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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Solid, fairly short golden age SF. A tourist attraction on the moon goes wrong, the tourists are trapped in a very unusual situation, the people on board have to survive while those outside have to find them and find a way to rescue them. Clarke as always has interesting ideas. As with much SF of the age, it has facts wrong (no such areas on the moon) but if you can't accept that as a basis for a story you really need to stay away from SF, at least that written more than 10 years ago.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Arthur C. Clarke is known for bone dry science fiction, so it's only appropriate that he takes us to the Sea of Thirst on the moon, a massive lake of lunar dust traversed by the tourist cruiser Selene. When a sudden burst of lunar activity buries Selene under 15 meters of dust, it's up the passengers and crew to survive until rescue by heroic scientists and engineers.
There's some psychological drama among the crew and passengers, as they deal with escalating threats from oxygen starvation to heat, but the star of the book are the escalating threats to the buried craft, and the repeated last minute rescues. If you like Clarke and hard scifi, you'll like this, but don't come for complex characters or thrilling action.
There's some psychological drama among the crew and passengers, as they deal with escalating threats from oxygen starvation to heat, but the star of the book are the escalating threats to the buried craft, and the repeated last minute rescues. If you like Clarke and hard scifi, you'll like this, but don't come for complex characters or thrilling action.
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This clearly isn't Arthur C Clarke's best book, and it makes sense, since this is one of his earlier works. I just didn't expect it to be so dramatically different from his later books — which also happen to be some of my favourite science fictions of all time, mind you. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama are like beacons in a way, shining a light on what the genre can do to make readers think about bigger questions. What I love about Clarke is the way he asks big questions with simple, direct language, and he doesn't boggle the readers down with hard science details.
A Fall of Moondust isn't a overly complex love letter to science by any means, but it's not much of anything either. At the core of it, it is a rescue mission on the moon, and that's about it. Twenty-two passengers are stranded in a buried moon boat, and they have to be rescued by outside forces. The rest of the book is about the passengers and crew trying to survive, all while people on the outside try to get to them before time runs out.
I make it sound more exciting than it is, but it isn't. Clarke isn't good at writing tension. I'm guessing, since it was earlier on in his career, he was trying to write a pulpy disaster/adventure book to pay the rent. Judging by the accompanying text on my copy of the book, this book surely did quite well for Clarke and his career ("6 million copies sold!"). But this book is devoid of what makes Clarke Clarke, and the central event in this book isn't terribly exciting. The 'climax' of the book involves people on the outside drilling some holes into the hull — that's it. That's all there is to it.
The characters aren't particularly notable, either. You want to root for the people trapped inside the boat because, well, we are supposed to be spending a lot of time with them, right? But these characters are mostly caricatures you'd find in a science fiction story from the mid 20th century. Women, obviously, are completely sidelined and always on the verge of hysterics. Oh, there is one competent female crew, yes, but she turns out to be the love interest — as if we didn't see THAT coming.
I don't know what I was expecting with this book, to be honest. The Martian by Andy Weir from the golden age of science fiction, perhaps? Is that too much to ask for? The only thing going for this book is the fact that it isn't very long. At 215 pages, the staleness of the story goes away fairly quickly. Reading this book feels like a train trip through an unexciting countryside. There's nothing much to see outside the window, and you are stuck people-watching in the cabin — but it's OK, because the next stop is coming up soon.
A Fall of Moondust isn't a overly complex love letter to science by any means, but it's not much of anything either. At the core of it, it is a rescue mission on the moon, and that's about it. Twenty-two passengers are stranded in a buried moon boat, and they have to be rescued by outside forces. The rest of the book is about the passengers and crew trying to survive, all while people on the outside try to get to them before time runs out.
I make it sound more exciting than it is, but it isn't. Clarke isn't good at writing tension. I'm guessing, since it was earlier on in his career, he was trying to write a pulpy disaster/adventure book to pay the rent. Judging by the accompanying text on my copy of the book, this book surely did quite well for Clarke and his career ("6 million copies sold!"). But this book is devoid of what makes Clarke Clarke, and the central event in this book isn't terribly exciting. The 'climax' of the book involves people on the outside drilling some holes into the hull — that's it. That's all there is to it.
The characters aren't particularly notable, either. You want to root for the people trapped inside the boat because, well, we are supposed to be spending a lot of time with them, right? But these characters are mostly caricatures you'd find in a science fiction story from the mid 20th century. Women, obviously, are completely sidelined and always on the verge of hysterics. Oh, there is one competent female crew, yes, but she turns out to be the love interest — as if we didn't see THAT coming.
I don't know what I was expecting with this book, to be honest. The Martian by Andy Weir from the golden age of science fiction, perhaps? Is that too much to ask for? The only thing going for this book is the fact that it isn't very long. At 215 pages, the staleness of the story goes away fairly quickly. Reading this book feels like a train trip through an unexciting countryside. There's nothing much to see outside the window, and you are stuck people-watching in the cabin — but it's OK, because the next stop is coming up soon.
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated