num_pages: 192
description: This is one of the most hair-raising novels of hard SF ever published. Its technological props of matter transmission have dated slightly since 1960; the neurotic, obsessed characters are fresh as ever as they struggle against each other and the timeless, incomprehensible alien death machine found on our Moon. Hawks the scientist can tape men and beam endless copies of them moonwards, to investigate the deadly artifact. It invariably kills the duplicates, and as a side-effect drives the (telepathically linked) originals insane. Barker the playboy is already insane, more than half in love with just the man to map the alien maze by surviving a few seconds longer on each of countless visits. The two men inevitably collide head-on, and you're left to decide which is the stronger, and which wins. The matter transmitter itself is also "the death machine" (Budrys's original title for the novel); what comes out is only a copy of the man who went in, and the copy may not be perfect. When the maze seems almost mapped, versions of Hawks and Barker stumble together through its psychedelic horror -- littered with the corpses of past Barkers at each false turning -- in hope of being the first to enter and emerge again. This final sequence inside the alien machine could be a filmic trip to rival 2001's Star Gate -- but filming would ruin it, because the nightmares are Barker doesn't see the same as Hawks.... And there's still one last black twist to come in the power-game between the two. "You thought then you'd already felt the surest death of all. You hadn't. I have to do it once more." Rogue Moon is impressive, compulsive SF, a novel that can be read many times without going stale. Don't miss it.
language: English
title: Rogue Moon
titlecomplete: Rogue Moon
characters: Sam Latourette, Edward Hawks, Doctor of Science, Vincent "Connie" Connington, Elizabeth Cummings, Al Barker
genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Death, Collections, Horror, Literature, Science Fiction Fantasy, Classics, Novels, 20th Century
ratings_count: 2950
awards: awardedAt: -283968000000
name: Hugo Award
category: Best Novel
publisher: Avon