Author: H G Wells
Publisher: Phoenix
Rating: worthy
The movie based on this novel is reviewed here.
Yes, it is titled The First Men in the Moon and trust Wells: he's very exact about his title! This novel, originally published in 1901, is of course, very dated. The Moon has no atmosphere. No life exists there, but read in its context, it really is a charming story. I think it's also hilarious that this is published by Orion Books - a suitably space-worthy name!
I first got interested in this after I saw as a child, the movie which was based upon this novel. The movie parallels it, but not too closely. I've never read the novel before, however, so I decided it was time. The story is told by a man named Bedford, who has rented a cottage in the Kentish countryside to write a play. Through him, we learn of the activities of his eccentric neighbor, Cavor (Cah-vore) who has invented what he calls cavorite, a mineral which can effectively overcome gravity.
Cavor talks Bedford into going on a trip with him to the Moon. The flight is undertaken in a sphere, which has blinds on it in various places which can be raised or lowered to manipulate the amount of cavorite exposure. Wells's explanation for how this works fails immediately they enter the vacuum of space, because cavorite is supposed to work by making air above it weightless, and thereby forcing the object upwards into the vacuum created by the rising air. Unfortunately, there's no air in space (not at a density you'd wish to breathe, certainly, unless you can survive on a single molecule per billion cubic miles of space, or whatever the density is!) so it would cease to work there, but like I said, this is over a hundred years old, so you either go with it or it blows. I chose to go with it.
When they land on the moon, they discover an atmosphere there, and weird-ass plants which grow crazily rapidly when the sun rises and starts baking the surface, melting the "snow" which has been lying around overnight. Bedford and Cavor blindly start exploring, jumping, and wandering until they forget where they left the sphere, and because of the massive plant growth, they can't see it, either. While searching for it, they hear oddball noises in the ground and discover what they refer to as Mooncalves, which are huge slug-like creatures that graze on the foliage, and are tended by what Cavor refers to as Selenites (Moon natives), rather insectoid creatures which move around on two legs and are about five feet in height. These beings and creatures evidently live underground during the freezing Lunar night, which explains the noises the two humans heard - it was the massive sliding trapdoor opening to the underground world of the Selenites.
Becoming inexplicably ravenously hungry and thirsty, the two Earthlings feast on a mushroom-like growth they happen upon, and eventually become rather intoxicated by it, leaving themselves open to capture by the Selenites, thus becoming the first men in the Moon! Next follows a story which is rather different from the subsequent movie. It results in a "dramatic" escape and then a desperate search for the sphere which they left lying around on the surface (unlike in the movie) and which they absolutely must find if they don't want to freeze to death in the rapidly oncoming Lunar night. Bedford is a lot more heroic in the movie (especially on the poster!). In the novel he's portrayed as a rather self-serving and cowardly individual who abandons Cavor on the Moon and returns to Earth alone, with his gold crowbars and chain, becoming a man of means and substance.
Yes, he does have a vague sort of plan to return, but that's only for the gold, which Wells portrays as lying around on the Moon's surface as veins in Lunar rocks. That plan is scuppered by the loss of the sphere, which Bedford has no means of recreating. Unlike in the movie, He does hear from Cavor, who finds a way to communicate with Earth.
While this novel is very dated, I have to compliment Wells (who we all know was a woman - this is proven to my satisfaction by Warehouse 13...!) on his solid grasp of physics and of planetary mechanics. He puts all-too-many modern writers to shame. I recommend this novel.
