Review: The Moon is Hell

Author: John W. Campbell

The Moon is Hell was written by John W. Campbell, one of the stars of the golden age of science fiction. It's incredibly weird stuff and it was written in 1952, well before space travel became a reality. A bunch of astronauts set up a temporary colony on the Moon and are forced to survive for years after their relief ship crashes. They end up making their own air out of some conveniently located gypsum, creating their own power using some conveniently located selenium and producing their own food from conveniently available raw chemicals. It's written from the viewpoint of one of the scientists and it's written in the style of an engineering journal. There's a fair amount of drama but the characters are practically one-dimensional and the focus is purely on the way they're surviving on the Moon.

Highlights include:

• The landing is made in 1980 and features a single large rocketship invented by the expedition's commander and costing $3 million which has been paid for by a number of commercial backers.
• The first thing that do when they discover that they're running out of air is to stop smoking!
• They communicate with Earth using heliographs, as the radios aren't reliable enough and they haven't invented artificial satellites yet.
• The Moon seems to be packed with conveniently accessible minerals and resources.
• JOLG - (Just One Little Glass) - Yes, they make their own booze!

It's utterly bonkers, but it's also surprisingly good fun and I remember reading it with pleasure when I was a child. These days, it's a pure nostalgia kick, and unlike the E.E Doc Smith Lensman books, I can still read John W Campbell's prose without experiencing pain. These days, it's the sort of thing that would have got a budding author thrown out of a creative writing class at practically escape velocity, but in 1952, it was considered state of the art SF. The field may have moved on since then, and I'm actually rather pleased about that, but if you can tolerate the weirdness and the stodgy characterisation, it's highly recommended.