Pages : 175
Overall Mark : 7/10
All his life Al Barker has toyed with death. So when the US lunar programme nedds a volunteer to penetrate a murderous labyrinth, alien to all human comprehension, Barker is the man to do it. But what is required of Barker is that he withstand the trauma of dying, not just once, but time and time again.
A disquieting and original psychological study, Rogue Moon is the story of monstrous scientific ambition matched by human obsession.
ALGIS BUDRYS(1931-2008)
Born in East Prussia (now Russia), Algis Budrys emigrated to the USA as a child. With the publication of his first SF story in 1952, he rapidly gained a reputation as a leader of the 1950s generation of SF writers, together with Robert Sheckley and Philip K. Dick. Rogue Moon (1960) prefigured in many ways the 'New Wave' of the late 1960s.
VERDICT
This is quite a morbid book, in which people are duplicated and continually brought back to life in a vain attempt to traverse an impossible maze of death. This simple concept is expertly handled by Budrys who manages to keep the story interesting yet incredibly well paced, with the continual deaths of those involved showing the reader just what kind of people they really are.
