# Help me find this sci-fi novel
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 22, 2008, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441 "2008-01-22T01:37:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/1 "2008-01-22T01:37:22Z")
I’m looking for the name of this sci-fi novel, the details of which are a bit fuzzy to me. It involved some kind of either alien building that was discovered or an alien artifact big enough for people to walk around inside. Inside were a series of puzzles/tests and perhaps booby traps I guess designed to only let members of a race sufficiently advanced to get through to the end without being killed off. Unfortunately most of the keywords I have tried keep bringing me to the movie Cube, which is definitely not what I’m looking for (although a great film!). Anyone have a clue?
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/2 "2008-01-22T01:47:02Z")
I can think of everything BUT the title and author. The alien artifact was on the Moon, and it was multidimensional or something that gave it unfathomable properties. Doing any number of seemingly trivial things would cause you to die in various bizarre ways, but it would also kill you if you simply stood in one place and did nothing for the maximum length of time anyone had survived in it so far. If only someone could survive walking all the way through it, there would then be no time limit and it could be investigated with (relative) safety. They solved the problem by using a matter duplicator on a volunteer who was dying of cancer. By expending hundred of copies, they eventually worked their way through it by sheer persistance.
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/3 "2008-01-22T01:56:13Z")
The one I was thinking of was _[Special Deliverance](http://www.amazon.com/Special-deliverance-Clifford-D-Simak/dp/0345298977)_, but Clifford D. Simak.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/4 "2008-01-22T01:58:44Z")
Budrys–
Rogue Moon?
> **[Rogue Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Moon)**
>
> Rogue Moon is a short science fiction novel by American writer Algis Budrys, published in 1960. It was a 1961 Hugo Award nominee. A substantially cut version of the novel was originally published in F&SF; this novella-length story was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two, edited by Ben Bova. It was adapted into a radio drama by Yuri Rasovsky in 1979.
> Rogue Moon is largely about the discovery and investigation of a large alien artifact found on the surface of the Moon. The o...
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### Author:  [@ReuvenB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReuvenB)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/5 "2008-01-22T02:02:42Z")
Rogue Moon was the first thing I thought of, too. Did you read it in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, perhaps?
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/6 "2008-01-22T02:55:58Z")
Definitely sounds like **Rogue Moon**.
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### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/7 "2008-01-22T02:56:25Z")
You bastards. Another vote for _Rogue Moon_.
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/8 "2008-01-22T02:57:16Z")
Although you’re asking for a novel, the plot is similar to the movie “The Terrornauts,” based on Murray Leinster’s “The Wailing Asteroid.”
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/9 "2008-01-22T03:13:34Z")
C’mon people offer some helpful suggestions.
Can you remember the last place you were reading it?
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### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/10 "2008-01-22T05:59:48Z")
[_The Man in the Maze_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Maze) by Robert Silverberg?
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### Author:  [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/11 "2008-01-22T06:22:39Z")
[House of Doors](http://www.amazon.com/House-Doors-Brian-Lumley/dp/0812508327) by Brian Lumley?
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### Author:  [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/12 "2008-01-22T08:28:21Z")
I can’t be sure, because I only read the blurb on the back many years ago, and wanted to track it down so I could finally read it. But the description for Rogue Moon definitely sounds like it. Thanks!
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### Author:  [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/13 "2008-01-22T17:51:36Z")
Sounds like every plot from the last seasons of “Stargate SG-1” as well.
IIRC in “Rogue Moon” there’s no indication the artifact was a test or had any other purpose. It was just there.
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### Author:  [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/14 "2008-01-22T19:22:08Z")
[QUOTE=Quercus]
IIRC in “Rogue Moon” there’s no indication the artifact was a test or had any other purpose. It was just there.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe that’s why I remember reading this story 3 or 4 times and still have no idea how it ends.
It’s like Budrys predicted the video game – a character keeps trying to go through a maze, dies, gets another life, gets a bit further, finally finishes after many deaths and…that’s pretty much it.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/15 "2008-01-22T20:16:27Z")
And when walking through the maze, the chara…err, person constantly hears the electronic chirping of…Rio, by Duran Duran.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2008, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/16 "2008-01-22T20:28:03Z")
… unfortunately, the protagonist is repeatedly hit with a 1920’s-Style Death Ray…
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### Author:  [@vison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vison)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/17 "2008-01-24T04:47:09Z")
The Heechee Saga?
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### Author:  [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2008, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-find-this-sci-fi-novel/434441/18 "2008-01-24T14:16:56Z")
[QUOTE=Finagle]
Maybe that’s why I remember reading this story 3 or 4 times and still have no idea how it ends.
It’s like Budrys predicted the video game – a character keeps trying to go through a maze, dies, gets another life, gets a bit further, finally finishes after many deaths and…that’s pretty much it.
[/QUOTE]
It’s been a long long time, but my recollection is that the lack of resolution is kind of what the story’s about. There’s no rhyme or reason to this artifact; it’s just there. And humans have to explore it not to gain exotic technology or save the planet, but just because, like Everest, it’s there. And so this guy’s clones have to die over and over and over again because it’s there and we’re humans. And finally, when a clone makes it through, there’s no reward for the clone, it just has to sit down and wait to die. Because we’re human and that’s what it’s like sometimes.