In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, the endlessly-mysterious moon is explored in this reprint short science fiction anthology from award-winning editor and anthologist Neil Clarke (Clarkesworld, The Best Science Fiction of the Year).

On July 20, 1969, mankind made what had only years earlier seemed like an impossible leap forward: when Apollo 11 became the first manned mission to land on the moon, and Neil Armstrong the first person to step foot on the lunar surface.

While there have only been a handful of new missions since, the fascination with our planet’s satellite continues, and generations of writers and artists have imagined the endless possibilities of lunar life. From adventures in the vast gulf of space between the earth and the moon, to journeys across the light face to the dark side, to the establishment of permanent residences on its surface, science fiction has for decades given readers bold and forward-thinking ideas about our nearest interstellar neighbor and what it might mean to humankind, both now and in our future.

The Eagle Has Landed collects the best stories written in the fifty years since mankind first stepped foot on the lunar surface, serving as a shining reminder that the moon is and always has been our most visible and constant example of all the infinite possibility of the wider universe.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Bagatelle by John Varley

The Eve of the Last Apollo by Carter Scholz

The Lunatics by Kim Stanley Robinson

Griffin’s Egg by Michael Swanwick

A Walk in the Sun by Geoffrey A. Landis

Waging Good by Robert Reed

How We Lost the Moon by Paul McAuley

People Came From Earth by Stephen Baxter

Ashes and Tombstones by Brian Stableford

Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl’s by Adam Troy Castro

Stories for Men by John Kessel

The Clear Blue Seas of Luna by Gregory Benford

You Will Go to the Moon by William Preston

SeniorSource by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Economy of Vacuum by Sarah Thomas

The Cassandra Project by Jack McDevitt

Fly Me to the Moon by Marianne J. Dyson

Tyche and the Ants by Hannu Rajaniemi

The Moon Belongs to Everyone by Michael Alexander and K.C. Ball

The Fifth Dragon by Ian McDonald

Let Baser Things Devise by Berrien C. Henderson

The Moon is Not a Battlefield by Indrapramit Das

Every Hour of Light and Dark by Nancy Kress

In Event of Moon Disaster by Rich Larson

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