Inconstant Moon is a science fiction short story collection by American author Larry Niven that was published in 1973. "Inconstant Moon" is also a 1971 short story that is included in the collection. The title refers to "O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon", a quote from the balcony scene in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The collection was assembled from the US collections The Shape of Space and All the Myriad Ways.
Story synopses (Sphere paperback edition) The 1974 Sphere paperback version of the collection only contained seven of the twelve stories originally included in the 1973 Gollancz hardback edition.
"Inconstant Moon" First appearance: 1971 short story collection All the Myriad Ways. The short story won the 1972 Hugo Award for best short story. Stan, the narrator, notices that the Moon is glowing much brighter than ever before. The people he meets as the story begins all praise the Moon's increased beauty but lack the scientific background to understand its cause. However the narrator surmises that the Sun has gone nova, the day side of the Earth is already destroyed, and this is the last night of his life. He then calls and visits his girlfriend Leslie, presuming her ignorant of the situation, but she realizes it independently when Jupiter brightens with appropriate delay; they then enjoy their last night on the town, before rain and winds start. Later, he realizes one other possibility. In case he is right, they find appropriate supplies and seek refuge from the coming natural disasters in Leslie's high-rise apartment. The second possibility turns out to be correct: the Earth has "merely" been struck by an enormous superflare—by far the worst disaster in human history, with most (if not all) people in the Eastern Hemisphere presumed dead, but humans in the Americas have a chance of surviving the cataclysm. The vaporized seawater leads to torrential rains, hurricanes and floods. The story ends at the break of an overcast, gray morning, with Leslie's apartment becoming an island among the raging flood waters, but with the narrator rather optimistically wondering "if our children would colonize Europe, or Asia, or Africa." In 1996, the story was made into an episode of The Outer Limits television series written by Brad Wright. Jo Walton in 1997 wrote a short poem, "The End of the World in Duxford", as "an unauthorised version of 'Inconstant Moon', a British equivalent."
"Bordered in Black" First appearance: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1966. A prototype faster-than-light spacecraft crewed by two men is sent to the Sirius system, known from robotic exploration to include a terrestrial world. In orbit around the world, they notice that one of the continents has a thin, strange border all the way around its coastline, which radiates a low heat and appears black in visible light. After exploring the edges of the smaller continents, and discovering that the ocean hosts only one lifeform—a single species of algae that they think might have been genetically engineered—they decide to explore the large continent with the border. When they discover just what the black border is—a seething mass of trapped humans with very dark skin, feeding off the algae and each other—the result is the death, by suicide, of one of the crew, and the self-destruction of the ship by the traumatized survivor upon his return to Earth—and a chilling reminder that there may be great danger waiting for further human explorers. The story ends on a hopeful note, with the project leader believing that Earth can help the humans at Sirius, and a fearful one, with the crewman then speculating that the humans were seeded by carnivorous aliens as food animals. In the notes to his collection Convergent Series, Niven wrote that "Bordered in Black"
does not belong to the Known Space universe. (...) When I wrote Bordered in Black, Known Space had not taken form. I was playing with some preliminary ideas, and one of these – the "Blind Spot" effect of this form of faster-than-light travel – was later incorporated into Known Space. But it's a different timeline entirely. Similar statements hold for "One Face" (...) Hair styles and human colony worlds from this story later entered Known Space; but the story does not belong to that universe.
"How the Heroes Die" First appearance: Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1966. A Known Space story. The 15-man team setting up the first base on Mars experience tragedy when a murder is committed. Carter, the homophobic murderer, in the process of escaping on one of the transportation buggies crashes through the plastic bubble which holds in the base's atmosphere in an attempt to kill everyone else; however, it fails, and he is soon chased by Alf, the brother of the victim on another buggy. Carter had committed the murder because the victim had asked Carter for homosexual sex. Alf suggests to Carter that he himself is in denial about his own homosexuality. The lethal chase, with the two combatants in constant radio communication, slowly reveals the community stresses which resulted in the murder. Alf wants to kill Carter in revenge for his brother, while Carter wishes the same and to try once more to destroy the base; but with limited oxygen in their tanks, the two men must ensure that they have enough left to return to base.
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