Mike Ashley’s latest volume in the Science Fiction Classics series, Moonrise, follows the pattern Ashley set in his previous anthology, Lost Mars: Stories From the Golden Age of the Red Planet (you can read my review here). Ashley includes early stories about the Moon like H. G. Wells’s “First Men In the Moon” and George Griffith’s “A Visit to the Moon” just to give the reader the flavor of speculation about the Moon a hundred years ago. Judith Merril’s “Dead Centre” and Edmond Hamilton’s “After Judgement Day” are likely to be more familiar stories. Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Sentinel,” although published in 1951, led to 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you’re a fan of theme SF anthologies, you’ll enjoy these mostly forgotten stories about the Moon. And Mike Ashley’s excellent introductions to the stories inform and delight! GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION 7
Dead Centre – Judith Merril 31
A Visit to the Moon – George Griffith 67
Sunrise on the Moon – John Munro 93
First Men in the Moon – H.G. Wells 105
Sub-Satellite – Charles Cloukey 151
Lunar Lilliput – William F. Temple 175
Nothing Happens on the Moon – Paul Ernst 221
Whatever Gods There Be – Gordon R. Dickson 247
Idiot’s Delight – John Wyndham 269
After a Judgement Day – Edmond Hamilton 317
The Sentinel – Arthur C. Clarke 335