A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke

I consider Arthur C. Clarke to be one of the classic writers of sci-fi, up there with Asimov and H.G. Wells. (I'm informed that Heinlein is also a classic sci-fi author, but I've read very little of his stuff, and didn't like what I did read, so he doesn't make my list :-p ) He's probably best known as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and although I loved the book and the sequels that came after it, I cannot stand the movie itself. I heard somewhere that the book was written specifically written to be adapted into a science fiction movie, and I'd have to say that either Clarke or Stanley Kubrick failed miserably at this attempt. To be fair, my idea of a great sci-fi film is the original Star Wars trilogy, so I'll take the title of philistine if any film buffs disagree.

Update: Arthur C. Clarke passed away today, at the age of 90. RIP Now I want to go back and read more of his work. I'd forgotten that he wrote two of my favorite science fiction short stories, "The Star" and "The Nine Billion Names of God."
Here's my two favorite tidbits about Clarke from his Wikipedia article: He first proposed the concept of geosynchronous telecommunication satellites in 1945, and this orbit is also known as the Clarke orbit in his honor.
Also "Clarke corresponded with C. S. Lewis in the 1940s and 1950s, and they once met in an Oxford pub, the Eastgate, to discuss science fiction and space travel. Clarke, after Lewis's death, voiced great praise for him, saying the Ransom Trilogy was one of the few works of science fiction that could be considered literature." This isn't significant at all, but I'm a huge Lewis fan, so it made me happy.

Overview
A Fall of Moondust takes place on the recently-colonized moon, in the 21st century. Clarke runs with the idea that the moon might contain giant 'dust seas' which are composed of super-fine dust that flows like water in a vacuum and lays meters thick. On a touring expedition of one such Sea of Thirst, a freakish earthquake buries the ship Selene under 15 meters of dust. The ensuing scramble to find and rescue the ship and it's 22 passengers makes for a good read, but I wouldn't give this as one of Clarke's best works.

Recommended for: All I can really recommend it to are Clarke fans or hardcore sci-fi fans. Anyone else should read the 2001 series or Childhood's End.

Audiobook Comments: Read by Robert Donnlen (sp?) who does a pretty good job. His descriptions of the moon often start sounding like nature documentaries, which I guess isn't a bad tone to set.

Parental Worries: I'd give it a PG-13 rating for one romantic scene, but only barely.

Ramblings
Clarke makes heavy use of foreshadowing throughout the book, and although it's effective at first, it becomes more hysterical and annoying as time goes by. It's fine to mention the dire consequences that said act would have when you're just getting into the story, but when you're near the end of it and another dark prophesy appears, the tension just isn't there.

The characters are fairly interesting, and its always fun to see engineers take center stage for once. The man heading the rescue effort reminded me of almost every old engineer I know, so I liked him quite a bit. The passengers trapped aboard Selene are an assorted, amusing bunch with several surprises in their midst, but I don't think they came across as vividly or interestingly as they could have done.

Its always interesting to read older science fiction works and look at what's changed in the past 50 years or so (FoM was published in 1961). The biggest change may be that the hypothetical dust seas never materialized, and of course we're not really much closer to colonizing the moon than we were 50 years ago. The really interesting bits are the 'holes' where modern technology is missing--cell phones, computer screens, digital pictures, and more. At one point a character takes the equivalent of polaroid shots, instead of pulling digital pictures on a computer screen, and transmitting said images to the moon creates a significant drop in quality, something that just isn't an issue anymore. Clarke does predict the ease with which the entire world can be informed of and connected to a story millions of miles away, and this is foresight is probably more remarkable than I can give him credit for. (Especially since he himself helped to fulfill this particular prophesy!)