Dust

Dust by Allison M. Dickson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm such a sucker for "end of the world" stories. Especially ones involving alien intervention. So naturally, I didn't even need to finish reading the description to know I wanted to read this. I got as far as "A hungry alien substance has traveled to Earth following a doomed Lunar mission", and hit the download button.

Those who know me, know that I hugely prefer print books to digital books. It's not even a competition. But I have to admit that I have stumbled across some pretty neat books that I never would have read if not for the digital version. This is one of those.

The story is told from Clyde Jackson's point of view. A lucky survivor of the mass destruction caused by some sort of alien space dust, he is cooped up in his panic room. Although he has plenty of food, water, and booze, his main concern is keeping the room free of the invasive killer dust. We never really find out what it is, although it's hinted that it could be the result of an alien contaminated Kuiper Belt object colliding with the moon ten years previously. This is one theory circulating the internet while the failed Lunar mission is on it's return flight back to Earth, shown to Clyde by a wound-up young man in a diner.

I very much enjoyed that the author shared with the readers where she got the idea for the story. She says learning of the possibility of human material remaining on the moon, combined with the movie Apollo 18, was the reason for writing this story. It really focuses on a part of space exploration that certainly deserves some thought.

I would've loved for this book to be longer. It's a great story idea that could easily be inflated into a full novel - which I would read in a heartbeat!

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