Books The Moon Five Sci-Fi Stories About Things Going Wrong on the Moon When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, then explodes. By Lorna Wallace | Published on May 20, 2025 Image credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker Comment 0 Share New Share Image credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker The Moon may no longer have the same mystique as it did before humans set foot on its dusty surface in 1969, but it still makes a wonderful setting for a sci-fi story. And although the Moon being Earth’s closest neighbor may make it seem a bit safer to explore than more distant astronomical bodies, there’s still plenty of opportunity for things to go horribly, catastrophically wrong. Here are five lunar-set stories—ranging from a short story to a TV show—that explore just a few of those terrifying possibilities. A Fall of Moondust (1961) by Arthur C. Clarke Published a mere eight years before Neil Armstrong took that momentous first step for mankind, A Fall of Moondust is set in a future where humans have started colonizing the Moon. Tourists with pockets deep enough to afford a ticket to the Moon can take a tour of the Sea of Thirst, which is filled with a fine dust that is more akin to water than sand (but is far less easy to move through). Captain Pat Harris is driving the Selene—essentially a bus on skis that is able to skim over the dusty sea—on its regular scenic route when an unexpected moonquake disturbs the smooth surface and causes the vehicle to plummet into the dust. The story then flips back and forth between Selene’s submerged crew and passengers doing what they can to survive and the efforts of those on the surface trying to rescue them. While some of the characters (particularly the women) unfortunately feel like a product of the time in which Clarke was writing, the characters aren’t the driving force of the story. What’s actually on offer is a tense tale of survival and realistic problem-solving in an inhospitable lunar environment—and those elements have absolutely stood the test of time. “A Walk in the Sun” (1991) by Geoffrey A. Landis (Collected in Impact Parameter) Another hard sci-fi take on a lunar disaster story comes from NASA engineer Geoffrey A. Landis. In his short story, “A Walk in the Sun,” the spaceship Moonshadow crash-lands, killing two of its three crew members. Sole survivor Trish is able to call mission control to let them know she’s alive, but she’s informed that the rescue team won’t be able to get to the moon for 30 days. Trish is determined to survive; she has enough food and her solar-powered spacesuit is able to recycle her oxygen and water. But lunar night is approaching and Trish needs to stay at least one step ahead of the darkness if she wants to catch the spacecraft home, which spurs her to set off on foot on a perilous journey around the Moon. While the story is fairly straightforward—with the exception of Trish’s mental state—its strength lies in its tense realism. Crypt of the Moon Spider (2024) by Nathan Ballingrud On the opposite end of the spectrum to the previous two hard sci-fi stories is the novella Crypt of the Moon Spider, which walks the sometimes-fuzzy line between science fiction and fantasy. Set in 1923, the Moon is covered in a dense blanket of trees, in the midst of which stands an insane asylum—the Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy. Oh, and the imposing facility was built above a cave that was once home to a massive (and now-dead) spider that was worshiped as a god. Veronica Brinkley is abandoned dropped off by her husband for treatment, which turns out to be a body-horror nightmare that involves the use of spider silk. It’s quickly apparent that things are already very wrong at Barrowfield, but new depths of wrongness are soon plunged. The story starts out eerie and gothic, and as Veronica’s treatment continues and she grows ever more curious about the facility, a surreal weirdness creeps into the pages. Moon (2009) Moon, Duncan Jones’ debut movie, is set in a future where Earth is facing an energy crisis due to oil depletion. Thankfully a solution lies on the far side of the Moon, where helium-3 can be mined as an alternative. Sarang Station has been built for this purpose and requires just one (very lonely) person to run everything and send the capsules to Earth. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) has been that employee for the past three years and he’s now just a couple of weeks away from returning to Earth and reuniting with his wife and young daughter. But with the finish line in sight, crushing loneliness becomes the least of Sam’s problems because he starts having hallucinations, one of which causes him to crash his lunar rover. I’ll leave the description of the plot there to avoid spoilers, but have no doubt that Sam’s life is about to get even more challenging, and that Sam Rockwell gives an excellent performance as the Moon’s sole resident. The Silent Sea (2021) Korean series The Silent Sea also features an Earth in crisis, but this time instead of oil, the problem is food and water shortages caused by desertification. Unfolding over eight episodes, the story follows a lunar mission to an abandoned scientific facility called Balhae Station. Captain Han Yoon‑Jae (Gong Yoo) is in charge of leading the team through the creepy corridors and labs in search of a mysterious—and highly secret—sample, but of course, they encounter a few problems along the way. The station’s original crew allegedly died five years earlier due to a radiation leak, but it quickly becomes clear that lies have been told and secrets kept. And then there’s the issue of that pesky sample that the small crew of astronauts have been sent to retrieve, which itself creates a host of unforeseen complications… The Silent Sea is a slow-burn thriller that, in its moments of intensity, swings between being horrifying and silly. While I’d rather it was more the former than the latter, I enjoyed the journey regardless. I’ve no doubt missed out plenty of great sci-fi stories about lunar disasters. For instance, I’ve not yet gotten around to reading Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), but I assume it might qualify, since the title isn’t The Moon Is a Kind Mistress—something must have gone wrong, somewhere, right? Please feel free to take to the comments to leave your own suggestions of stories about misadventures on the Moon.[end-mark] The post Five Sci-Fi Stories About Things Going Wrong on the Moon appeared first on Reactor.