This book was, in a word, chaotic. And in a second word, preachy. It's actually very difficult to determine which of those two descriptors was more upsetting, as I went through the book. Around three-quarters of the way through, I had had more than enough, and I only finished reading to give the book a fair shake.In all honesty, I rather wish I hadn't.Let's start with how it was chaotic. This issue should be relevant to any reader, regardless of your philosophical bent.The chaos begins with simple organization. It seems Mr. McDevitt wanted to have titled sections, but he also wanted smaller breaks within the story. His choice on how to resolve this? Ten titled "chapters" with anywhere between 3 and 13 smaller, enumerated breaks in each. Except that those enumerations restarted with each chapter. So either you had to read eighty pages at a sitting or remember both chapter number and section number, at which point, it would be easier just to dog-ear the page and stop whenever you want. This might not matter at all to some, but it's hardly conducive to a good reading experience, in my opinion. It's just a little sloppy.But that is probably the least of McDevitt's crimes against fiction in this work. He introduces - and kills off - more characters than most movies have extras. In fact, he introduces so many that it's almost impossible to keep up with them - which is proven by the fact that McDevitt in fact does not keep up with them all. There are a few characters, introduced sporadically, which he mentions again only once or twice, or perhaps never returns to. And he kills so many characters over the course of the book that he finds himself in need of new ones about halfway through, and starts introducing more. Not only does all this make the book a crowded mass of names, places, and biographies appropriate for a dating site, but it cheapens the characters that do survive. Since anyone could die at any moment, whether they had been a narrative influence, present from the beginning of the book, or seemed integral to the story, I quickly stopped caring for anyone. The romance in the book is irrelevant and emotionless, because one or both characters could die at any moment, with neither drama nor reflection.Tangential to that point is this one: Mr. McDevitt begins the book with a small number of characters and a setting to which he only returns twice in the entire remainder of the book, and only for a paragraph each time. Perhaps I am alone in my thinking here, but I have always believed that the first chapter, the first paragraph, the first character in a story has either a pivotal role or thematic importance. The characters in Mr. McDevitt's opening scene have neither. They are, to put it bluntly, completely irrelevant to the entire book.Finally, let us examine the prose. For the most part, the book is in third-person omniscient - presumably so we can relate to characters who will soon be dead. But Mr. McDevitt does not appear comfortable writing death scenes, so nearly every death in the book is from an observer's perspective: "So-and-so never saw it coming," "She was dead before she knew it," "He died in the middle of a sentence." If Mr. McDevitt wanted us to care about any of these characters, he should have made their deaths more interesting. Instead, much of the book reads like a historical account of the time when the moon was destroyed by a rogue comet, and this list of people died, and this list lived, and that other list should have been executed for their religious fanaticism.Which brings me to my second primary point: how the book was preachy. Mr. McDevitt evidently lacks the capacity to understand the mind of a person who has religious faith. For one thing, he asserts that religious people live easier lives than the non-religious, that this ignorance (as McDevitt sees it) is bliss, and that the biggest challenge a Christian must face is explaining away bad events as divine providence. Churches are ridiculous, and things which must be escaped. (See pages 330-331 for these points.)Furthermore, there can be no intelligent religious people. McDevitt cannot imagine someone being both intelligent and religious; the two descriptors mutually exclusive in his mind. After all, the one religious character who is neither a terrorist nor laughably short-lived is Chaplain Mark Pinnacle, who became a pastor not because he had faith, but because he was rebelling against his father, and Pinnacle had plenty of doubts about the truth of religion. (See pages 160-161.)Perhaps most telling is how Mr. McDevitt concludes this little escapade. Almost every character in the book, even staunch agnostics (which seem to be the majority of the population for his characters; there are few staunch atheists and no staunch religious protagonists, in spite of every character's concerns about what the silly, religious voters would think), was praying in the final chapter that the mission would succeed... and yet, in the end, the important thing for Charlie Haskell (probably the primary protagonist of the book) to remember is that failure in the mission would mean going back to "inventing religions to give meaning to disease-ridden, violent, pointless lives, and then becoming subjugated by the religions," going back "to refight all the battles against war and disease and superstition," when, "finally, the common effort was bearing fruit." (See page 531.) And of course, success led to the formation of a universal bond among all humankind "that transcended national and religious identities," so much that "even in Jerusalem" (that wretched hive of warmongering, according to the underlying tone), "at long last, an accommodation seemed to have been reached." (See page 544.)And what's the basic principle of all this? That religion is, at best, backwards, barbaric, ignorant, and foolish. And at worst, it's both malicious and evil, and it seeks to destroy humanity with wars and death, and we need a "common misfortune," brought about not by any god or religious cause, not by karma or dogmatic punishment, but by chance, by Lady Luck, so that we can all come together and achieve world peace.See? Preachy. And chaotic.Another humorous quibble is with Mr. McDevitt's ability to predict the future. Writing this book in 1998, he was four years late on his estimation of the first African-American President, and his view of the future of the Internet and other technologies is somewhat lacking... not to mention the sad issue of NASA's defunding, pressing, not the government, but a wide range of private companies into the reaches of space. But of course, he can't be faulted for any of that. It's just fun to note.
I had read this book a few years ago and it isn't my favourite McDevitt book. When I re-read this I again did not find it as good as some of his others, but I did enjoy it. I found it a very easy read and it took me only a week to finish, which for 544 pages is pretty quick.This is your standard disaster movie plot. In this case an asteroid is going to crash into the moon. Some people live through it, some die (including some who I thought were main characters), there are good guys and bad guys and people who find strength they didn't know they had. Yes it was to formula, but having said that there were plot twists and turns that I didn't see coming.Some negatives everything that went wrong seemed to have a solution. There were a number of story lines that just seemed to be inserted to show some other side of the disaster. There one minute and finished with the next. The problem with this being that if you were not reading this fairly quickly a character that appeared a number of pages ago suddenly comes back into the plot and you have to try and remember who they were. I really would have liked these side stories to have been left out and kept the main plot line.So overall I liked it. Nothing Earth shattering in the plot department, but it moved along. It not the place I would start to read McDevitt's work, but if you have read a few of his other books you will recognise the style and probably like it.
What do You think about Moonfall (2000)?
This is a really good book that exceeded my expectations. Jack McDevitt has always been a talented author that does real well with academic or mystery science fiction but I've never been a fan of the "Earth Disaster" aspects of his books. He and I aren't necessarily on the same page with things like global warming and global government. But, I can enjoy his work without agreeing with him because his beliefs are background to the story, not the point.I digress...This book was a page-turner, a story of desperate heroism, likable characters, and ends, despite disaster, with hope for humanity.This is a "Goodread".
—Nathan
I grew up in the 1950s and 60s and was a big fan of science fiction and particularly "space operas". I loved movies like "The Forbidden Planet" that tried to speculated what it would be like to be in a spaceship in Outer Space and to visit other planets, loved TV shows like "Star Trek" and "Lost in Space". I loved books by Isaac Asimov (the Foundation trilogy) and Frank Herbert (the Dune series). Then science fiction became almost all "fantasy" - magic, make-believe worlds without any scientific basis, fairy-tale creatures (like Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series). As humanity took our first steps beyond our planet it seemed that no one wanted to write fiction that featured science and technology. "Moonfall" is a pretty good "space opera". It is about a colony base on the Moon, space stations and preparing for the first manned flight to Mars. But then a weird comet suddenly appears and is on a collision course with the Moon (I guess this is the "magical" or "fantasy" part of the book). Now the story is more about the coming disaster than it is about science and technology (although there are still plenty of those thrown it). While McDevitt has a very readable writing style, the format that he uses in "Moonfall" is like the TV disaster movie-of-the-week with an all-star cast! I can almost pick out which actors McDevitt had in mind for each character. He jumps from one short scene on the Moon to another short scene in an observatory on Earth to a scene at the White House to a scene in the boonies in Virginia, etc. It is very difficult to get to know the characters because the author jumps around so much from locations, characters, perspectives and concerns. The characters become one-dimensional and almost cartoonish. I found myself not caring whether a certain character died or how another character felt. It reminded me very much of the movie "The Towering Inferno". I can understand why he chose this structure for the story but it didn't allow me to connect with anyone in the book. I did not even connect with the most sympathetic character in the book, the Vice President of the U.S. who traveled to the moonbase.I think this story is really more of the author's attempt to vent on the excesses and failures of government to act. Indeed he seemed to get most carried away by his story when he was writing about the angry militiamen plotting to overthrow the government or the pompous professor throwing the blame onto the President and his administration for the pending natural disaster.It will hold your interest but not inflate your passion.
—Willis
Today’s subject is the most famous work of renowned Science fiction author Jack McDevitt. The novel is called Moonfall, and is the most unique piece of writing material I've ever read. The novel takes place in the not too distant future, when man has created the first ever permanent Moonbase. However, the universe doesn't appear to look kindly on this, as scientists locate a meteorite bound on a collision course with the moon. It’s up to Vice President Charles Haskell, as well as several scientists and pilots, to evacuate Moonbase and prepare the earth for the fallout that will follow the moon’s destruction. Jack McDevitt has a certain talent for creating a small cast of five or six detailed, 3-dimensional, complex, sympathetic characters, and then picking them off one by one like after-dinner mints. I don’t believe I've read one book of his where two thirds of the main protagonists didn't die horribly. But this isn't meant as an insult. In fact, it’s one of my favorite things about his novels. It adds a great deal of suspense, because you genuinely care about every single character involved, even the ones that seem to be complete jerks. They’re all realistic, sympathetic, and relatable, and it’s genuinely saddening when a character dies.The writing style is very well done, flavorful, and elegant. It beautifully illustrates the world around the characters and fleshes it out to seem real. Dialogue feels natural and smooth, and yes, that means characters swear. If you’re put off by this, that’s too bad, because you’ll miss an amazing read. The book focuses not only on the destruction of the moon, but also on the political, social, and economic repercussions of losing earth’s one and only natural satellite. Moonfall is one of the best novels I've read, and one of my personal favorites. Review by Kevin S.
—NVHS LMC
