmen are fending off creditors whilst hoping to find investors in their latest venture, The Electric Transmission Co. (Limited). They're almost out of hope when a certain Sir Becephalus Coghill, Baronet of the Empire, expresses interest in shares of the subscription (at which point the price promptly goes up). The butler puts down a deposit, which the businessmen promptly start promptly divvying up amongst themselves. One proposes that they start a new venture, one so startling as to be sure to attract investors and even more money. Luna Company, limited, working joint stock company, for the acquirement and exploratiolt [sic] of the mineral riches of the Moon, capital of 2 million £ sterling, divided into ten million shares. The means of reaching the Moon is secret, just trust them.

At the first shareholders meeting, a young Frenchman, M. Mauny, asst. astronomer at the famous Observatoire de Paris and shareholder in the company, demands to know the proposed method whereby they intend to achieve this acquirement of the mineral riches of the Moon. They intend to build a tube connecting the two bodies, and complete it within five years. Nonsense, sneers the asst. astronomer. Here's the numbers, what you're contemplating is impossible. But I have an alternative plan, he continues, one that will draw the Moon to the Earth by use of the electro- properties of magnetism. It turns out that there's this certain mountain in the Sudan that would serve as a perfect magnet for his purposes, out near Khartoum and Berber.

An expedition is mounted with scientific instrumentation and sets off for the Sudan, arriving at Suakim on the Red Sea some seven months after the formation of the enterprise. After much difficulty with the local Musulmans, who resent the European interlopers and are being whipped into a frenzy by the local warlords and the Mahdi. The arrange with the local Mogaddem for 800 camels to transport their equipment to the plateau of Tehbali, where they begin construction of the giant electromagnet using the latest in 19th century electronics.

After more difficulties the Moon is finally rapidly approaching Earth. The tips of the Lunar Apennines might even strike in the Sahara desert. Someone freaks out and tries to reverse the switch. It's too late, there's a violent shock!

The intrepid entrepreneurs slowly start coming to. They quickly come to the bizarre realization that the entire plateau of Thebali was ripped from the sands of the Sudan and deposited right side up in Crater Rhaeticus (0N, 4.9E). They quickly realize that the air is unbreathable outside, composed mainly of nitrogen. They quickly seal up all the cracks in the buildings hewn from the top of the plateau. Soon the spirit of exploration overtakes them, and they start making one startling discovery after another. Mischief is afoot, and we learn of the dark backgrounds of some of the characters that have had horrible consequences. There's the poisoned dwarf, the Selenian giants, peaks to mount, caves to explore.

If the story sounds a good bit like a Jules Verne tale of scientifical adventure, there's good reason, as the author collaborated with M. Verne on several stories. It's not as brisk as modern tales, and takes a bit of time to read, even with all of the period illustrations.

Part of the reason it takes too long to read is because of the pervasive OCR errors found throughout the text. Whoever scanned it didn't bother to proof the results, so that by the end one is quite good at puzzling out what letter was supposed to be in the jumble of odd characters. Apogee Books was supposed to be publishing the 'Conquest of Space' type books from Black Cat Press, but if I was Apogee I would have sent it back too. I'm hoping the rest of the titles I recently got from Lulu are better than this one.

I can't give this edition any better than a waning quarter Moon.

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"Lunar One" by Rick Phipps

Published in 2005 by Lulu, it weighs in at 37 pages.

The year is 2110. Bill Larantz is an agitator for the Freedom Fighters, its leader until captured by the World Federation and sentenced to imprisonment at the Lunar-1 penal colony. His transport capsule would become his cell on the sterile Lunar surface.

Nolan Pool is an affectedly average person that no one ever notices or remembers. Back when the United States was intact, before the One World Order had taken over, he'd had a girlfriend who was a journalist. She'd found out too much on a story of how educational systems were being used to drug children so that they would be docile citizens when they grew up. His rage at her death translated into a desire to expose those who would wipe freedom from the face of the Earth so that they could exercise their lust for power by controlling other people. The cabal dates to the beginning of the 20th century, when a small cabal of self-designated individuals decided they were going to control the world through the creation of a 'corporatocracy'. Company towns of the past? That was just practice. Company nation, like we have now? Warm up for the big game. The future is Company World. Mr. Pool is expert at infiltrating into places he shouldn't be, and unleashing nanotechnology in pursuit of his quest to reveal to the citizens of the world the evil being done to them.

Erick Land is on his first day on the job at the Lunar-1 Control Station. He's getting background on why L-1 is such an escape-proof prison. Bill, meanwhile, has been busy. He managed to smuggle one micron of nanomachines to the Moon hidden deep inside a tooth. He's turned that fact to his advantage. Nolan has been infecting various individuals with nanomachines so that he can record what they do. Several will be at a meeting of the Select, who control the fates of billions of lives. The Department of Health has devised a drug, brand name Apathezak, which renders its victims docile and subservient in small doses for the workers, while those with technical educations would get the higher doses that turn them into vegetables. All of the pieces are in place for the complete domination of humanity by the Select of the World Federation. Can Nolan get this stunning revelation to the Freedom Fighters?

I'm not going to give away any more of the story. When I as reading it I kept thinking of Anthem and We the Living by Ayn Rand. It's a tale of how it takes individuals of strength and character to unmask the evils that men do to their fellow men because, well, you know, they want to. This is a strongly cautionary tale of a world tethered to the whims of fundamentalists and their 'desire' for what's best for everyone else.

An interesting tale for these interesting times, I'll go with a waxing half Moon.

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