A Fall of Moondust was published by Gollancz in 1961. The dust-cruiser Selene, a tourist vessel that travels across the Sea of Thirst — a flat plain of ultra-fine lunar dust — sinks beneath the surface when a moonquake opens a fissure. The twenty-two passengers and crew are trapped beneath meters of dust, their air supply finite. The rescue mission must locate the buried vessel, communicate with those inside, and extract them before the air runs out.
The novel was Clarke’s most purely thriller-like work — a disaster story with a ticking clock, in which the drama arose entirely from physics and engineering rather than from villains or alien threats. Every aspect of the rescue depended on the specific properties of lunar dust, vacuum, and low gravity.
Collecting A Fall of Moondust
First edition (Gollancz, London, 1961): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- UK first edition, fine in jacket: $100–$300
- US first edition (Harcourt): $50–$150