Het up over 'Bombing the Moon' threads? Chill out with this book.

[eppur_se_muova]

Timed to coincide with a rare total solar eclipse, the US Moonbase is about to be opened officially with the VP, Charles Haskell, on hand. About the same time, Tomiko Harrington, a young woman in St. Louis, discovers a new interstellar comet hurtling toward the Moon. The US President, Henry Kolladner, assures people that they have nothing to fear, despite science predicting that the comet's size and speed would result in the annihilation of the moon. Comet Tomiko is large, moving very fast -- in three days' time it will crash and at least some of the debris will rain down on the Earth triggering tidal waves and earthquakes. It does and a nuclear strike is considered against one Moon fragment large enough to devastate the entire planet Earth. But then wouldn't the resulting cloud of radioactive debris be just as lethal? As an alternative some think a fleet of co-operating space planes might just be able to nudge the fragment into a stable Earth orbit. This interesting dilemma offers McDevitt the opportunity to deal with the human issues surrounding such a profound change to the way bureaucracies work in the face of problem they have but one chance to solve.

http://www.sfsite.com/lists/jmd.htm

[Blue-Jay]

1. Or this one!

[petronius]

6. Beat me to it!

:rofl:

[Taverner]

2. I suggest "A Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein

If we can bomb them, they can bomb us!

[Swamp Rat]

3. I suggest, "Foundations of Astrophysics" - by Barbara Ryden and Bradley M. Peterson

http://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Astrophysics-Barbara-Ryden/dp/0321595580

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Also check out "Moonseed" by Stephen Baxter

http://www.amazon.com/Moonseed-Stephen-Baxter/dp/006105044X">Moonseed

Alien nanotech found on the moon starts to eat the Earth, starting with Scotland. So a team of astro/cosmonauts is dispatched to the Moon in a low-budget ramshackle spacecraft to figure out what happened. The lunar landing is amazingly frightening to read, and the second, "harenodynamic" landing is classic.

There are also elements of The Forge of God, Blood Music, and a few others in the book, as extended "literary quotations" (e.g., Venus' removal as a precipitating event, as in FoG).

Moonfall was also excellent. I'm not sure I believed that a comet could have enough mass to destroy the Moon even at 300 miles/sec., but there is much to recommend it to lovers of hard S-F.

The moon's destruction also figures in the remake of The Time Machine movie, and a remarkable but little-known French Band Desinee (manga) series, La Compagnie de Glaces (The Ice Company).

--d!

[azmouse]

5. The Sun and the Moon by Matthew Goodman

It's about Lunar Moon Bats!

[Swamp Rat]

7. "The Clementine Atlas of the Moon" - by Ben Bussey and Paul D. Spudis

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521815282/ref=cm_rdp_product

[LunaSea]

8. Highbrow fools.....

And nevermind the fact that Paul Spudis and Stephen Baxter are acquaintances of mine.

[Starry Messenger]

9. Online exhibit:

:D




http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/starrymessenger/index.html

[Fumesucker]

10. Or Allan Steele, "Lunar Descent"..

http://www.amazon.com/Lunar-Descent-Ace-Science-Fiction/dp/044150485X

This early novel of Allen Steele was responsible for me subsequently picking up and reading his novel, Coyote. IMO, Lunar Descent was both technically and behaviorally believable as well as much better than several of his other novels (Coyote is probably his best work to date).

I especially enjoyed this story because of its realism, and have re-read it several times as a result. There wasn't much of a technological "stretch" in this novel as it's set in the near future; the real story was in how humans react to the situation, so that's what my judgment of the story is based upon. I did field work for a number of years and the "moondogs" 's behavior (and foul mouths) rang totally true to me as I've worked with people who acted just like that. Given the setting and stressful work conditions, I would anticipate fellow North Americans to behave like the characters in Lunar Descent did and Steele met my expectations.

In short, the characters are based upon real people trying to solve difficult real-world problems. They don't always succeed, but they do it often enough and in a personably enough way, that you care for them. So go read the book and enjoy a couple hours of realistic fantasy.