Arctangential

I finished Lucifer’s Hammer this afternoon. It took me longer than I thought it would, but it was a pretty hefty book and I haven’t had as much time to read lately.

The plot of this book is really simple — a comet hits the Earth, creating massive destruction, and a group of people have to survive in the new wasteland. Some historical perspective may be in order here; the book was written and released in 1977. The mid-70s were the heyday of big-budget disaster movies, with notable examples such as The Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno. By ‘77, Niven was a little bit late to the party, but this book is a classic example of a disaster story, but taken to a scale never imagined by the filmmakers (of the time), and with a typical Nivennian attention to detail and scientific rigor. The book follows the standard structure of the disaster story; in act 1 we’re introduced to the (typically large) cast of characters, in their normal, pre-disaster lives. In act 2, the disaster happens, in excruciating detail, with much loss of life. The people to whom we’ve already been introduced are (mostly) spared. Act 3 concerns the method of survival of the characters. In typical disaster films, this just involves getting out or getting away from the site of the disaster; in Lucifer’s Hammer, this is a bit more involved, with the main characters rebuilding society, learning to live off the land without benefit of modern technology, fighting off bands of evil and/or deluded attackers, etc.

I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of Niven’s. I was actually fairly excited when I came across this book, as I thought I’d already read everything he’d written. It’s always nice to find one more book by one of your favorite authors.

I’m now reading The Science Fiction Film Reader, by Gregg Rickman. It’s pretty interesting.

I finished Mistress of Mistresses last night. It wasn’t very good, and it took me a long time to finish for that reason.

I don’t usually do this, but I’ve decided not to read the other 2 books in the series. I just don’t feel like slogging through 800 more pages of this crap:

‘O no nice excuses,’ she said. ‘I and Campaspe are not womankind. Truly, ’tis but at Her bidding we durst not disobey we thus have dallied with such as you, my lord.’

His mustachios stirred.

It’s like reading the script to “Lords & Ladies” from Max Payne.

Now I’m reading Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven. It’s a very nice change of pace.