The Winning of the Moon

The Cold War reaches the moon in this sharp, paranoid 1960s SF novel. When the Soviets conduct an underground nuclear blast to analyze the lunar mass, an American team watches from their base nearby, armed with nothing but instruments, protocol, and mounting dread. What begins as tense scientific observation becomes a nightmare of unforeseen complications: communications break down, radiation patterns shift unpredictably, and the Americans must confront the terrifying possibility that the Soviet experiment will alter the moon itself, or worse, trap them there forever. Kris Neville brings brutal humor to the absurd logic of superpower competition, showing men more concerned with national pride than survival, arguing over jurisdiction while the ground shakes beneath them. The result is a claustrophobic, darkly funny portrait of human folly at the edge of the world.