Rogue Moon - Reception

Reception

The novel was chosen in 2012 for the SF Masterworks series by publisher Victor Gollancz Ltd.

David Pringle included the novel in his book Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (Xanadu, 1985, ISBN 978-0-947761-10-3). Nick Rennison and Stephen E. Andrews, similarly, included it in their 100 Must-Read Science Fiction Novels (London: A & C Black, 2007, Series: Bloomsbury Good Reading Guides, ISBN 978-0-7136-7585-6). In this latter book, featuring a foreword by Christopher Priest, "100 of the best science fiction titles are reviewed and a further 500 recommended. This book allows you to browse by theme, including categories like 'science-fiction and film adaptations'..."

In contemporary reviews, Alfred Bester called Rogue Moon "one of the finest flashes of heat lightning to dazzle us this year," saying it "has come very close to realizing our ideal of science fiction, the story of how human beings may be affected by the science of the future." Bester, however, faulted the ending as unresolved, declaring that Budrys "brought his book to a semi-cadence at exactly the point where it cried for completion." In counterpoint, James Blish declared the novel "a masterpiece... not only a bequest but a monument." He found that Budrys had "cunningly constructed his ambiguity" in the novel's conclusion, and proved "that a science fiction novel can be a fully realized work of art."

Preeminent science fiction scholar/critic John Clute said that, in comparison with Budrys's earlier novels, such as False Night (1954) and Who? (1958), Rogue Moon is "much more thoroughly successful" and "now something of an sf classic":

A good deal has been written about the highly integrated symbolic structure of this story, whose perfectly competent surface narration deals with a Hard-SF solution to the problem of an alien labyrinth, discovered on the Moon, which kills anyone who tries to pass through it. At one level, the novel's description of attempts to thread the labyrinth from Earth via Matter Transmission makes for excellent traditional sf; at another, it is a sustained rite de passage, a doppelgänger conundrum about the mind-body split, a death-paean. There is no doubt that AB intends that both levels of reading register, however any interepretation might run; in this novel the two levels interact fruitfully.

Graham Sleight, another science fiction scholar, writes that Rogue Moon takes the themes of Who? — "identity, ethics, memory, scientific obsession — and intensifies its gaze on them. But it also has a new concern, death. Like its predecessor, it uses an almost arbitrary science-fictional device to examine an existential question, in a way that a mimetic novel never could." Then Hawks hires Barker: "It appears, though it's scarcely the point of Rogue Moon, that there's a complex permitted route through the artefact, and that any deviation from it will be fatal. Therefore, ultimate success for Barker will be to emerge on the other side of the artefact."

Jeff King wrote, "Rogue Moon was written relatively early in Budrys's career, yet his style is fully evident. He employs an almost minimalist approach that calls for careful word selection to paint vivid pictures while studiously avoiding flowery, overlong sentences. Like others of his well-known works, this is a short novel, seemingly Budrys's preferred length."

Reviewer John DeNardo, in a 2005 review, gave the book 3 out of 5 stars, saying, "The artifact was an intriguing puzzle; the story kept interest levels up. ... The premise is an intriguing one." DeNardo adds that "the ability to duplicate people on the Moon" provides "a nice healthy dose of wow factor." But he grew bored with the characters ("too much of the book centers on the characters of Hawks, Barker, Claire (Barker's lover), and Vincent Connington (the personnel director). While their stories are somewhat interesting, I really wanted to see more of the BDO," and he recommends to readers "the novella on which it was based."

Graeme Flory granted the book "Nine and a Half out of Ten", saying that the novel

isn't so much about the science fiction as it is about the people trying to make sense of it all. In fact, the science fiction elements are shoved firmly (but politely) to one side to make room for the attention paid to the relationships between the main characters. It's a move that pays off like you wouldn't believe... Budrys really seeks to lay bare everyone who appears in the novel and it is done with varying degrees of success in relation to his own obviously high standards here. On the whole it worked very well indeed for me. Is Rogue Moon an SF Masterwork then? I'm going for 'yes' but it could just as easily be no (in terms of the thematic balance)... Rogue Moon is a very clear example of what the gentle application of science fiction elements can do to bring out the very best in the rest of the plot. The end result here is masterful.