dward Hawks is a murderer. His job requires it. Hawks zaps men to the moon at the speed of light with the matter transmitter he invented. Once there, these volunteers explore a bizarre and enigmatic structure known simply as "the formation." But the formation guards its secrets well, and kills whoever enters it in a variety of horrific ways. Usually within minutes.
Hawks' deeds are not entirely reprehensible, because he only sends a copy of the men to the moon. The originals remain on Earth to live out their lives long after their doppelgangers get squashed like bugs. Unfortunately, the originals experience the death of their counterparts through a tenuous psychic link, and this drives them insane.
What Hawks needs is a man with True Grit. An hombre so tough he won't be fazed by living through death, not once nor many times over. Hawks may have found such a man in Al Barker: paratrooper, assassin, Olympic ski-jumper, mountain climber, deep-sea diver and all-around bad dude. Barker's spent his life courting death, and he leaps at the chance to take on the formation and show it what-for.
The question is, can even the mighty Al Barker withstand the mental lacerations of the formation? And if so, what will he learn about it, and himself?
A thematic marvel on the moon
What makes a man a man? This is the question Rogue Moon asks. It asks the question in the physical sense by delving into one of science fiction's favorite conundrums, entity duplication. The Al Barker copies are doomed to die, but if one survives, what then? What rights would he have? Algis Budrys doesn't provide a pat answer but offers a number of ideas, some distinctly uncomfortable.
Beyond the physical dimension, the novel asks what makes a man a man on the inside—emotionally and psychologically. The inscrutable formation is a literal killing machine that forces the characters to face death head on, and in the process face themselves.
Budrys is a master at expressing characters through their dialogue. Each person is distinct and easy to identify by his speech—a good thing, because they do a lot of talking. Most of the action takes place on Earth as the men huddle together and butt heads over the right way to live, the right way to be. This is the final frontier that Rogue Moon really explores: the unique, sometimes dark and utterly mysterious male psyche.
This emphasis on theme over plot makes the book read like a mainstream novel that uses a science-fictional setup to drive the examination of Big Issues. It's a nice reminder that the genre has more range than we sometimes give it credit for.
