Moon Zero Two

by John Burke (Adapted by)

Lunar City, May 2020.

There are many ways of dying on the Moon and Bill Kemp knows them all. Tough, independent and broke he lives dangerously by flying a ten-year-old space ferry across its vast silences.

Suddenly, a whirlwind of adventure brings new perils — blasting through space at 18000 mph; landing on an asteroid of solid sapphire; escaping from jail; navigating a Moonbug across fearsome craters; cheating death below the ground and above infinity — as Bill seeks revenge for two lovely girls, the living and the dead...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

141 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

John Frederick Burke was an English writer of novels and short stories, specializing in film and tv tie-ins.

He wrote under the pen names J. F. Burke, Jonathan Burke, John Burke, Jonathan George, Robert Miall, Martin Sands, Owen Burke, Sara Morris, Russ Ames, Roger Rougiere, Joanna Jones and co-wrote with his wife Jean Burke under the pen name Harriet Esmond.

Note: There are several authors called John Burke. This author has two spaces in the name John^^Burke.

Reviews

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few minutes before I began writing this, I was reading an article in the LA Times (online) about an Australian scientist who believes he's discovered why moondust is sticky (has to do with ultraviolet rays).

That dredged up the memory of reading this book when but a young lad still toying with the idea of being an astronomer. I don't know where I picked up this gem (a novelization of the movie of the same name) but I remember reading it several times. What most entranced me about the setting was that the protagonist operated a beat up, old spacecraft that traded in salvage.

I don't know, at the time it sounded really cool, and inspired me to build I-don't-know-how-many "beat up, old spacecraft" with my LEGOs (the classic blocks, not the new fangled ones).

By rights it should be a two-star review (if that) but, as is often the case with these older reads, it holds a sentimental place in my memory banks.

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

He has sex with this girl called Clementine inside his beat-up old spaceship. There's a passage contrasting the shadows on her body with the shadows on the lunar landscape outside.

When I read it (I was eleven) I thought this was just the most erotic thing I had ever seen. Maybe it was! I'm afraid I can recall absolutely nothing about the rest of the book.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well this isn't the main stream science fiction voyage the title would have you believe. This has disappointed many of us...This is actually an attempt at a 2001 rip-off, having only come out a year after that film (1969). Hammer Films is a British film company founded in 1940, known mainly for its horror films; they have also produced other genre films such as science fiction. When it came to Moon Zero Two, they wanted to make "the exact opposite version of 2001", which had me worried straight away. It's a 2001 rip-off right down to the patriotic premise and the spectacular spacecraft. It uses the same formula and, as its name implies, it's set on the Moon! What is severely lacks is the characters themselves, only without HAL. J. J. Hubbard just doesn't cut it somehow. It's got the moves down, but when it comes to delivering a nifty one-liner he really struggles. You end up with a sub par Space Odyssey without any laughs, and that's just criminal. On the plus side Moon Zero Two's secondary supporter, Bill Kemp, is the niftiest of nifty. There's also some good action sequences (the climax is kind of nail bitey in a surfing-on-a-bomb kind of way) but with long gaps of non-action and little to no adventure in between there's probably not enough to satisfy science fiction fans. And because it was released not long after Apollo 11 happened, there's a dialog reference to Armstrong that seems quite impressive though. Following the 2001 formula there's plenty of futuristic set decorations, but none of it is really new or exceptionally nifty, most of it's been used before. Moon Zero Two itself is certainly nothing like 2001, but that's just the first of its problems. The biggest thing that bothered me is the so called "near future" of 2021. Funny now that year has come and gone. If you think the prediction of moon colonization is accurate, there's something completely wrong with you. This thing is obvious with a capital "OB". You don't even have to be told it's in a near future to know what it is, it's given away in the first scene of the movie. If "near future" was at least a year or two or ten ahead, Moon Zero Two would be somewhere near the late 20th century. Ok let's move on. Another problem: this is a work of crime fiction, right? So where's the tension? Where's the thriller-ness? Where's the crime anyway? It's firmly stuck down the back of the seat, as far from the edge of your seat as you can get. You just never care what's going to happen next. There's a minute touch of drama, but it really just doesn't draw you in. And another thing, having worked with computers and the internet, books and movies like this always annoy me with their fakeness, and although its a lot better in that department than something like The Net, it's still pretty bad. Most of the code seems to be traceroute output, and they use technical terms almost too many times. Not that there's anything wrong with that or anything else though, it still seems readable. So it's not all bad. There's a few good scenes, and the story's better than most science fiction in a future now in the past, and its still a shitload better than The Forever War, but it just doesn't quite make it. It's readable, and the film's watchable, but don't expect much, you'll be waiting a while. So that's it. Basically it's just a tryhard 2001 flick, but I've seen and read a lot worse.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/moon-zero-two-by-john-burke/

The novelisation is by John Burke, author of over a hundred books (mostly novelisations and tie-ins), of which the best known is his treatment of the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night. I was very pleasantly surprised. Where the film stuttered a bit in terns of style and tone, Burke has gone for a relentless noir vibe in the novelisation, which also enables him to smoothe over some of the awkward bits in the story. I thought it came across much better on the page than on screen.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed this a teenager - less when I re-read it much later - still an OK read if a bit dated now