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A comet hits the earth decades before Armageddon and Deep Impact
Ballantine, 1977, 640 pages
( When the Hammer falls, every boy will get his very own personal Girl Scout, white farmers and engineers will rebuild civilization, and black people will turn into cannibal jihadists. Snark level: moderately high. )
Verdict: As a story, Lucifer's Hammer is entertaining end-of-the-world adventure with a large cast of characters and a gripping, believable apocalypse. The science-y bits are interesting without being infodumpy, the drama stays high once you get past the first third. It is fine classic sci-fi. However, it's also full of authorial blindness and resentment: hence, much dumping on anyone who isn't a white male science geek. Read with sense of irony fully engaged.
Also by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle: My reviews of Fallen Angels and The Mote in God's Eye.
My complete list of book reviews.
Ballantine, 1977, 640 pages
The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam. It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization.
But for the terrified men and women chance had saved, it was also the dawn of a new struggle for survival - a struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known....
( When the Hammer falls, every boy will get his very own personal Girl Scout, white farmers and engineers will rebuild civilization, and black people will turn into cannibal jihadists. Snark level: moderately high. )
Verdict: As a story, Lucifer's Hammer is entertaining end-of-the-world adventure with a large cast of characters and a gripping, believable apocalypse. The science-y bits are interesting without being infodumpy, the drama stays high once you get past the first third. It is fine classic sci-fi. However, it's also full of authorial blindness and resentment: hence, much dumping on anyone who isn't a white male science geek. Read with sense of irony fully engaged.
Also by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle: My reviews of Fallen Angels and The Mote in God's Eye.
My complete list of book reviews.
