A Fall of Moondust
by Arthur C. Clarke, Oliver Wyman · first published 1961
8mentions
2recommended by
8HN commenters
2010–2024first – last mentioned
25% recommend75% neutral
An early Arthur C. Clarke novel that takes place on the Moon. The setting is a future in which the Moon has become a tourist destination, and one of the attractions is a huge dust bowl on which one can sightsee from a "dust cruiser". Then there's a serious accident...... This is an excellent hard SF adventure.
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Two suggestions: Arthur C. Clarke's "A Fall of Moondust". https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/149059.A_Fall_of_Moondus... - This might be a bit dated now, but I remember enjoying it years ago. Buzz Aldrin's "Men From Earth" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1369808.Men_from_Earth
on “Ask HN: Great books about the moon?” ↗Yes. The atmosphere is completely wrong. Ignore that and the rest is pretty good. As for recommendations, I'd say loads of the books by Arthur C. Clarke. Try "A fall of moondust".
on “Bioluminescent petunias now available for U.S. market” ↗In Arthur C. Clarke's "A Fall of Moondust", there is an accident and a bus full of tourists sinks into the lunar dust, is covered over and lost. This presents massive engineering challenges as the dust is so fine, the location unknown, resources…
on “Ask HN: How can the oil leak (edit: was 'spill') be stopped?” ↗…the initial race to the moon it was widely speculated that the moon was covered in a deep layer of ultrafine dust, and any spacecraft landing on it would be liable to sink. Arthur C. Clarke's novel "A Fall of Moondust" was based on this thinking. It seems astronomers have a bias towards assuming dust will cover stuff. Perhaps this says something about their office space.
on “OSIRIS spots Philae drifting across the comet” ↗Looks like Arthur C. Clarke guessed correctly in his sci-fi novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fall_of_Moondust, where a moonquake causes problems to a "sand-cruiser" full of tourists.
on “The moon may be tectonically active” ↗…feels like social commentary with a mild flavour of sci-fi. I suppose am struggling to articulate this better. To give you a contrast, take Arthur C Clarke, a contemporary of hers. Consider his book 'A Fall of Moondust' (one of my favourites). In ACC's book, there is some core peculiarity of the fundamental nature of the world that the story is entirely based on. The possibilities stemming from that one oddity is interesting…
on “Reading more Ursula Le Guin (2019)” ↗I cannot help but think of the novel “A Fall of Moondust” by Arthur C. Clarke.
on “Titanic tourist sub goes missing sparking search” ↗But could it hide a filmset to do a new version of the fake moon landings? This is very much the stuff of some of my childhood sci-fi reading from several decades ago. We don't nee to reprise "A Fall of Moondust" however...
on “Japan’s lunar orbiter discovers moon cave” ↗