altlovesbooks
"How strange that the familiar fields and lakes and forests of Earth shone with such celestial glory when one looked at them from afar! Perhaps there was a lesson here; perhaps no man could appreciate his own world until he had seen it from space."
Not a bad book exactly, but you have to be in the mood for what this book is for it to really hit with you.
The Selene is a tourist craft on the Moon, dedicated to ferrying small groups of people around the surface on tours. On one of these tours, an earthquake (moonquake?) causes a sinkhole to open up around Selene and swallow up her and her passengers.
The bulk of the book is taken up by men of science doing their science thing in brainstorming ways to get air to the ship and rescue them. Meanwhile, we're treated to chapters involving the passengers keeping up morale, putting on plays, reading aloud, and generally being goofy (in a 1960s sort of way). It's very much a classic, a product of its time, but not in the racist/sexist way I've used that phrase to mean in other books. More like, a stilted way of writing, a plot with science galore but nothing/almost nothing in the way of character development. Really, the only characterization that exists is in the form of Pat (captain) longing after Sue (stewardess), again, in a 1960s sort of way.
It's fun, it's short, it's a classic for a reason. It's very readable, but you have to really like old sci-fi writing styles to enjoy this one.
"How strange that the familiar fields and lakes and forests of Earth shone with such celestial glory when one looked at them from afar! Perhaps there was a lesson here; perhaps no man could appreciate his own world until he had seen it from space."
Not a bad book exactly, but you have to be in the mood for what this book is for it to really hit with you.
The Selene is a tourist craft on the Moon, dedicated to ferrying small groups of people around the surface on tours. On one of these tours, an earthquake (moonquake?) causes a sinkhole to open up around Selene and swallow up her and her passengers.
The bulk of the book is taken up by men of science doing their science thing in brainstorming ways to get air to the ship and rescue them. Meanwhile, we're treated to chapters involving the passengers keeping up morale, putting on plays, reading aloud, and generally being goofy (in a 1960s sort of way). It's very much a classic, a product of its time, but not in the racist/sexist way I've used that phrase to mean in other books. More like, a stilted way of writing, a plot with science galore but nothing/almost nothing in the way of character development. Really, the only characterization that exists is in the form of Pat (captain) longing after Sue (stewardess), again, in a 1960s sort of way.
It's fun, it's short, it's a classic for a reason. It's very readable, but you have to really like old sci-fi writing styles to enjoy this one.