Lucifer's Hammer
First edition
|
|
| Author |
Larry Niven Jerry Pournelle |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Anthony Russo |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Playboy Press |
|
Publication date
|
1977 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 494 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 2966712 |
| 813/.5/4 | |
| LC Class | PZ4.N734 Lu PS3564.I9 |
Lucifer's Hammer is a science fiction disaster / survival novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, first published in 1977. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1978. A comic book adaptation was published by Innovation Comics in 1993.
The story details a comet colliding with Earth, an end to civilization, and the battle for the future. It encompasses the discovery of the comet, the Los Angeles social scene, and a cast of diverse characters whose fate is to be among the few who survive the massive cataclysm and the resulting tsunamis, plagues, famines, and battles among scavengers and cannibals.
When wealthy soap company heir and amateur astronomer Tim Hamner codiscovers a new comet, dubbed Hamner-Brown, documentary producer Harvey Randall persuades Hamner to have his family's company sponsor a television documentary series on the subject. Political lobbying by California Senator Arthur Jellison eventually gets a joint Apollo-Soyuz (docking with the second flight-worthy Skylab) mission into space to study the comet, dubbed "The Hammer" by popular media, which is expected to pass close to the Earth.
Despite assurances by the scientific community that a collision with Earth is extremely unlikely, many members of the public catch "Hammer Fever" and begin to hoard food and supplies and head for the hills in anticipation. Some are fueled with religious fervor by the evangelist Henry Armitage, who teaches that the arrival of the comet signals the End Times. Jellison quietly gathers supplies and retreats to his ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada with his family and close aides.
Eventually, to the shock of scientists at JPL in Pasadena, who could not project the comet's path accurately enough because of the comet's constant outgassing and fragmentation, many pieces of the comet's nucleus impact around the world with devastating results, striking parts of Europe, Africa, the Gulf of Mexico, and both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The strikes trigger several volcanoes and earthquakes around the world, including the San Andreas fault, heavily damaging the Southern California region and the rest of California, causing millions of casualties. Several of the fragments land in the ocean, causing further damage by the resulting tsunamis (which destroy major coastal cities around the world, including Los Angeles, killing millions) and long-term climate problems due to the massive quantities of vaporized seawater.
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Wikipedia