Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys

[Vertigo]

This was a very disappointing science fiction novel. Why? Because for much of the book the science fiction was irrelevant. There are two main SF elements: an enigmatic and deadly alien artefact found on the moon and a matter transmitter remarkably similar in principle to the later Star Trek transporter (though its use is not nearly as casual). The alien artefact thread is not really taken anywhere at all; the transmitter and the issues of death and identity that it raises are well examined but only really in the last third of the book. The first two thirds are far more interested in the highly exaggerated and melodramatic relationships between four of the characters. Only two of the characters have anything to do with the plot and the tempestuous relationships between all four characters contribute nothing to that plot.

This felt like a short story/novella with all this relationship stuff tacked on – badly – and it also felt as though this addition was probably at the behest of publisher or agent, along the lines of “more character exploration, a nice racy woman and some love interest, please.” None of which contributed anything to improving the novel. This is reinforced by the later discovery that there had in fact been a shorter original version published earlier in a magazine. I suspect I would probably have much preferred that version.

If the soap opera melodrama is ignored it is not a bad book and it does raise one or two interesting subjects. The book was first published in 1960 and is set in 1959. This, rather surprisingly, suggests that Budrys felt that the science of the day was ‘capable’ of such technology and that it was perfectly possible that such technology could already exist and its existence be successfully hidden from the general populace. So both conspiracy and over-confidence in technological ability; rather unusual even for those days.

As usual, when reading a novel from that era, allowance must be made for the social norms of the time. I have absolutely no idea what (exactly) is being referred to here:

“…and was wearing knitted navy-blue, European-style swimming trunks without an athletic supporter”

but it did get a grin from me nonetheless. What wasn’t so funny was the misogyny; whilst I am used to putting up with this is these older books, I’m not particularly comfortable with it and this book comes up with one corker:

“What bothered me was that here were these other intelligent organisms [women], in the same world with men, and there had to be a purpose for that intelligence. If all women were for was the continuance of the race, what did they need intelligence for? A simple set of instincts would have done just as well. And as a matter of fact, the instincts are there, so what was the intelligence for? There were plenty of men to take care of making the physical environment comfortable. That wasn’t what women were for. At least, it wasn’t what they had to have intelligence for.”

Ouch! (The emphasis is mine.)

All in all, if the book had been half the size and dropped all the soap opera melodrama it could have been an exceptionally good book examining the identity implications of a matter transmitter that takes your body apart and reconstructs it elsewhere. Have you been killed and reborn? Are you still the same person? Budrys makes this debate particularly strong as his matter transmitter technology has the ability to create a duplicate, an aspect of such technologies that I’ve always felt is generally quietly brushed under the carpet. As it is, though, it is a messy book to say the least; I am astonished that it was nominated for the ’61 Hugo Award and it certainly comes nowhere close to A Canticle for Leibowitz to which it lost that award.

 

[gdoc]

Great review

 

[Fried Egg]

Here's my review after reading the book last year:

A piece of classic SF with an intriguing premise that explores some of my favourite themes but for me seemed to lack focus and was distracted by pointless character interactions and conversations.

Many a time I've pondered what really happens to you if you were teleported from one location to another, the original you destroyed but your exact molecular structure accurately recreated in the target location. How would you really know you were still who you were before after the event? All you would have are your memories which might have been changed in subtle ways not objectively verifiable to anyone else. What about if more than one copy of you was recreated, which is the real you and which should go back to living your life afterwards.

These questions (and more) are at the centre of this book in a story set in 1960 in which although we haven't yet managed to fly people to the moon, we are able to teleport there. A strange artefact is discovered on the dark side of the moon that kills all who enter it if they breach a seemly pointless set of rules that they can only discover by trial and error. Ed Hawks, who's heading this exploration of the artefact, has come up with a mind blowing way of keeping people alive when they enter it, if only he can find someone who can keep their sanity after experiencing their own death...

My main problem with this book is there were pointless digressions as superfluous characters were introduced leading to many pointless conversations that did little or nothing to move the plot along or develop the characters that were central to the story. Often these conversations were hard to follow which didn't help. These formed such a large portion of the book that it has to bring down my rating of an otherwise fine story.

To sum up, a great story that was significantly flawed.

 

[Vertigo]

Hehe, I'm pretty sure I clicked one of the 'Likes' on that review of yours on GR when I posted mine and in fact I seem to recall I nearly left a comment as well , we certainly seem to have similar feelings that could probably be summed up as: very good but could have been even better.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

I vaguely recall reading this one long ago, but the book disappeared in one of my occasional space-saving culls, so I can't have been that impressed.

The only book by this author which I have kept is The Iron Thorn, which I re-read quite recently and still very much enjoyed. There's a review posted here somewhere...