A Fall Of Moondust

Author: Arthur C. Clarke

This is one of those short, intense novels that encapsulates all the dangers of life on the space frontier in one gripping episode. In this case, a cruise ship on one of the dust seas of the Moon sinks, and a race against time follows to locate the ship and rescue the passengers. But throughout the story the realities of life on the lunar colony keep intruding to shorten the odds and spell out what life in space is really like. The air supply aboard the ship is limited, the build-up of heat induces CO2 poisoning, metal-rich dust gets into the double hull and short circuits the batteries, the liquid oxygen stored aboard the ship threatens to explode. It is such a simple story, and yet the introduction of danger after danger makes it an absolutely gripping read. Why it's on the list: Our knowledge of the Moon has changed quite a bit in the half a century or so since this was written, but it remains a vivid example of how sf writers of the golden age were true to then scientific knowledge about the reality of life on the Moon.