Inconstant Moon
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"Inconstant Moon" is a science fiction short story by Larry Niven that first appeared in Niven's 1971 short story collection All the Myriad Ways. Inconstant Moon won the 1972 Hugo Award for best short story. The title is taken from the balcony scene quote in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Inconstant Moon is also the title of Niven's 1973 British story collection, assembled from The Shape of Space and All the Myriad Ways and seriously cut for the 1974 paperback edition.
The unnamed narrator notices that the moon is glowing much brighter than ever before. The people he meets as the story begins all praise the moon's increased beauty but lack the scientific background to understand its cause. By contrast, the narrator surmises that the Sun has gone nova, the day side of the Earth is already destroyed, and this is the last night of his life. He then calls and visits his girlfriend Leslie, presuming her ignorant of the situation, but she realizes it independently when Jupiter brightens with appropriate delay; they then enjoy their last night on the town, before rain and winds start.
Later, he realizes there is one other possibility. In case he is right, they find appropriate supplies and seek refuge from the coming natural disasters in Leslie's high-rise apartment. The second possibility turns out to be correct: the Earth has merely been struck by an enormous solar flare. The vaporized seawater leads to torrential rains, hurricanes and floods. Most (if not all) people on the Eastern Hemisphere are presumed dead. The story ends at the break of an overcast, gray morning, with the narrator "wonder[ing] if our children would colonize Europe, or Asia, or Africa".
[edit] Adaptations
In 1996, the story was made into an episode of the Outer Limits television series with Niven himself writing the script - see Inconstant Moon (episode).
Jo Walton in 1997 wrote a short poem, "The End of the World in Duxford" as "an unauthorised translation of Inconstant Moon into British" [1].
