Book Review: Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

[inverarity]

A comet hits the earth decades before Armageddon and Deep Impact

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....

There's this attitude I see a lot among the more hard-core survivalists or "preppers," sometimes thinly-veiled and sometimes barely concealed at all: They talk about how bad it's going to be and how terrible and tragic TEOTWAWKI will be, but they obviously can't wait for civilization to fall so they can start shooting people and collecting wimmins.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle aren't that bad, but they definitely used the opportunity of a comet striking the Earth and destroying global civilization to kill off a few other bugbears of theirs as well, like women's lib and environmentalism.

Lucifer's Hammer was written in 1977. In one respect, it shows. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle are hard SF writers, and I have read quite a few of their collaborations, from Footfall to Fallen Angels, and enjoyed most, with reservations. But this is serious White Dude sci-fi, steeped in sub-Heinleinian 70s tropes.

In another respect, Lucifer's Hammer is a great story that, unusually for science fiction, doesn't show its age much where technology is concerned, if only because after a civilization-ending comet strikes the Earth, 1977 won't look a lot different than 2013.

I love post-apocalyptic thrillers. The bigger and cheesier, the better. I liked Armageddon and Deep Impact. I liked The Stand and The Passage and Swan Song and I Am Legend (all of them, even the Will Smith version). Just bring on the end of the world, baby!

So, in this book, Niven and Pournelle take out the planet with a comet. The first third of the book is of course the lead-up to the impact. Astronomers see it coming, a joint US-Soviet space mission (okay, so anything written before the 90s is going to mention Russkies) goes into space to watch it from orbit, and everyone is assured that the chances of the comet striking the Earth are about a billion-to-inevitable-because-what's-the-title-of-the-book? The authors introduce all of their main characters here. It's a book with a lengthy cast list, but the major characters include: Timothy Hamner, a wealthy amateur astronomer who is the first to spot the Hamner-Brown comet; Harvey Randall, a Hollywood producer; Senator Arthur Jellison, who retreats to his central California ranch with his staff and his daughter, "just in case"; Harry Newcombe, a somewhat hippie-ish postal carrier; Alim Nassor, a militant Black Nationalist who sees the panic over the approaching comet as a good opportunity to go on a crime spree and stick it to The Man.

Herein we see the first problem: the major black character is of course the bad guy, and he and his gang are introduced as a bunch of drug-crazy looters spouting violent rhetoric about honkies.

The authors tried to balance Nassor with John Baker, the first black astronaut. Spoiler: Of the three American astronauts and two Russian astronauts who are characters in the book, guess which one dies?

There are also some women, but they're mostly there for the men to hook up with and have rivalries over. Second problem with the book.

Still, the characters are varied and interesting, though one might find the first third slow going — get on with the apocalypse, already!

"Hammerfall" is described with Niven and Pournelle's usual attention to scientific detail, and the unlimited special effects budget of a novel. Tidal waves destroy all coastal areas. The San Andreas fault is triggered. Volcanoes erupt all over the world. And China and the USSR launch nuclear missiles at each other. The U.S. escapes nuclear holocaust thanks to the astronauts in orbit, but in the aftermath of multiple comet fragments striking around the world, no government survives, and the remainder of the book focuses on Senator Jellison's ranch, which becomes a stronghold for survivors. They struggle to rebuild what they can, and the moral dilemmas they face are compelling and believable. They can only support so many people: the people they've got may not survive the winter, and every additional mouth to feed lowers the entire community's chances of survival. So they have to start turning away other survivors, including families, and children.

A couple of weeks after Hammerfall, Harvey Randall is finally reunited with his fourteen-year-old son who was up in the mountains with his Boy Scout troop. They came across a Girl Scout troop which had been captured and enslaved by a biker gang. The boys (and the Scoutmaster) killed the bikers in their sleep. Now all the Girl Scouts have hooked up with them, and Harvey realizes that his son is a man now. 'Cause he has his very own personal Girl Scout. (So does the middle-aged Scoutmaster. No more pesky statutory rape laws after Hammerfall!) The Scoutmaster and the kid won't leave with him... well duh, they've got their own Girl Scouts! Dad would just want the kid to start following orders again, and back in what remains of civilization, they might still frown on groty old guys banging teenage rape victims.

It's not just silly women's libbers who are put in their place by the end of the world: there are a few mercifully brief rants about how stupid environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists are, but the real come-uppance is delivered to the inhabitants of "The Shire," a hippie commune in the valley where Senator Jellison's ranch is located. When a surviving member of The Shire is brought to the Stronghold as a prisoner, weeks after Hammerfall (having been expelled and then subverted by the New Brotherhood Army - see below), he breaks down in a tearful speech about how stupid they were with all their stupid environmentalism and stupid communal living and stupid anti-technology and they were such hypocrites 'cause they used to use washing machines and he just wants electricity again, dammit! Hahahahah, stupid hippies, how do you like your natural living now?

The worst threat to the Stronghold, however, comes from the New Brotherhood Army. This began as the remnants of Alim Nassor's Black Nationalist looting party, but eventually they hook up with another black leader, a former U.S. Army sergeant who has his own band. Sergeant Thomas and his gang have been resorting to cannibalism, and Alim and his men join them.

So... yeah, not only are the black people the bad guys, but while the white folks are trying to plant crops and fix power stations and rebuild a community, the black folks are... turning into cannibal psychopaths.

But Alim Nassor and Sergeant Thomas don't quite have what it takes to become organized. They've got men and guns, but what they really need is a white man to take charge. So Reverend Henry Armitage shows up, a former televangelist who, despite being mocked by Nassor and Thomas initially, has soon become their de facto leader, preaching anti-technology and cannibalism as a sacrament.

So, yeah, not only do Armitage and his followers become nasty metaphors for anti-nuclear and anti-space activists, but we've got an army of black cannibals led by a white guy against the pro-technology, civilized white folks led by senators, astronauts, TV producers, and scientists. God bless America.

(The New Brotherhood Army ends up recruiting everyone in their path - by force - but the leadership remains primarily black ‐ under Armitage.)

There is quite a bit to overlook in this book if you're prone to seeing (not very subtle) subtext. And yes, I'm sure Niven and Pournelle didn't intend to be racist. Hey, they even included a black astronaut! But they really pulled a Farnham's Freehold here. That said, the final battle with the New Brotherhood Army, the fight to restore some kind of civilization, and the debate over saving the last remaining nuclear power plant, makes a gripping last third of the novel.

[Poll #1892069]



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.

Comments

[uneko.livejournal.com]

Makes me wish I was younger -- when I was a wee thing, I could read authors like this and not see it. Piers Anthony, and Anne McCaffery were favored writers, once. now I grit my teeth and try and focus on the story and not the man/woman interaction :C

[eva]

Your review basically describes my own reactions to the book 1:1.

My "favourite" moments: Community assembly where people talk quite unrestrainedly about n******. Cue everyone looking at the sole black farmer, who totally hasn't got a problem with it, and who is totally accepted because he is a "good black person". And the astronaut being OK with everyone looking at him suspiciously and assuming him to be a cannibal because hey, there can't be any racism any more, as after all they've allowed him to go into space.

Then, of course, there is the fact that civilisation is saved by building a nuclear power plant, that women are once again a bargaining chip to be married off so local important men can forge unions. And the "hey environmentalist, you should be happy with the technology-smashing cannibals, because that is what you wanted all the time!" thing was really cringe-worthy.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Cue everyone looking at the sole black farmer, who totally hasn't got a problem with it, and who is totally accepted because he is a "good black person".

Actually, the black farmers (nameless and never mentioned again, of course) are described as looking "uncomfortable."

Then the white guy slinging the n-word around basically says "I didn't mean you, Fred, you're one of the good ones."

.... yeah.

[wyrdmuse.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that in any post-apoc work, the first thing to go is women's rights, as if suffrage and feminism are luxuries that we couldn't afford if we were suddenly sent back to the Dark Ages.

[eva]

Oh yes, and it's not even only in the dated ones. "World Made by Hand", for example...

[wyrdmuse.livejournal.com]

It's one of the things that made me start side-eying the Walking Dead comics.

I haven't read "World Made by Hand" yet, but Wikipedia only lists male characters, so I'll probably give that one a pass. I really liked the Holdfast Chronicles. Women are second-class citizens for the most part, but it's A Bad Thing, not the natural progression of social norms. The second book in the series, "Motherlines," is the only book I'm aware of where there are no male characters.

[eva]

Ah, I haven't heard of those; will need to check them out.

As for "World Made by Hand" - well, the main characters are all male, yes. Women really only exist as appendixes to them, for food and sex etc. And it's just stated that the local council people have formed to run their town is all-male, now that they have been thrown back to a former lifestyle (or something of that sort), as if it was a normal, logical consequence of an energy shortage. It's not as if the men in that council need to do heavy labour or hand-to-hand-combat or anything of that sort, but somehow women automatically seem not to have the leadership skills and authority needed to run a town, and only influence things indirectly through the men.

It's probably similar to what the OP describes regarding the survivalists actually wanting things to end; there is a subconscious longing for "simpler times" as they were in the past, and apparently part of that is that male control of society is accepted as a natural law.

[kerneyhead.livejournal.com]

I don't mind women's rights taking a hit because I think the to an extent women's rights probably would take a hit, because in a crisis, all social constructs take hits and social constructs break down, perhaps allowing for things like age relationships that would give us the willies in our day to day society, like the girl scout/scout leader or Dale/Andrea in The Walking Dead. Even Laura Roslin says, 'we need to get the hell out of here and start making babies.'

In fact I hate it more when every one still holds the morals and attitudes of early 21st century America after the Nukes/Zombies/Cylons/Comets/enviromental disaster screws things up. Crisis changes things; often in ways no one would expect when the crisis started. If the status quo holds, I feel like they are cheating the reader just as much as when the authors wear their ideology on their shoulder and expect all their ideals to stand up to the crisis and all those pinko/commie/liberal/communalist/ people we don't like (or on the flip side all those war mongering manly men, I've seen that too) are gotten rid of.

Some authors/shows that I think strike a better balance than Niven/Pournelle did. They include IMHO, SM Stirling's 'Dies the Fire' trilogy, Max Brook's World War Z, Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy, Harry Turtledove in many of his works, BBC's Survivors (2008), Battlestar Galactica (2003 version), both the television and comic s of The Walking Dead.

[wyrdmuse.livejournal.com]

There's one thing you can count on in a crisis: if, when you're rebuilding, the less privileged don't have a voice, then things will be really shitty for them. Look at women in Egypt. They're entire world changed literally overnight and they were pretty much shut out of any nation rebuilding and as a result, things are pretty shitty for a lot of Egyptian women right now.

The problem I have with a lot of post-apoc books is that the dudes writing them forget that maybe women would like to help rebuild the world. Instead, you have the women in The Walking Dead hiding in the prison while the men are out killing zombies, reestablishing a tired status quo instead of rebuilding a society where men and women share responsibility. Not to mention, if you're fighting zombies, hiding half of your capable eyes and weapon-wielding hands is just stupid.

[kerneyhead.livejournal.com]

Yet Andrea and Michonne are two of the most competent warriors in the group (the comic). Both at times take Rick (the main viewpoint character) to task and are in no way weak females. On the other hand there are some characters who are weak, some of which are male, some of which happen to be female.

As long as the authors are playing fair by that standard, and not wearing ideology on their sleave, like the authors of Lucifer's Hammer clearly are, I'm okay with that from a fictional universe point of view.
I also don't have a problem with sex roles being effected in a crisis if there are believable real world reasons rather then ideology. That can vary from, 'the story takes place among people whose starting place is a bit on the conservative side' (like many of the rural southern Walking Dead characters seem to) to 'if we are even going to survive, we're going to have to get the hell out of here and start making babies.'

Note this my opinion on interesting fiction. I'd like to believe that in the real world I wouldn't fight for people (including women) to have a voice. And BTW, I think you'd approve of Stirling's Dies the Fire and World War Z in particular out of my recomendations.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Hell, I've heard MRAs say that women's rights and feminism are luxuries.

[merigirl.livejournal.com]

It's been too long since I read the book, I was probably 13 or 14 when I first read it and mostly liked the whole end-of-the-world thing and didn't pay as much attention to other things that were going on. The same as when I read Piers Anthony and Anne McCaffery when young as someone else said. I doubt I would read it again now without my head exploding in a tiny mushroom cloud.

[indigo-mouse.livejournal.com]

This time I am going to be a bit more careful going to bat for a book that I haven't read in... decades?

I actually don't remember the cannibals - what I remember is the little side stories, like the surfer dude who catches that last awesome wave, the truck full of liquors and luxuries that gets burned (and then turns into a legend), the scientist with the diabetes who puts all his books in a swimming pool and cements it over to preserve them for posterity, then dies because he won't let the survivors kill sheep for his insulin (or something of the sort). And wasn't there some guy who was hiding a dead body in the compost pile?

I remember enjoying it, but I'm not sure what I would think of it now.

For reasons I cannot explain I thought at the time that Jerry Pournelle was black. Obviously not.

I last read this completely in 1985. Going at it again in 2017.

[jeff cordell (from livejournal.com)]

I first read this book in 1985 when I was seventeen. I also read "The Stand" that year. Both books left an impression. I've re-read both the truncated and director's-cut versions of "The Stand" a few times over the past thirty-two years. As I've aged and gained some life experience I've become aware of some of the interesting details in King's seminal work. However I also understand that King was in his twenties when he wrote that novel. Times and people change. I did a speed-read of "Lucifer's Hammer" a few years ago and found myself floored by the depictions of females and black characters. But ,as of today, I'm re-reading it more thoroughly. I'll probably catch even more details that way. I have a longtime friend who warns against reading novels that you read when you were a teenager or in your very early twenties. They never hold up to the scrutiny of middle age and I agree with her. But I'm in the mood for a mega-disaster book. It's summertime after all.

One issue

[audrey dalton (from livejournal.com)]

One nitpick here: John Baker’s white. Rick Delanty’s the Black one, and he survives.