| The Moon Is Hell! | |
|---|---|
Dust-jacket from the first edition |
|
| Author(s) | John W. Campbell, Jr. |
| Cover artist | Hannes Bok |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction short stories |
| Publisher | Fantasy Press |
| Publication date | 1950 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 256 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
| OCLC Number | 1453762 |
The Moon Is Hell! is a collection of science fiction stories by author John W. Campbell, Jr.. It was published in 1950 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 4,206 copies. Campbell rewrote, on a short deadline, "The Elder Gods" from a story by Arthur J. Burks purchased for Unknown but later deemed unsatisfactory. It originally appeared in that magazine under the pseudonym Don A. Stuart.[1]
Reviewer Groff Conklin noted that while "The Elder Gods" was "actually not among the best of Campbell's work," the title story, original to the collection, was "a brilliantly circumstantial narrative [and] "first-rate stuff."[2] Boucher and McComas praised the title piece as "an extraordinary short novel . . . with Defoe's own dry convincing factuality."[3]. P. Schuyler Miller received the volume favorably, describing the title piece as "a realistic story of the first men on another world, worked out with an absolute minimum of hokum."[4] Everett F. Bleiler found "The Elder Gods" to be "contrived, derivative, and dull."[5] Lester del Rey, however, found "The Elder Gods" to be "a fine sword-and-sorcery novel, having some of the magic of A. Merritt but a lot more logic in its development."[6] New York Times reviewer Basil Davenport praised both stories, the title piece for its "close attention to scientific accuracy," the second as "pure swashbuckling romance."[7]
The title of the eponymous story is generally reported without the exclamation point, although the punctuation is used for the title of most editions of the collection itself.[8]