Inconstant moon
by Larry Niven · first published 1900
80% recommend20% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A man notices the moon is unnaturally bright and reasons out that something has happened to the sun. It is a classic apocalyptic tale and a good entry point into Niven's work.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From the back cover: INCONSTANT MOON a moon so bright could mean only one thing. The sun had gone nova. DEATH BY ECSTASY Belters didn't get addicted to current stimulation, so why did the spacer die with electrodes in his brain? BORDERED IN BLACK the continent had a thin black border all the way around. The things that made it drove a space explorer raving mad.
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2014–2026Footfall
Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
Recommended by 11 · mentioned by 2411 recommend · 24 mention11 recommend · 2411 recommend
2011–2026Lucifer's Hammer
Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
Recommended by 24 · mentioned by 3824 recommend · 38 mention24 recommend · 3824 recommend
2012–2025Out of the Silent Planet
C. S. Lewis
Recommended by 8 · mentioned by 188 recommend · 18 mention8 recommend · 188 recommend
2008–2026Last and First Men
Olaf Stapledon
Recommended by 24 · mentioned by 3924 recommend · 39 mention24 recommend · 3924 recommend
The Gods Themselves
Isaac Asimov
Recommended by 22 · mentioned by 4622 recommend · 46 mention22 recommend · 4622 recommend
2008–2026Childhood’s End
Arthur C. Clarke
Recommended by 42 · mentioned by 7542 recommend · 75 mention42 recommend · 7542 recommend
2008–2026The Mote in God's Eye
Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, L.J. Ganser
Recommended by 43 · mentioned by 10543 recommend · 105 mention43 recommend · 10543 recommend
2015–2026Seveneves
Neal Stephenson
Recommended by 182 · mentioned by 417182 recommend · 417 mention182 recommend · 417182 recommend
I just came on to comment that. Larry Niven was a favorite of mine. Another great short story of his: Inconstant Moon (turned into an Outer Limits episode) about a man who notices the moon is /unnaturally/ bright one night, and comes to the only rational conclusion: something has happened to the sun...
on “Superman vs. Baseball” ↗Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven
on “Record-breaking gamma-ray burst possibly most powerful explosion ever recorded” ↗Larry Niven's short story collections are well worth picking up. His first is 'Inconstant Moon' and it's where I first discovered him. Some of the stories later developed into key parts of his Known Space cycle of short stries and novellas. They're all great stuff, but IM is the starting point.…
on “Beginnings of Science Fiction” ↗Larry Niven was awesome at apocalypses. The short story Inconstant Moon is one of the greats, plus he did a couple of thick novels on the theme with Pournelle -- Lucifer's Hammer and Footfall.
on “The Day the Moon Blew Up” ↗See the classic Larry Niven short story Inconstant Moon, collected in All the Myriad Ways.
on “Stellar Explosion in Earth's Proximity” ↗If it happened while the moon was not visible from your part of the world, and you were reading HN at the time you might well do. One of my favourite Larry Niven stories is Inconstant Moon. One evening the moon starts getting brighter and brighter, people start partying in the street and it becomes almost as bright as daylight. The protagonist goes to a bar and starts getting as drunk as…
on “The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason (2017)” ↗Presumably a reference to: Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven Worth googling, good short story, and relevant to the "Solar superflares hit Earth" topic.
on “Solar superflares hit Earth multiple times” ↗…was worse than what happened to Heinlein around then. I don't think the books he wrote w/ Pournelle where anywhere near as good as Neutron Star, World of Ptavvs, etc. His great disaster short story Inconstant Moon dates from that period.
on “J.G. Ballard: My Favorite Books” ↗Yeah but Niven's best stories were mostly shorter. (Even Inconstant Moon is a novella.) IMO, Niven and Pournelle were really great complements. Niven wasn't really a great novel writer and Pournelle ended up doing militarist fiction--some of which was OK but not as good as…
on “J.G. Ballard: My Favorite Books” ↗Larry Niven's Inconstant Moon from the first line of the article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconstant_Moon I read it many years ago, maybe in another collection.
on “Inconstant Moon: The Moon at Perigee and Apogee (1997)” ↗based on Larry Niven story Inconstant Moon which won the 1972 Hugo Award for best short story.
on “Researchers identify largest ever solar storm in 14,300-year-old tree rings” ↗Larry Niven has a short inconstant moon where the main character looks up at the moon which brightens to 1000 times normal brightness, what that means dawns on him shortly later.
on “Stellar Explosion in Earth's Proximity” ↗Plot sounds similar to Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven from the 1970s, but the protagonist is on the night side of Earth, not an astronaut on the moon.
on “Science fiction and the death of the sun” ↗…"mercantilism" have been replaced by a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-system Even if the United States was wiped out overnight by a solar flare as happens to the Soviet Union in Larry Niven's story Inconstant Moon it might make less change in the direction of said system because the primary complaint people have over our chief competitor, which claims to be Communist, is that it seems to practice Capitalism better…
on “Euphemisms are best changed frequently (2016)” ↗In fiction: the solar flare of Inconstant Moon [1] and, very appropriately, the gamma ray burst of Diaspora [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconstant_Moon [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel)
on “Space explosion reveals possible hints of dark matter” ↗