In any discussion about human virtues, patience and kindness are invariably cited as the most desirable. But while these are qualities of character we would appreciate in any of our fellows, surely adaptability laps them, and any of their brethren, for usefulness. After all, most of us are not creatures of change; a million years of evolution has seen to that, instilling in us a desire to survive that causes us to favor the familiar and reject the unknown. But we cannot always count on our lives being stable. We cannot always count on the next day being like the last. Sometimes, disaster strikes. Sometimes, the next day is September 11th, 2001.
This is why adaptability is so valuable. For on these days that are like no other, while we flounder in confusion, helpless to find our equilibrium in a world falling apart, those among us who can change, who do adapt, thrive. They seize chaos, wringing from it what they require to survive and then they move on to build new lives in different tomorrows. Though Lucifer's Hammer is rightfully held as a classic of science fiction, and a seminal work of disaster fiction, it is the extent to which it investigates this question of rigidity versus adaptability, of the familiar versus the unknown, that truly grants it greatness.
Originally published in 1977, Lucifer's Hammer transports the reader back into the heady world of late 1970s Los Angeles where the Tv cameras are bright, where fame is priceless, and where the American Dream seems alive and well. Capitalism and human ingenuity have created a new and exciting society characterized by affordable technology and hopes for future abundance. Into this glamorous world strays an astronomical curiosity. A comet has just been spotted hurtling past Saturn, on a course for Earth. For months, humanity enjoys the spectacle, comforted by reassurances from the scientific community that this massive thunderbolt of rock and ice will pass harmlessly by. But as the comet grows near, and as the odds of it striking Earth increase with each day's passing, "Hammer Fever" grips a humanity transfixed by the onrushing comet. While some organize viewing parties, others raid stores for supplies and hit high ground, preparing for the worst. But no amount of preparation can ready one for doom's day.
The Hamner-Brown comet was supposed to miss Earth by a million miles, but when, on that fateful Tuesday, it defies the odds and smashes into the cradle of humanity, boiling its oceans and blurring out its sun behind a deluge of saltwater rain that baptizes the land, no one has time to marvel at the odds. Instantly, Earth's coastlines are submerged, civilization there wiped from the map. The lucky thousands who survive Hammerfall cling to mountain ranges too high for the water to cleans them, watching as their numbers are swelled by those smart enough, or lucky enough, to have escaped cities now vanished beneath monstrous tsunamis. Civilization gone in a heartbeat... Humanity and all its works persist by the thinnest of threads. Will it hang on in this new world of endless winter, or will divisiveness and discord prove too much for the remnants, plunging them into war and ruin? The fate of the species now rests in the hands of the few. On one side is the light of civilization; on the other the darkness of religiosity and madness. Only fate can split them, fate and the hope for tomorrow.
Though Lucifer's Hammer is slow to catch fire, Misters Niven and Pournelle have combined to produce, here, a masterful work of post-apocalyptic fiction. Drafting in dozens of characters, the narrative struggles at times, fragmented between too many points of view for comfortable consumption. However, when the comet strikes, radically altering civilization in an instant, this character-developing spadework is no longer laborious; it is the fuel by which the story ignites. For at Hammerfall, the reader has lived with wonderfully human characters, their sympathies engaged with real people with real problems now having to confront the gravest challenge of their lives. Yes, this is a novel of action and suspense, with wars waged between order and chaos, progress and atavism. For all this though, it will be these personalities I remember, the good and the evil, the brave and the cowardly, the smart and the foolish. For it is they who transform this from a war story into a philosophical piece about humanity's capacity to survive in the face of a suddenly hostile world.
I first read Lucifer's Hammer 20 years ago, when I was an impressible boy. Often, when we revisit books that moved us in our formative years, they disappoint. After all, adults are far better equipped to pick out mistakes and cliches than children. And so I was pleasantly surprised to find that this classic, but for two respects, withstands the test of time. The setting is now horribly dated; the idea that the United States government would, at the behest of egghead scientists, sent astronauts into space to study a comet now seems ludicrous in 2011. More over, the female characters here are little more than caricatures, starved for the screen-time necessary to animate into full-fledged people. However, in every other sense, Lucifer's Hammer remains a thrillride that towers over its genre. In 35 years, only The Road can challenge it for apocalyptic power. (4/5 Stars)
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