Rogue Moon

By: Algis Budrys

Narrated by: Graham Halstead

Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's Summary

A monstrous apparatus has been found on the surface of the moon. It devours and destroys in ways so incomprehensible to humans that a new language must be invented to describe it and a new kind of thinking to understand it. So far, the human guinea pigs sent there in hopes of unraveling the murderous maze have all died terrible deaths - except the last, now on suicide watch. The ideal candidate won't go insane, even as he feels the end approaching. And now they think they've found their man.   

Al Barker has already stared into the face of death - he can handle it again. But Barker won't merely have to endure the trauma of dying: he will have to endure it over and over again - mentally linked to an ongoing series of duplicates of himself created and sent to the Moon by matter transmission - until the artifact reveals its secret.   

With a cast of fascinating characters taking center stage, Rogue Moon is a rare thriller that doesn't just make you sweat - it makes you think.  

©2018 Blackstone Publishing (P)2018 Blackstone Publishing

Desperately needed an editor

The narrator was fine. I am someone who loves the stilted, awkward writing style of 1950s SF which this features in spades. The problem, however, is that this book features little else. Around the thirteenth time you hear exactly the same conversation between Hawks and his subject, you’ve had enough. This is the first audiobook I have ever fast-forwarded to get past the nth repeat of essentially the same dialog.

Apparently this came before the game genre

So this book was written in the 60s, and you can tell, with the technology and dialogue style.
The characters do monologue a bit, possibly excessively, and if they would get to the point the book would be half as long.
But what really got me wondering is how much this book influenced Rogue, and by extension the roguelite genre. Person keeps throwing themselves into a deathtrap maze over and over again, each time surviving a bit longer.
The ending of this book also reminds me of the ending of the Soma videogame to a remarkable extent. I'm just not sure if it was a direct influence, or simply parallel evolution.

strange

this author should be banned from human contact for the salvation of the human race

Not what I expected

I checked this book out because it was referenced in a short story that I loved. Diamond Dogs by Alastair Reynolds. I had anticipated that the story would be in the same vein; however, this was not the case.

The story isn’t terrible, but out of 6 hrs of story time 5:30 hrs is devoted to dealing with personal interactions between the characters and perhaps 15 minutes that deal with the subject of interest. The remaining 15 minutes are split between the Prologue and Epilogue. Give it a shot, it may be your cup of tea…I just wasn’t excited by it.

Wonderful!

Classic early 60's science fiction novel. Good story with interesting characters. Narration could have been better.

weird plot with outdated psychobabble

I don't like calling a story from another age 'outdated', but it is pretty jarring in this case. there's an interesting ethical question being asked, but they don't do a good job addressing it beyond the above mentioned psychobabble non-sense. I'm pretty sure an episode of Star Trek explained it better.

It was a good read about very good read.

Back in holly put it down you just can't go on and going in and that was good I didn't realize it was 1960 when it come Back in holly put it down you just can't go on and going in that was good I didn't realize it was 1960 when it come out but it while I mean it was very really really good. Worth the money.

Old school dish on business leaders

struggle to finish. Long monologues and psychological conversations on living and dying.
I didn't see the ending - but should have.

Might be interesting if rewritten today.

long winded characters

The characters tend toward long monologs, and there is a weird melodrama going on that is pretty unimportant in my opinion.

Not what I expected at the outset

This review in 2021. Obviously a tale with the characterisations of its time. It’s my first exposure to the book and the focus of the story was not where I expected it to go. All the better for that I think. The book presages the transporters of a future SF TV series with an intriguing play on the use of the “pattern buffers” used to beam individuals to other locations in that future series.

Abysmal

A parody of machismo that even Monty Python couldn't outdo.
I had to give up after the first hour.

Slow and boring

Should have been a good story but definitely isn’t.
Very slow moving. Just fails to hold one’s interest. Have tried to follow, restarting 3 separate times but just can’t get into it. Impossible to care about the characters.

Very interesting and enjoyable

The narration reminded me a bit of Robert Mitchum voice-overs in old movies. I liked it.

I enjoyed the book too. After having also listened to “Who?” by the same author I still can’t understand why I’ve never heard of him or these two books as I’ve read quite a lot of science fiction in the last fifty years.

This book made me laugh quite often, especially towards the start, and was very thoughtful and thought-provoking at the end.

I enjoyed it and recommend it to others. It’s not for people who like a lot of fighting and exploding starships though.

Not what I thought it would be

The last 40 minutes were what I thought the whole book would be and even then it didn't have a resolution. This book is about people; analysing them. As with other older books, the main woman described was simply there for looks, swaying over to people and flirting.

Not my favourite.