Gate on the moon, pass through it and become lost.

[Cugel]

This novel is I think from the 90's. An artifact is discovered on the moon and you can pass through it to another reality. An expedition is sent through it and the members start to lose contact with each other as they lose their way into yet more realities.

At the end there is something about how one of the explorers has returned but his life is now different, he is now married to another expedition member - not the way it was before, but I'm not sure if anyone is aware that anything is now different.

 

[northernexposure]

How about Budrys - Rogue Moon? Not all of what you write fits the book, but the one explorer who is killed over and over again is indeed changed at the end of the book. I truly think that this book never received the kind of praise it deserved.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Geesh yeah, Rogue Moon is wonderful!! Sorry, OP, not sure what book you are looking for, but somewhere here will know, I bet!!

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I don't think it is Rogue Moon, there's only one man going into the moon artefact iirc.

 

[Boneman]

Beyond the Blue event Horizon by Frederick Pohl, the heechee saga

 

[Cugel]

It's not Rogue Moon. The good news there is that there seems to be an SF classic that I never read, so I'll have to check availability.

Another detail from this book which title I can't remember: At some point one of the expedition members is aboard a spaceship, where the tech is something like the tech from an old comic book (vacuum tubes, computers made of gears and rods so tiny and complicated that looking under the hood of one reveals complex mossy surfaces).

Thanks everyone for the responses and keep them coming.

 

[PaulMmn]

Your story about transporting from the moon sounds a lot like Heinlein's "Tunnel In The Sky." There's no artifact (it's man-made transportation) and no multiple universes, but they do transport from the moon...
.
--Paul E Musselman

 

[zaltys13]

It sounds a bit like Origin by Stephen Baxter.

 

[Cugel]

Found it!!! It's The Transmigration of Souls, by William Barton. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

 

[otistdog]

Thanks for coming back to close your own question. Not everyone takes the time to do so, and it might help someone else later.