Moon Is Hell, The & Green World, The

Author: John W. Campbell Jr.

Before he became the most influential editor in the history of science fiction, Campbell was an author of remarkable, scientifically savvy stories that clearly presaged the golden age he helped to bring in. This fine novella is an excellent example of why he should be celebrated as an author as much as as an editor. Even since Daniel Defoe, people have been writing robinsonades in which individuals or small groups are cast upon inhospitable islands. In works like No Man Friday and The Martian, science fiction writers have reimagined that desert island as Mars, but long before that Campbell had set this remarkable robinsonade on the Moon. It's the story of a small group of scientists whose spaceship crashes on the Moon. They then have to combine their expertise in order to survive until they can be rescued, which means devising a shelter to protect them from meteor showers and finding a way to manufacture enough oxygen for them to breathe. Why it's on the list: With his precise attention to technical details, Campbell set the scene for the lunar stories to come throughout the Golden Age.