Rogue Moon ~ Algis Budrys

The Gollancz SF Gateway is a wonderful treasure-trove of classic science fiction in ebook format. In particular, their SF Masterworks series identifies and makes available truly great works in the genre. Rogue Moon certainly deserves to be among them.

Published in 1960, it stands out from other contemporary works in the genre by being strongly based on character rather than on speculative gimmicks. And its overriding theme is death.

Yes, there is a science-fiction gimmick. Well, there are a few, I suppose. Unbeknown to other nations, by 1959 the United States has secretly developed the capability of sending rockets to the Moon. One such unmanned probe, in its last moments before crashing, photographs a mysterious structure on the lunar surface which is clearly artificial, and not human-made.

As the novel opens, we know none of this. Instead we are introduced to Dr Edward Hawks, talking to Rogan, a man who it appears has become insane. Who has been driven insane, it appears, by something Hawks has had him do. It turns out that Hawks and his colleagues have developed a method of scanning objects and transmitting their ‘pattern’ to a remote receiver where they are reassembled. The original is destroyed in the scanning process. And the objects include human beings, with all of their thoughts and feelings. It is this system which has been used to send humans to a remotely-landed receiver on the Moon.

It’s not this process which has driven Rogan (and several other previous volunteers) insane. Indeed, the Navy has been able to send enough people safely to the Moon through the transmitter for them to establish a modest (and still secret) base next to the mysterious alien artefact. No, what has driven Rogan crazy is that he was one of those who volunteered to investigate the artefact itself. And the artefact kills people if they do the slightest thing wrong while inside it. What is ‘wrong’? Simple, anything which kills you. Discovering what these ‘wrong’ things are has taken the lives of quite a number of volunteers. Rogan was one of them, killed by the alien machine.

But if he was killed, how can Hawks now be talking to him? Simple. When transmitting a volunteer’s pattern to the Moon, a second copy is created on Earth. For a short period of time, the minds of the two copies are in a kind of synchrony (today we would say they are ‘entangled’) and the Earth copy can experience everything that the Moon copy sees and hears. But when the copy on the Moon is killed, the copy on the Earth suffers a tremendous psychic shock, which can kill them or send them mad.

A fascinating science-fictional scenario, that’s for sure. I have said, though, that this novel is primarily about character, and so it is. It’s remarkable, really, that the book doesn’t need to dwell much on the nature or origin of the alien construction itself. Instead, it’s all about the people involved.

Primarily it focuses on the character of Dr Edward Hawks, an engineering genius, who suffers tremendous remorse for what he is doing to the volunteers yet feels bound to continue.

Then there’s the character of Al Barker, an ex-soldier who continually dices with death in reckless, near suicidal exploits. It is Barker, already drawn to death, who Hawks approaches to volunteer to explore the alien artefact, gambling that such a man will not be driven mad by experiencing the shock of death. In this he is correct.

Then we have the character of Claire Pack, Barker’s girlfriend, also seeking self-destruction but in a quite different way; and Connington, the sleazy HR man who first introduces Hawks to Barker, and who has lustful designs on Claire.

And finally we have the character of Elizabeth Cummings, a young fashion designer who Hawks meets by accident and falls in love with.

Some of the interplay between Claire, Barker and Connington verges on the histrionic and is a little overwritten; but is nevertheless engaging. Hawks’ mental struggles, though, are much more authentic and thought-provoking, as is the slow dawning of his love for Elizabeth. His interactions with her are again far deeper than those of most of the contemporary genre. And the author’s serious treatment of women is remarkable, I think, for the time in which he was writing.

‘Do you want to know what it is with you and women?’

Hawks blinked at her. ‘Yes. Very much.’

‘You treat them like people.’

‘I do?’ He shook his head again. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve never been able to understand them very well. I don’t know why they do most of the things they do. I’ve — As a matter of fact, I’ve had a lot of trouble with women.’

Elizabeth touched his hand. ‘I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. But that’s beside the point. Now, you think about something: I’m a good deal younger than you are.’

Hawks nodded, his expression troubled. ‘I’ve thought about that.’

‘Now you think about this, too: you’re not charming, dashing, or debonair. You’re funny-looking, as a matter of fact. You’re too busy to spare much time for me, and even if you did take me out night-clubbing somewhere, you’d be so out of place that I couldn’t enjoy it. But you do one thing: you let me feel that my rules are as worthwhile to me as yours are to you. When you ask me to do something, I know you won’t be hurt if I refuse. And if I do it, you don’t feel that you’ve scored a point in some kind of complex game. You don’t try to use me, cozen me, or change me. I take up as much room in the world, the way you see it, as you do. Do you have any idea of how rare a thing that is?’

This would be a refreshing passage to read even in much of today’s literary fiction (“Do you have any idea of how rare a thing that is?”). Certainly, these are complex characters a far cry from the flat 2D characters of much SF of the period.

At the same time, the novel raises serious philosophical questions. If two copies of a human being are made, which of them is the ‘real’ person? Does the soul exist, and is it lost when a duplicate human is made and the original destroyed? What is death? Could we face death calmly if we knew that a duplicate of ourselves could be recreated from a stored pattern?

The last sentence of the book, which I won’t spoil by quoting, is a punch to the gut.

A classic indeed, and well worth the read more than 50 years after it was written.

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