The Moon Is Hell!

Rating:
Summary: Survival On A Dead World
Review: This book actually contains two stories. The first is the short novel "The Moon Is Hell!", which was first published in 1951 (some references indicate 1950, but I have not found any evidence to support the earlier date). The second is a novella titled "The Elder Gods", which was first published in "Unknown" in October of 1939 using the alias Don A. Stuart and co-authored by Arthur J. Burks. This book was ranked 24th on the Analog/Astounding All-Time Poll.

The novel bears a certain resemblance with the novella "Who Goes There?". Both stories are about a group of scientists that are isolated from civilization, who have to fight for their lives. In "Who Goes There?" it was a fight against an alien discovered in the ice of Antarctica. In "The Moon Is Hell!" it is a fight for the basics of life (air, water, food, shelter) by a group that is stranded on the Moon after the relief ship that was to bring them home crashes. The story is written from the viewpoint of one of the members of the expedition in the form of his diary during this period. It is an interesting story, and Campbell is very inventive in the solutions that they develop to solve their problems.

The second story is a fantasy story, which is a genre that I was not aware that John W. Campbell Jr. had ever used. In the story, the elder gods bring to the Azun islands a hero to try to destroy the Invisible Ones, who have taken control of their land. It took me a while to get into this story, but overall it was a fairly solid effort. It isn't clear why this story was paired with "The Moon Is Hell!", other than they needed to make this book a reasonable length.